Negrino T. - Dreamweaver CS6 - Visual QuickStart Guide

Dreamweaver CS6

Tom Negrino Dori Smith

Visual QuickStart Guide
Dreamweaver CS6
Tom Negrino and Dori Smith

Peachpit Press
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Berkeley, CA 94710
510/524-2178
510/524-2221 (fax)

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Peachpit Press is a division of Pearson Education

Copyright 2012 by Tom Negrino and Dori Smith

Editor: Nancy Peterson
Production Editor: Katerina Malone
Copyeditor: Scout Festa
Compositor: Danielle Foster
Indexer: Emily Glossbrenner
Cover Design: RHDG / Riezebos Holzbaur Design Group, Peachpit Press
Interior Design: Peachpit Press
Logo Design: MINE www.minesf.com

Notice of Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact .

Photograph of authors courtesy Morgen Benoit Photography (www.photobenoit.com).

Notice of Liability
The information in this book is distributed on an As Is basis without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the authors nor Peachpit Press shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.

Trademarks
Visual QuickStart Guide is a registered trademark of Peachpit Press, a division of Pearson Education.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit Press was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book.

ISBN 13: 978-0-321-82252-9
ISBN 10: 0-321-82252-8

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed and bound in the United States of America

To our son, Sean Smith, with love from Mom and Dad

Our patient and cheerful editor, Nancy Peterson, who made this book better, and encouraged us when we were weary. Thanks for pushing us over the finish line.

Virginia DeBolt, who contributed several chapters to previous editions, which we have built upon in this revision. Her work was terrific, and we are grateful for her help.

Katerina Malone, for her excellent production work.

The books compositor, Danielle Foster, and to Emily Glossbrenner for the index.

Peachpits Nancy Ruenzel and Nancy Davis, for their many years of friendship and support.

Of course, our gratitude to the members of the Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 team for creating a terrific product.

In Toms office, the soundtrack for this book included music from my Pandora and Rhapsody subscriptions, and lots of embarrassingly bouncy pop music that shall go unnamed.

Bonus chapters mentioned in this eBook are available after the index

Welcome to Dreamweaver CS6: Visual QuickStart Guide! Adobe Dreamweaver has long (initially under its previous name, Macromedia Dreamweaver) been the premier visual tool for Web site developers, allowing you to build great-looking Web pages and smoothly running Web sites. Dreamweavers ease-of-use takes much of the pain out of creating Web sites, without sacrificing flexibility. Its possible to use Dreamweaver to create terrific Web sites without knowing much about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Dreamweaver is a rich, powerful, and deep program, and at first glance, it can be a bit intimidating. Weve written this book as a painless introduction to Dreamweaver and its features, and with our help, you will use Dreamweaver to build an excellent Web site.

Weve organized the different elements of building Web sites with Dreamweaver CS6 into chapters, and within each chapter are numbered, step-by-step directions that tell you exactly how to accomplish various tasks. You dont have to work through the entire book in order, but it is structured so the more complex material builds on the earlier tasks.

We start with an overview of Dreamweaver, move on to setting up your Web site and creating your first Web page, then discuss how to add content, structure, and interactivity to your pages. Finally, we show you how to work with HTML code and manage your Web site.

When we first decided to write this book, we wanted to take a fresh look at Dreamweaverat how people use it, and how people should use it. Throughout the book, weve tried to show you how to use Dreamweaver using its most modern features, rather than using some of the features that .

For keyboard commands, weve included Mac keyboard shortcuts in parentheses immediately after the Windows shortcut, like this:

To open the Find & Replace dialog, press Ctrl-F (Cmd-F).

While writing this book, weve made the assumption that youre familiar with the basics of using Windows or OS X. You dont need to be a computer expert by any means, but you shouldnt be stumped by concepts like selecting text, using menus, clicking and dragging, and using files and folders. Naturally, you should be familiar with Web surfing and how to use a Web browser to view a Web site.

Dreamweaver is a professional-class tool, and it provides professional results. Dreamweaver allows you to build Web sites visually, without needing to know the details of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. But to best use Dreamweaver, you will still need some fundamental knowledge of what these languages are, and how they work together to make up a Web site. Similarly, you will find it helpful to know basic things such as what a Web page is and what a Web server does.

Where necessary, throughout this book we explain what youll need to know about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to work with Dreamweaver. But there is much more to say about these subjects, and there are thousands of books devoted to that job. In fact, we wrote one of the most popular books on JavaScript. Youll find information about that book, as well as some of our favorite Web design and development books written by other authors, in .

If youve flipped through this book already, you probably noticed that the vast majority of the screenshots were taken on machines running Windows. That doesnt mean that the book (or its authors) doesnt welcome Dreamweaver users on the Mac. Far from it; in fact, both of us are primarily Mac users, and we are frequent contributors to