Please offer your recommendations for creating dynamic websites for those of us without ColdFusion. I have CS3 Master Suite.

Thanks for a terrific job on the Dreamweaver DVDs.

Tom

Hi Tom,

I completely understand if you don’t want to use ColdFusion. PHP and ASP.NET are more popular options, but many people teach the advanced features in Dreamweaver using ColdFusion because the way Dreamweaver works with these technologies is similar.

That said, these days my best recommendation is that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to create a dynamic Web site. A few years ago, the best option was still to build your own site in Dreamweaver; now I generally just use Dreamweaver to customize and build templates for sites and use programs such as WordPress or Joomla to develop them.

Although WordPress was created as a blog program, it’s increasingly used as a content management system to create complex Web sites. Joomla is more complex to start with, and more complex to use, but also a popular choice. Both are open source, so they’re free.

I hope that helps you find the best solution for your site.

Janine

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

How can I block the copy/paste option when I create a Web page so that nobody can copy pictures from my Web page when it is on the Internet? And is there a possibility to do the same thing to the source code?

If it’s too much theory, than please give me a hint or a link where I can find the specific info.

Thank you again for your time, and have a nice day.

Hi,

I’m afraid there is no way to completely protect your text and images when you put them on a Web site.

One way that some people try to limit the downloading of images is to create their sites in Flash, which does prevent viewers from simply clicking and downloading an image or copying and pasting text, but even then, someone can easily take a screen capture of the page and still get the image in 72 dpi and it’s easy to retype text. One other option is to publish your text and images in PDF format, but that has the same limitations as Flash.

Most people decide it’s worth the risk, in part because even though others can download your images, if you’ve optimized them for the Web at 72 dpi resolution, they are such low quality that there is not a lot someone can do with them.

I hope that helps you decide.

Best regards,
Janine

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

I wonder if you could help me with the following: I’m new to building Web sites (I started 3 days ago!) and the problem I have is small but annoying. When defining rules for links, I am able to change the “hover” color, but not the link color. When previewed in IExplorer, the link color insists on being purple, when I’ve defined it as blue. Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?

Hope to hear from you.
Regards,
Justin

Hi, Justin,

I’m guessing you’re seeing the visited link color in IE because you’ve already “visited” those links.

There are four links color settings and you need to change all four. And keep in mind that you can use the same color for both active and visited links if you don’t want the color to appear to change after someone has visited the page.

Best regards,
Janine

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

For the past 45 days I have been trying to figure out how I turned off my Alternate text on my images. The browsers no longer show the text when the image is moused over. I know when this happened but can’t find the fix.

What I did is decided to use an image placeholder on a page. After I inserted this placeholder, the Alt text now only shows when the site is loading on the browser. I need this text to show when a visitor is viewing the site and moves their mouse over the images.

I am sorry to trouble you with this but I am desperate to get this problem fixed. Thank you in advance for any assistance you may give me,

Donna

Hi Donna,

I think your problem is the browser you are using. When you view your site in Internet Explorer and roll your cursor over the image on the front page, the Alt text appears just fine. In Firefox, you don’t see it, but that’s because the browser works differently, not because of your code.

You can use JavaScript to create a little pop-up message with the text so that it would appear in more browsers (unless of course the visitors have pop-ups turned off). You can find the pop-up message feature in the Behaviors panel in Dreamweaver (choose Window > Behaviors to open it, click to select the image, then click the + sign in the Behaviors window and choose Popup Message. Whatever you type into the dialog will appear when someone rolls a cursor over the image in any browser that supports JavaScript.

Hope that helps you solve your problem. I didn’t look at your code, but I like your site and what you’re doing for the arts center.

All my best,
Janine

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

I have been a graphics designer for the past 15 years or more (I quit counting), and I have never had the desire to do Web design or learn HTML until recently. The handwriting is on the wall and I want to put up my portfolio on the Web, etc. (for many reasons).

Getting to the point, I had talked with a friend who is very experienced in Web design and writing code. He knows what he is talking about and doesn’t make claims without explaining his reasoning. Recently, I contacted him to see if he would advise me about my site. I want to design my own site. My reason is, I don’t want a client of mine to ask me “who did your site” and my reply would be “he did” or “someone else.” I know NOTHING about HTML other than I get a knot in my stomach every time I think I need to learn it.

