Adobe Dreamweaver has brought the business of web development within the reach of everybody. However, it is still a sophisticated piece of software with numerous floating palettes which can be a little off-putting for the new user. It's always a good idea to sketch out a plan of how the site will work and what kind of user experience it will offer.

Dreamweaver will not give you any assistance at this stage, so just use pen and paper. Start by building a basic site, one that you know you can complete without getting bogged down in technologies that you do not understand.

Another step you should complete before you even go into Dreamweaver is to create a folder to hold all of the files which will comprise your site: the andquot;local root folderandquot;, as Dreamweaver calls it. Don't put anything in this folder but the files relating to your site. Once you have completed your project, it will mirror the live version of your site.

Next, create a folder inside the andquot;local root folderandquot; which will hold your images. This will help you to avoid ending up with andquot;broken imagesandquot; on your site, where visitors are presented with an empty box instead of the actual image.

Now, finally, we launch Dreamweaver and create a new web site by choosing New Site from the Site menu. Click the Advanced tab (andquot;Advancedandquot; here simply means manual, so don't be intimidated.) You will notice a series of categories on the left of the screen. Only the first two categories need to be completed: Local Info and Remote Info.

The first element required in the andquot;Local Infoandquot; section is a name for the new site. This goes in the top box. Next, use the folder icons to browse and locate the andquot;Local Root Folderandquot; and andquot;Default Images Folderandquot; respectively.

The second piece of information is Remote Info. In this section, you tell Dreamweaver how to connect to the server hosting your web site. Set you Access Method to Local/Network if you are working on an intranet site then browse to locate your intranet server. Choose FTP if you are working on a public website for the internet and enter your FTP login details in each of the boxes. This information will be supplied by your web hosting company.

The next step is to create all of the pages in your website arranged in the appropriate sub-directories. Don't put any content in the pages at this stage, just create and save each page into your local root folder. This is done, so that later, when you create links on any page, the page that you link to will already exist, so you can just point to it and automatically create the correct link.

Before you start work on the page content proper, you should consider creating one or more templates to achieve a consistent layout across all your pages. You create the basic design with all the elements that will repeat on every page (fixed regions) and then click in each area which needs to have unique content on each page and choose Insert - Template Objects - Editable Region. You can even have a hierarchy of master templates and sub templates.

Once you have your template(s) in place, you are ready to start putting the actual pages. Open each of the pages, apply the appropriate template then add your content. To test our page at any time, just press F12 on your keyboard.

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Article Submitted By: AndrewWhiteman
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