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Dreamweaver MX: what you see is what you get
It is often said that internet is a universe and the websites are millions of its beautiful stars. This galaxy of websites provide us wealth of information in different forms, such as databases, forums, emails, interactive movie files, etc. Internet is not just a source of information and entertainment but over the years, it has also emerged as an essential part of commerce.
Today, myriads of business activities are taking place all over the world via internet. This has thrust need for more and more websites to be developed for ecommerce to blossom. Site owners want their website be loaded with the most interactive features to market their products and image in the best possible way.
To give a very professional look, webmasters and site developers are always in lookout for new tools and technology to meet clients’ requirement with maximum results in minimal time. One such tool that helps developers’ achieve desired results is Macromedia’s Dreamweaver MX.
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX is a new addition in the series of web designing software. This new version has several new features to facilitate the work of the web developers. Dreamweaver has been long renowned for its easy to use services for web developers.
Easy start
HTML language is a corner stone of website development. So anyone who wishes to create web pages need to understand and practice this language of tags along with designing bit. To make life easier for any novice developers, DWMX program comes packed with a feature called WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), to develop whole website without wasting time in learning long list of HTML tags and without getting into nitty-gritty of designing.
Advance workspace layout
DWMX has an improved work space layout as compared to DW4 version. A workspace is the area on your screen which appears as soon as you open the program file of DWMX. Tool bar, menu bar, panels and other utilities, necessary to create a web site; can be obtained from the workspace area.
In DWMX there are two types of workspace layouts:
All-in-one layout: This is an especial feature of DWMX, in which all documents and panels are put together so that a web developer can view and select the desired option without any trouble.
Floating layout: In version 4.0 every document and panel has its own window. If you think version 4 workspace easy then you can choose this layout from the choice given to you by DWMX.
Systematic panel group
An organized panel group is given at the right side of the screen. Each panel is subdivided into different categories to represent specific function. For example, when program file is opened on the screen five panels are observed. Such as;
Design panel: This panel consists of three categories as shown in the figure. HTML style also provide with an opportunity to create different pattern of the web page.
Creating Stylish pages
In DWMX cascading style sheet panel is much more improved and possesses some new characters. There are two main categories of CSS panel.
1. Apply CSS: You can apply CSS to any tag or element of the HTML. If you like to create new CSS for the web document then do as fallows:
• Right click the +button which is located on the bottom right side of the cascading style sheet style panel or right click No CSS style .
• Select “new CSS” style.
• A dialog box will appear on the screen.
• In the name option box select a name for the CSS style sheet.
• A dialog box is now come into view.
• Save as type style sheet file [*CSS].
• Another dialog box now asks you to define style for the web page.
• Fill in the boxes and click on apply.
Edit CSS: This feature helps you to make any change to the current style sheet. You can also attach external cascading style sheet, remove the style sheet by click on the buttons situated on the bottom right side of the panel.
Code panel: Click on the code panel opens three categories.
Tag inspector: This category is for editing tags and attributes. Suppose there is a table in the site window, now you click on the tag on the tag inspector, a list of all available attributes for this tag will appear in the tag inspector’s property sheet. Any attribute can be edited from here.
Snippets: This category makes it easy to store contents and links for quick usage. It is useful to add HTML and JavaScript codes in the page.
Reference: This tab is a complete description of web designing languages including HTML, JavaScript, JSP and ASP, etc. The complete information about every tag is available from here.
Files panel: A list of complete description of the work is given on the file panel. This function helps you to keep the complete record of all files (text, images, CSS, etc). If you need to make any change you can select files from the File panel.
Answer panel: This panel helps to get online resources from the Macromedia site. Panels can be updated by visiting web sites.
Predefined page layout
After selecting the working area and panels it is time to select the format or layout of your future web site. To give your web site a professional look DWMX is provided with a “new document dialog box”. This box is for the creation of a single document as well as for the template formation. There are two categories in this box, General and template. There are a number of predefined document layouts available in documents category for example.
If you select page design then the right column will give you all available design. You can choose any design for your document (image-slide show, commerce: shopping cart, etc) and the last column provides the preview of that document.
Visual designing
DWMX is popular for its visual designing. Insert menu situates above the site window. A number of objects are there. There are icons of Tables, image, frame, Link which can be selected and inserted in the web document.
• DWMX has a well formed table object with many options for example when you select table icon a list of available codes appears on the bar below the insert bar.
• Rows can be added and removed.
• Background colors and images can be added to tables.
• Width and length of tables can be changed into pixels and percent.
• Cut, copy and paste options can be employed to each cell as well as to whole table.
• Cell can be split into rows and column. For this purpose a dialog box ask you to weather split cell into rows or column?
• Data can be import from the external file to insert in a table. Suppose you have made a simple data using MS Excel. First save this file in .txt format. Now open file option and click on import. Choose tabular data. A dialog box will appear on the screen. In Data file box write the destination of the data file. Click OK if you want no other change in the format of the table.
Design options
Three designing modes are there to serve you better. These are:
1. Show Design view
2. Show codes and design view
3. Show code view.
Click on first option lets you insert objects from insert icon. While second option will split the window into code and design view. The third option will show only code window. The codes in DWMX are well designed. And well formatted.
You can add JavaScript to the code window by click on behaviors option on the right side of the screen. Select +button and choose call Java Script.
Advanced templates
DWMX is marked with an additional quality of a clear and well defined template appearance. You can use asset panel to work with template-based web documents.
Click on the template icon on insert menu and selection can be made from:
• make template icon to create new template,
• Make nested template so that the design of one template is controlled by the base template.
Rapid development
Using DWMX now you can easily work with database application with the help of application panels.You can also take advantage of latest cold fusion tags and attributes because
DWMX support the use of Cold Fusion. This can be done by using Binding panel. The binding panel provided with all Cold Fusion variables such as Local variable, server variables, CGI variables and cookie variable.
DWMX has full support for ASP.Net web pages. By creating database connection in DWMX you can create database with ASP.NET. DWMX support the use of Data Grid and Data List features of ASP.Net.
DWMX also support the addition of PHP web pages to give your web site a professional look.
The writer
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