Here is the concern I have, and I’m not sure I believe him and this is why I am asking you. This person — I’ll call him an “HTML Purist” — said that Dreamweaver and all the Web site builder programs (he listed several but lumped them all into the same category) all BLOAT THE CODE. They work fine until something doesn’t work correctly, and then you are forced to re-do, or find the corrupted piece of code, fix it, etc. He said I was better off learning HTML because it would be easier compared to Dreamweaver. I don’t see it this way. If this were true, why would Dreamweaver be such great software to use? I don’t understand what he meant by saying “bloat the code.” He also said that these types of programs do not put in Meta tags and keywords in your pages as well as pure HTML code so the search engines have an easier time finding your site. He claims he has a way of building Web sites that search engines will find and list you on the first 10 finds most of the time. As I said before, I am a newbie about this and would love to hear some advice by an expert. I plan on wanting some Flash, cascading style sheets, possibly even some video, ALL that can be accomplished through DW.

I can learn software, and I suspect that clients will want me to build sites for them as well. I have turned down multiple requests over the years to my clients. I would like to be able to maintain any Web sites I build for my clients. My only concern is if something didn’t work correctly, I would be in an awkward position if I couldn’t provide the service of maintaining their sites.

I was going to post something like this on a forum, but I’m afraid all I would get in response is “what seems to be the problem.” I don’t know enough about it to even ask an intelligent question.

Please advise, and thanks for your honesty and time.

Ben

Hi Ben,

I understand your question well and have spoken with many graphics designers over the years who did not want to learn Web design, as well as to many ‘geeks’ who insisted that you have to learn HTML and be a purist to create a good Web site.

Here are a few thoughts to help you find the best path. First, I disagree with your friend about Dreamweaver. Because I am an instructor of the program, I’m sure you’re not surprised — but I’ll explain why.

Typing HTML is a tedious chore and one prone to typos and other errors that can ruin a good Web design. Dreamweaver is a carefully created program that is far better than most people at creating good code. And, on the rare occasion when I do need to fix something in the code, it is relatively easy to view the code in Dreamweaver (and even write code in Dreamweaver if you prefer to do it that way). Even then, you only have to learn a few things to create great pages in Dreamweaver, and as I explain in my videos, you can add Meta data and Alt text behind images and other things that are likely to help your search engine ranking. Dreamweaver is the best-selling program for Web design today for good reason. Your friend may prefer learning all those tedious tags and writing the code himself, but you are sure to be happier with Dreamweaver, which is not unlike InDesign in that it is a layout tool designed to help designers.

That said, there are many limitations in Web design that stem, not from the program you use, but from the fact that Web browsers do not always display Web pages the same way and there are many restrictions on how you can create a design that will look good on small and large monitors and all of the other variations on the Web. These things are likely to frustrate you, no matter how you create your pages, but rest assured, there are ways around some of the limitations and the power of the Web makes it all worthwhile.

You may be rolling your eyes at this point and still wishing you never had to learn HTML or anything like that, so here’s one last thing I will share with you. Although you can learn in my videos how to create a basic Web site, one that would surely serve you well for a portfolio of your work, to create sites for clients you’ll have to learn far more than HTML these days. The best Web sites today are created by a team of people, usually made up of a designer, an HTML/CSS coder, and then a hard core programmer who can write PHP or ASP.NET or some other advanced programming for database-driven dynamic sites.

If you’re a good designer, learning all that will not only be frustrating, it’s probably not worth your time, because again, the best sites are built by a team of people. Often the designer creates the look and feel of a site in Photoshop and then passes those designs on to the HTML person and/or programmer to develop the site. As a result, many graphics designers are now creating great Web page designs without having to learn all of the technical stuff.

So, my best advice today is that you learn the basics, including how to create at least a simple site in Dreamweaver so that you understand what is possible on the Web and where the limitations are. Then partner with an experienced Web programmer and work as a team — you create the design, they create the Web site from that design. It’s a common model and increasingly important because few people have the aptitude, or interest, in becoming both a great graphics designer and a programmer.

I hope that helps you find the best solution for your own site and for your clients.

All my 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 would like to say that your books Dreamweaver CS3 For Dummies and Web Sites For Dummies are excellent and have provided me with very useful information.

I am new at using Dreamweaver CS3 and on my first time creating a Web site. I’m attempting to build a Web site for my church and have some initial design questions. I’m using the fixed two-column/header/footer predesigned sample in DW and my question is how do you adjust the height of the banner area? I’m finding that the space is too small and most Web sites seem to have a larger space.

