Dreamweaver Resources

Macromedia Dreamweaver is a web editing program that is more powerful than Nvu. It is also a little more difficult to learn. If you feel limited by what you can do with Nvu, try Dreamweaver. It is installed in the IRCs. Use this page and the Help Desk to get started. The Dreamweaver help file is also, of course, helpful.

NOTE: These steps are just enough to get you started. I'm not going to try to make an exhaustive help file here. There are lots of resources on the web - just Google "Using Dreamweaver." CUS also has a pretty good (though a little old) help page for Dreamweaver here. And I'll reiterate, the Dreamweaver Help file is quite helpful.

STEP 1 – Select a Site Template

Go to the templates page to download one of the two sample website designs. Unzip the file by double-clicking on it. That will place a folder on your desktop. All the images and pages of your site will go in this folder.

STEP 2 - Point Dreamweaver to Your Site Folder

  1. Open Dreamweaver and go to the Site menu at the top. Click on New Site...
  2. The New Site box pops up. Make sure you are in Advanced mode. Input the following:
    1. Site Name: Use any name you want for the site. Dreamweaver uses this name only for its own purposes - the name will not show up anywhere on your site.
    2. Local Root Folder: Click the folder icon to browse to the folder from STEP 1. Click on it and push the Choose button. You are telling Dreamweaver where you will be keeping all your files for this web site.
    3. Default Images Folder: Click the folder icon to browse to the Images folder inside of the folder from STEP 1. Click on it and push the Choose button.
  3. You are done setting up. Click OK.

STEP 3 - What Am I Looking At?

First, make sure the Properties and Files windows are open by clicking on Window>Properties and Window>Files.


The Properties window is your toolbox. It allows you to format text and table and add hyperlinks. More formating options are available from the Insert, Modify, and Text menus at the top of the screen.


The Files menu shows you all the files in the site folder you defined in STEP 2. Note, this is the same as looking at the folder contents in a Finder window - just with the convenience of seeing in from within Dreamweaver. You can open files by double-clicking them in this window.

STEP 4 - The Template

In your site folder, you'll filnd a folder called Templates, which contains one file: bio342templateA(or B).dwt. If you want to change the navigation links or the header for all the pages in your site, change them in this file. When you save it, Dreameaver will ask if you want to update all files in your site that use this template. Say yes.

You will notice that Dreamweaver will not allow to change the navigation or header in any files besides the template. This is to assure that all files using this template always look the same. If you ever want to liberate a file from its template, click on Modify>Templates>Detach from Template. That file will now be on its own, and not updated when you update the template.

STEP 5 - Creating New Pages

You want to create a new page based on the template. Click File>New and select the Templates tab. Click on the name of your site, then click the name of the template: bio342templateA(or B). Click Create. You will now have a new page based on the template file. Add your content to the page and save the file to you site folder.