1. Dreamweaver Basics
1.1 Set up a web site
In this section we will learn how to create a web site using the website creation wizard. Double-click the Dreamweaver icon on your desktop to open the program. After
Dreamweaver has finished loading, the start page will appear. The start page is a quick launch tool that gives you the possibility to open recent items, create new web pages
and web sites or create them using Dreamweaver's gallery of templates.
To set up a new web site, press on the Dreamweaver Site… link from the Create New section of the start page. Another way to set up your web site is to go to Site >
Manage Sites…, press New… and choose Site from the dropdown menu. A new window will open, which allows you to configure the new site, following several steps:
Editing Files, Testing Files, Sharing Files.
The first step is to select a name for your site. This is the name that you will later use to identify this project, when you will have more web sites created. Let's say we want
to name this one “Company Web Site”. Type “Company Web Site” in the edit box and press Next >.
The next step is to choose whether to use a server technology. Using a server technology (like PHP, JSP or ColdFusion) is very useful when you are developing dynamic
pages. For example, let's you have a products page, that contains hundreds of products, and you can see the details for each product, by clicking on it. It is obvious that
you can't create a hundred HTML pages, one for each product.
What you need to do is use a database to store all your product information (specification, pictures) and use only one dynamic page to show the details. Clicking on one of
the products in the products page should redirect you to the details page and also transmit to this page what is the selected product.
This requires at least some basic knowledge of one of the mentioned server side technologies, so for now, just press Next >.
The next step is to choose whether to edit your files locally or directly on the server. The recommended option is Edit local copies on my machine, then upload to server
when ready, so choose this one. Now press the folder icon next to the edit box to choose the folder where all your files related to this project will be stored. Browse through
your hard drive, select a folder (or create a new one) and press Next >.
The next step is to select the way you connect to your remote server. Since you have chosen to edit your files locally, select None from the combo box, then press Next >
to go to the next step.
The last step is to view a summary of your settings. Press < Back to go through the previous pages, if you feel the need to make any last changes. Otherwise, press Done
to finish setting up your new web site.
As you can see, your site has been created and added to the Files panel. You can now add your first file to the site. Press File and choose New from the menu.
We want to insert a simple HTML file, so choose HTML from the Basic Page section then press Create.
You must now save the file in order to add it to the site. Press File and choose Save from the menu.
One important thing you should know about web sites is that one of your HTML files must be named “index.htm” or “index.html”. This file is the one that the browser will first
load when people will access your web site, so it is practically your home page. Insert “index.htm” into the edit box and press Save.
You can see that the file has been added to your web site folder. This concludes the "Set up a Web Site" section of the tutorial.
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