I just watched your class on E-Commerce on Kelby Training.  It was an excellent class for someone like me, but  I am experiencing a little difficulty in adding the Google checkout to my site. I have no problems adding the code for the items, but that 2nd piece of code that you said to put at the bottom of every page is causing me problems. I am using iWeb and I am not quite sure where to insert that code, or if it is even possible.

Thank you in advance,

Joe 

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the kinds words about my training videos. I don’t know much about iweb specifically, but some web services — especially those that over simply web design and limit you to templates — make it difficult, or even impossible, to get to the right place in the code to use Google Checkout.

If that’s your situation, you may need to use PayPal instead. Unlike Google, which gives you a small piece of code for each button, and another small piece of code to put at the bottom of each page, when you use the shopping cart service from PayPal, you get all of that code in one big chunk. I still prefer the interface of Google Checkout, but in your case, PayPal may be your best (or only) choice.

I know many people prefer to learn with training videos, but I also have a written tutorial on how to use Google Checkout that may help you find the place you’re having trouble.

I hope that helps you find the right solution for your website and I wish you all the best with your online sales,

Janine
DigitalFamily.com

Here’s an example of what it looks like:
<img src=”photo.jpg” width=”250″ height=”360″ alt=”My Great Photo” title=”My Great Photo” />
Note that the code: alt=”My Great Photo” is alternative text, which is recommended because this text is used by screen readers for the blind that ‘read’ web pages to people.
Adding the code: title=”My Great Photo” is not redundant, but you don’t have to use the same text for both. The title text will appear when you roll a cursor of the image.

Hope that helps,
Janine

Sincerely,
Brian

Hi Brian,

Thanks for buying my video.

I’m afraid there is no ‘back door’ feature  in Dreamweaver to make it easy for other people to edit a site you create. There are two possible ways you could achieve this goal.

The simple solution is a program called Adobe Contribute, which is designed so that people who don’t know Dreamweaver can easily make simple updates to pages and images. If you have the Web Suite you should have received Contribute so you can see how it works. If not, you can download a trial version from the Adobe site.

The other solution is to a create dynamic site by using PHP or ColdFusion or ASP.NET or a similar technology and also create an admin section that someone can use to update the pages of the site through a browser.

Many blogging programs (such as WordPress or TypePad) as well as CMS programs (such as Joomla, Drupal, or Expression Engine) include admin tools in their systems. Creating a site like these yourself is complex, and you may want to consider using one of these programs instead.

I hope that helps and I wish you all the best with your Web site,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

I really appreciate your teaching skills in Total Training for Adobe Dreamweaver CS3. Thank you for helping people like me learn Web design!

I am designing a site for someone who wants to make frequent text updates on a page. How can I set them up to make the updates from within the Web site, similar to a blog (they don’t know Dreamweaver)?

Can you help me?

Thank you,
Rebekah

Hi Rebekah,

Thank you for your kind words about my video.

By using the most advanced features in Dreamweaver to create a dynamic site with PHP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, or a similar technology, you can create a Web interface so someone can update your site the way they’d update a blog. But I have to warn you, this is a complex way to create a Web site. Blogs make it seem easy, but the underlying technology that makes blogs work is quite complex to create.

An alternative exists, however, that may solve your problem with much less effort and still make things easy for your friend to update the text on the site: consider using Adobe Contribute. This program is much less expensive than Dreamweaver and designed to make it easy for anyone to “contribute” to a Web site created with Dreamweaver. You can learn more at www.adobe.com/products/contribute/.

I hope that helps and I wish you all the best,
Janine

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.

First of all – I don’t blame you if you delete this email and I never hear back but I just had to take a stab at it! I have benefited so much from your Dreamweaver 8 training so thanks again. I have upgraded to CS3 and it has gone well. I have created my website complete with template and style sheets. On my template I have one editable region with the properties defined in my style sheet. The challenge is this: in Contribute the align text options are grayed out for my editors and I am certain it’s because I have applied a style sheet but I can’t figure out a workaround. Can you point me in the right direction with this bit of info? If only to tell me it can work and keep looking, that would help at this point! I would even promise to buy your new book or CS3 training!

Thanks in advance for anything!

Thomas
Christ Memorial Church and Schools

Hi Thomas,

I never delete emails like yours, but it does sometimes take me a few days to get around to answering them… I’m not an expert on these details of Contribute (although you’ve made me curious enough I may go test it out myself). I suspect you may have a problem because the styles are controlled by the style sheet, which is attached to the template and not available for edit from Contribute… Maybe that will help you find the problem and if you do find an answer, I’d love to know about it.

I wish you all the best with your Web site,
Janine

Thanks Janine!

I did find it and it was DEEP in my style sheet. I had created an editable region and associated a style sheet, but the problem was located in the body section of my template and it was in that style sheet that I defined the attributes of the text. Your advice kept me digging deeper! Thanks a million and I have added your tutorials to my fav’s.

You are terrific!

Thomas

Still want more? Visit the Dreamweaver Help Center at www.DigitalFamily.com/dreamweaver to find Dreamweaver tips, tricks, and tutorials.