Dreamweaver CS5: The Missing Manual

What Dreamweaver Is All About

Dreamweaver is a complete website development and management program. It works with web technologies like HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP.

Dreamweaver’s Cascading Style Sheet support lets you create fast-loading, easily modified page designs, while its unique “Spry” technology provides one-click access to complex, interactive layout options like drop-down menus.

Dreamweaver also includes plenty of tools for managing websites once you build them. You can check for broken links, use templates to streamline site-wide page changes, and reorganize your site in a flash with the program’s site management tools.

Note

Get used to the acronym CSS, which you’ll encounter frequently in this book. It stands for Cascading Style Sheets, a set of rules you develop to dictate the look of your pages. Dreamweaver CS5 includes advanced CSS creation, testing, and editing.

It’s also a serious tool for creating dynamic (database-driven) websites. You can now turn your company’s database of products into an easily updated online catalog—or turn that cherished recipe collection into an online culinary resource for an adoring public. You can even create web pages that let you update and delete database records, while keeping designated areas of your site secure from unauthorized visitors. Best of all, Dreamweaver CS5 does the programming for you.

But if you like to program PHP yourself, Dreamweaver CS5 adds new tools aimed at coders, including code hints to help you quickly add PHP functions to a page, and Live View so you can preview the results of dynamic pages right within Dreamweaver’s document window.

If you’ve never used Dreamweaver but have already built one or more sites, you won’t have to start over again to use Dreamweaver. It happily opens web pages and websites that were created in other programs without destroying any of your carefully handcrafted code.