What height do you recommend and how do I adjust the predesigned sample to accomplish this?

I’m doing this task on a volunteer basis and would like to get the Web site up and running soon. I’ve followed your planning instructions and I’m ready to go.

Thank you so much,
Margie

Hi Margie,

Thanks for the note. This tutorial on my site should walk you through the process of customizing many aspects of a CSS layout: http://digitalfamily.com/dreamweaver/css-tutorials/editing-CSS-layouts.html

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

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

I purchased DW CS4 For Dummies and don’t see that on your Web site for getting a password. Is it available?

Best regards,
Michael

Hi Michael,

Some of my videos and books, such as Web Sites DIY For Dummies, come with templates and other files for use with the lessons in the book and require passwords to get to special related content.

Dreamweaver For Dummies is more of a reference guide and doesn’t require the kind of supportive material I keep in the Reader’s Corner, but you will find many more tutorials and other resources available for free on my site at www.Digitalfamily.com/dreamweaver and in my Dreamweaver FAQ.

Thanks,
Janine

I have another question for you.

In the process of creating our Web site, I created a number of layout designs as I created my own templates. As a result, I went through many iterations of pages, those that ‘worked’ for me, and ‘others,’ which did not. As time went by I placed these roughs in folders labeled ‘iterations,’ occasionally using them for reference purposes. My question for you is this: Can I now remove or delete these folders, which include active links, without either damaging or causing a load more work to correct? Yikes! What have I done, shot myself in the foot or what?

Thank you so much for your precious time, I hope to hear from you soon.

Jamie

Hi, Jamie,

You just need to make sure that none of the pages in the site that you want to publish link to pages in the iterations folder. If there are links from the iterations pages back, that’s no problem.

Here’s a quick way to test. Open the folder on your hard drive (not in Dreamweaver) and move that iterations folder onto your desktop or something. Then go test your site. If all the links work, you’re fine, if you find broken links, you know you need to fix them before you publish the site. Ultimately, you don’t want any of those iterations pages on your site at all, so you’re best removing them anyway.

You can do a quick test of all your links by choosing Site >> Check Links Sitewide. If you find several pages link to the same page that has been changed, you can fix them all at once this way.

Hope that helps,
Janine

Janine, you are so fine! Thank you so much, and then some!  Jamie

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

We have successfully completed your online training with Total Training for web design using Dreamweaver which was GREAT! and we are now utilizing the training effectively in designing sites for our clients.

My colleague e-mailed you about a year ago regarding ecommerce and you recommended Zen Cart as a graphic designer’s choice for taking a base template that would be of sufficient adaptability to satisfy a designer’s need to have total design freedom but with all the background functionality in place. This has been a fantastic recommendation and we have been using it very successfully. THANK YOU!

We now have clients requesting Web sites that are mainly informational that, after handover, they would like to manage with a CMS. Do you have a similar recommendation like Zen Cart that we could utilize using Dreamweaver?

With kind regards
John

Hi John,

Delighted to know my training and recommendations have been so helpful. I’ve been pleased with the CMS features in WordPress (yes, it’s far more than just a blog program). For a more sophisticated CMS, consider Joomla, which I believe is already integrated with Zen Cart.

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.

My links now seem to have a broken-lined rectangular box around them when you select a link. The line is the same colour as the link itself, but this was not there yesterday. Do you think I have a fault with the Dreamweaver application or is there another explanation?

Regards
John

PS It takes a bit of time to get your head around Dreamweaver CS3 Advanced but Janine is getting me there!!!

Hi John,

If the links are actually broken, you need to reset them in Dreamweaver to fix them and should check to make sure you’ve completed the Site Set Up process first.

If it’s just that they look different, you probably have a style for the ‘visited link’ that is different from the main link style. In HTML you can have up to four different styles for the four different states of links. The visited link style appears after you’ve clicked on a link, so your links will look one way the first time you view a page in a web browser, and then they will change to the visited-link style after you’ve clicked on them. That would explain why they look different today than yesterday.

To fix this, look for a style in the CSS Styles panel with the name a:visited. You can also choose Modify Page Properties and then click on the Links category to change the style. You can use the same color for all four settings or a different color for each, depending on whether or not you want your links to look different once a visitor has clicked on them.

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.