The eLearning Center for Gatlin Education Services

Dreamweaver II
Take your Websites to the next level with Dreamweaver.

If you love the ease and flexibility of designing sites with Dreamweaver and are ready to tackle more sophisticated projects, Dreamweaver II is your ideal next step. Some powerful features lie just below the surface in Dreamweaver, including precision layouts through Cascading Style Sheets, templates and asset management, and even the ability to create high-end interactive features without wading through reams of code. Each hands-on lesson and exercise combines upper-level Dreamweaver technology with visual Web design know-how. In this rigorous 6-lesson course, you'll take your existing knowledge of Dreamweaver to the next level, putting your skills a cut above the rest. Roll up your sleeves and get ready for an intensive and fun study of Dreamweaver!

Objectives:

Students can expect to learn how to:

  · Develop and submit for feedback six multi-page Web sites demonstrating specific Dreamweaver technologies.
  · Use Dreamweaver and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to present creative and effective type formatting.
  · Employ CSS to present creative and effective formatting of layout tables, data tables, lists, and other content areas.
  · Use layers and global CSS positioning to develop tableless Web layouts.
  · Develop interactive image features, pop-up windows/alerts, and browser/plug-in detectors using Dreamweaver Behaviors.
  · Design consistent, large-scale Web sites using template files, editable template regions, and library items.
  · Use form field inputs and visual design guidelines to create the front-end of interactive forms.
  · Search for and apply back-end scripting to process interactive forms.
  · Employ preferences, collaborative technologies, and project reports to aid workflow and accuracy of development.
  · Combine Dreamweaver technology, site planning techniques, and visual design rules to develop attractive, creative, and effective Web sites.

LESSON 1 Advanced CSS Formatting
Thought you knew CSS? In Lesson One, you'll refresh your memory on the basics of CSS text formatting, then take these skills a big step further into advanced CSS presentation and workflow applications. Designer typography tips are explored, and you'll use CSS to make tables, data, and other content look great. You'll test out what you've learned in the exercise where you'll design a complete travel Web site with only CSS formatting.

LESSON 2 Tableless Layouts
Tables have always been an essential part of Web design, but they're oh-so-rigid. Lesson Two shows you how (and when) to ditch tables and go for total CSS-based layouts. You'll start with a refresher on Dreamweaver layers, then move on to a more flexible and effective method of tableless positioning with external style sheets. Workflow, compatibility, and lots of design techniques are covered, which you'll try out by creating a video gamers' Web site in the exercise.

LESSON 3 Behaviors and DHTML
JavaScript can be messy to code by hand but it adds so much functionality to a Web page. In Lesson Three you'll learn to create many JavaScript features without touching a stitch of code using Dreamweaver's Behaviors panel. This lesson will have you creating complex image swaps, pop-up windows, browser detectors, and even pop-up navigational menus in no time. You'll also learn to create animations using DHTML and layers, and explore the Macromedia Exchange to find additional behaviors and code written by other developers. In the exercise for this lesson, you'll add lots of interactivity to a Web site using several key JavaScript behaviors.

LESSON 4 Templates and Libraries
As you build your Dreamweaver skills, you'll take on bigger and bigger client projects. With Dreamweaver templates, large projects will go lots faster, enabling you to save and reuse content for a consistent and easy-to-build design. You'll learn how to create .dwt template files with editable regions, how to link child files to a parent template, and how to plan template-based sites. Libraries will also be covered, which allow you to reuse common features and edit them with just a click. You'll create a large, template-based site for a winery in the exercise.

LESSON 5 Form Page Design
It's every Web designer's dream to create a site in which the user can take an active role in the visit-whether it's submitting an email address, taking a test, or supplying feedback. Lesson Five shows you how to make it happen with Dreamweaver's powerful form design tools and features that get the form running on your server. This lesson concludes with an exercise on creating a subscription form with user results get sent to your email address.

LESSON 6 Workflow and Project Management
Web designers these days must wear many hats to get the job done. You guessed it, Dreamweaver can help with that too. In Lesson Six, you'll explore preferences that can streamline your workflow and help you use HTML code more efficiently. You'll also learn easy ways to access your files and frequently used code "Snippets" while you work. This lesson finishes up with a look at Dreamweaver's collaboration tools that make group work go more smoothly. In the final exercise, you'll put everything you've learned to the test in designing a complete Web site of your choosing.