How to Create a Basic Website With Adobe Dreamweaver
Adobe Dreamweaver is a great piece of software which demystifies the business of creating a web site. However, it is also packed with a whole host of features which can seem a little daunting when you first start using the program. This article aims to explain how create a basic web site, where to start and which tools to use.
It’s always a good idea to sketch out a plan of how the site will work and what kind of user experience it will offer. Dreamweaver will not give you any assistance at this stage, so just use pen and paper. Start by building a basic site, one that you know you can complete without getting bogged down in technologies that you do not understand.
Another step you should complete before you even go into Dreamweaver is to create a folder to hold all of the files which will comprise your site: the “local root folder”, as Dreamweaver calls it. Don’t put anything in this folder but the files relating to your site. Once you have completed your project, it will mirror the live version of your site.
It is also very important to create a folder within the local root to hold all your images. This will help prevent you ending up with missing images on your pages since, when we define the Dreamweaver site, we will designate this folder as the default images folder.
Now, finally, we launch Dreamweaver and create a new web site by choosing New Site from the Site menu. Click the Advanced tab (“Advanced” here simply means manual, so don’t be intimidated.) You will notice a series of categories on the left of the screen. Only the first two categories need to be completed: Local Info and Remote Info.
In the Local Info window, enter a name for you new site then specify the location of the local root folder and default images folder you created earlier. The easiest way of doing this is to click on the browse icons next to each of these two boxes (the yellow folder icons).
Next you need to click on the Remote Info category on the left of your screen. This is where you tell Dreamweaver how to connect to the server that contains your web pages. For a public website, choose FTP as the access method and ask your web hosting company for the other details required. For an intranet, choose Local/Network as the access method and navigate to the server and sub-directory containing your company intranet.
The next step is to create all of the pages in your website arranged in the appropriate sub-directories. Don’t put any content in the pages at this stage, just create and save each page into your local root folder. This is done, so that later, when you create links on any page, the page that you link to will already exist, so you can just point to it and automatically create the correct link.
Before you start work on the page content proper, you should consider creating one or more templates to achieve a consistent layout across all your pages. You create the basic design with all the elements that will repeat on every page (fixed regions) and then click in each area which needs to have unique content on each page and choose Insert – Template Objects – Editable Region. You can even have a hierarchy of master templates and sub templates.
Once you have your template(s) in place, you are ready to start putting the actual pages. Open each of the pages, apply the appropriate template then add your content. To test our page at any time, just press F12 on your keyboard.
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