Preface

Macromedia Dreamweaver (DW) is the must-have tool for professional web developers. This book covers the features and usage of Dreamweaver 4 (DW4) on both Windows and Macintosh systems as distilled from my own experience, plus tips gleaned from mailing lists, user groups, beta testers, and my fellow Dreamweaver developers.

This book will address your questions and needs with a minimum of verbiage. Its instructions, notes, tips, and warnings apply to both Dreamweaver and Dreamweaver UltraDev. (Although this book does not cover features exclusive to UltraDev, UltraDev is implemented atop Dreamweaver and shares the same core feature set.)

Dreamweaver's tools include standard HTML objects such as tables and frames, plus prebuilt scripts and behaviors, timeline-based activities, XML support, CSS support, and a JavaScript debugger. For webmasters, Dreamweaver includes site-management tools such as File Check In/Out and Design Notes. This book will help you use Dreamweaver to:

• Develop HTML pages using both basic and advanced objects

• Design and manage templates for individual pages and complete sites

• Define and manage your site's overall structure

• Create cross-browser, cross-platform, standard-compliant HTML without a lot of hand coding

This book is not a step-by-step tutorial, nor does it attempt to teach HTML or web design. Instead, it helps you leverage your existing skills within the Dreamweaver environment. Instead of explaining how to make your site popular, it explains how to efficiently create and maintain a site using Dreamweaver. This book assumes a basic understanding of web page development tools and concepts, but no particular knowledge of Dreamweaver. If you are completely unfamiliar with Dreamweaver, keep the application open while you read the book and consult the excellent Help files that accompany the product. Use the Help Welcome option for a quick visual overview of Dreamweaver.

For assistance with peripheral issues or for further details on Dreamweaver itself, see Section P.7 and Section P.8. Reference material from O'Reilly & Associates covering HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is also included within the Dreamweaver 4 Reference panel (Window Reference).