Learn How to Use Dreamweaver MX 2004

[Cyrus]

Hello,

I am trying to learn how to use Dreamweaver MX. I have a table on my homepage, and its subdivided into three columns by 1 row. This was the only way I could get the center column to align with the center of the work area. Then I pasted in a pic for the background. And I want a list of names, however, it makes the table too long, and the background picture starts repeating. I want to avoid this by using a scroll bar, so the area remains the size of the background picture. AND I want the background picture stationary as you scroll down. I.E, I want the text to scoll only, not the background picture as well. I tried to search online and found stuff about css? I don't even know what css is. I tried to open a css page, but it was just coding, no deisgn area, so I stuck with HTML. The stuff I found said to do <div "overload:scroll" > or something along those lines, but when I tried it, no work! GRRRRRRR, can anyone help me PLEEEAAASE?

 

[ComputerGeek]

You should learn CSS. it takes a lot of those issues away and makes it super easy to get the exact look you want.

 

[Cyrus]

what exactly is Css, what does it stand for? Lol I am an idiot. I tried to make a css page, but it was all scripting, no design interface! UGH! Do you link css to an html or something?

 

[JamesU]

CSS stands for cascadisng style sheets. It *basically* helps design your website. to learn it, go here...

http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

that should explain all your questions^

 

[Cyrus]

HAHHHHHHHHHH! I was on that site for learning flash, but could not find dreamweaver, now I am really an idiot! really like his video tutorials, "hi this is craig from learn flash.com!"

 

[ComputerGeek]

HAHHHHHHHHHH! I was on that site for learning flash, but could not find dreamweaver, now I am really an idiot! really like his video tutorials, "hi this is craig from learn flash.com!"

Dreamweaver is a tool that you use to write html and css and php and asp and a number of other web development languages.

You need to learn those languages, at least XHTML and CSS, to use dreamweaver productivly

 

[Cyrus]

I see. Drats, I hate coding. Hopefully it won't be so bad though. I can't imagine it being that bad. Hopefully I can cut and paste code of what I need to do off of websites. Are there things like for loops, or are they not necessary. It sounds like I should learn CSS first. What is xhtml, how is it different from html? I don't even know what html is REALLY lol. I just know its for making basic websites. Is making things in flash involve coding like css? From what I have seen it looks more graphical.

 

[TenaliRaman]

XHTML, HTML, etc. all belong to a family of markup languages intertwined in different ways.
Read these stuffs up to get an idea of what html/xhtml is,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML

Let me give a naive idea of what HTML is.
Let us say that you are the Class Representative in your school and you are asked to put some nice posters on the notice board. Now you cannot just simply hang them up on the notice board just like that. It should be arranged in a neat way so as to make the notice board look attractive and the message is also carried forward. Let's say you have bunch of sub-ordinates whom you can command and ask them to place posters where you want them to be.

Now as an analogy,
a web designer == class representative
a web page == notice board
web content == posters
browser == sub-ordinate
html == commands to subordinates

So in short, html is a language through which you tell the browser which content to put where.

The concept of CSS and XML takes the idea a lot further separating the issue of content from design. Let me detail this idea a bit. In html, you describe the content and also the position as to where it must go. With the concept of CSS (or XML/XSL), you can think of separating your current html into two files. One files holds all the content that you want to put up but has no information as to where it must be placed on the webpage. Another file holds all information as to which content should appear where and also defines its appearances. What is the use of having such two files? The idea is, you can change content without disturbing the appearance and you can change the appearance without disturbing the content. This is highly useful when you are working with huge sites.

I won't delve into details any further, you can read them up at,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML

-- AI

 

[-Job-]

Flash objects are, in their own right, small programs which you place on a webpage. They don't use CSS. A flash application is coded using ActionScript.