Tips and tutorials on tables, forms, CSS Styles, behaviors and more

Every Dreamweaver users should know about to agree more flexibility and creativity while designing in Dreamweaver.

Cool tips and tricks on Dreamweaver

• Jump Menus, Pop Up Windows and Swap Images

The Behaviors panel makes it easy to create jump menus, pop up windows, swap images and more.

Click here to learn more about Behaviors.

 

• CSS Styles
  Use CSS Styles to format text, create text rollovers and remove the underline from links.
  Learn how to make Style sheets in Dreamweaver
  
• Links

 

• For changing the link colors from the default blue link color by going to Modify>Page Properties. Here you can change the link color, visited link color and active link color.
• To get a text rollover on a link, use the a:hover style!
  Click here to see how it's made! (Cut 'n' Paste Code is also provided)
• Linking to a particular section of a page by using Named Anchors. E.g. If you need a link to Rollover you would link to this same page but would add a named anchor to go to the section Rollovers. Here's how you add an anchor. Position your cursor at the point you want the link to go to and click on Insert>Named Anchors. Give a name to the anchor (in this we named it 'rollover'). Now add the # symbol along with the name of the anchor.It is understood by HTML by the # symbol. In this case the link would be: <a href="#rollover">Rollover</a

 

• Customizing Form Objects and Validating Forms
  Using CSS Styles you can give a background color and font type to form objects. Also you can validate forms using Dreamweaver behaviors.
  Learn how to customize form objects and validate forms.

 

• Tables

   

  • Make table rows with less than 15 pixel heights. sometimes may not be possible. But you can insert a transparent gif in your row and all your heights will be fine. You can find a transparent image i pixel x 1 pixel called a shim in Fireworks file. Also you can export the same from Fireworks.
  • If you need a nice thin border or to have a border only to a table instead of automatically generated thick border, make a table with the width you want and 1 as your cell padding. You have to insert the actual table inside this table with width 100%.
  • More Cool Table Tips and Tricks

   

• Custom Submit Buttons

 

Create your custom image, save it in Dreamweaver and click on Insert>Form Object>Image Field, to choose the submit button image. This way you can create a custom 'Submitt' button. The code for this will be:

<input type="image" border="0" name="imageField3" src="/images/submit.gif">

 

• Rollovers

 

Rollovers are very easy. Export two images from Fireworks (the image itself and the rollover image). Then, in Dreamweaver, click on Insert>Rollover Image. name that image, choose the images from the folder icon and give the link to the image. Your site will have a good looking effect.

 

• Best Time Saving Tips in Dreamweaver

 

The best time saving tips in Dreamweaver are

• use Dreamweaver templates and
• comprise Server Side

 

• Check Broken Links Throughout The Site

 

You have to make sure before uploading your site that there are no dead links in the site. To do this by going to your site map, right clicking on any of the files and then clicking on 'check links'. Choose to either check links in the entire site or within the selected file or folder. If found any dead links then use the folder icon to select the right files and fix them.

 

• Spaces

 

• Instead of Enter, use Shift+Enter to go to the very next line and not to a new paragraph.
  
• Use Ctrl + Shift + Space to give more than one space between characters

 

• Bullet Shapes and Types

Customize bullets by using the Type attribute in the <ul> or <ol> tag.

 

• Point 1
• Point 2

 

E.g. <ul type="square"> would give you a square bullet rather than the default circular bullet.

• Resizing Images

 

After resizing an image in Dreamweaver, click on Commands>Optimize Image in Fireworks. You gets a window saying 'Editing image.gif. Do you wish to use an existing Fireworks document as the source of image.gif.' Click No and then click Update. The image will be updated and optimized in Dreamweaver. This saves you the trouble of opening the image in Fireworks, resizing it and exporting it again.