New to dreamweaver

[chris ashdown]

For those of us who have dreamweaver but never had the time to learn it as spending so much time on the company,

Could a simple idiots guide (step by step) be included in the advanced guide, starting from scratch on how we should go about editing in DW, Could be as simple as opening DW and moving an image or box around the page on there V8 site or altering the css files

No timescale but i just think it would be handy for new commers and myself whenever we get time!!!

I must admit I would like to come down to the V8 course, but feel I would be surrounded by experts and come back even more confused than when I arrived. Even if I did have the time.

[jont]

There are lots of tutorials available for DreamWeaver available on the internet - most free and some paid for videos ... they would be better as they focus on the fundamentals of DW rather than Actinic specific tasks (which are only basic in comparison to what DW is capable of doing)

[jont]

Check out the Adobe site (who now own Macromedia) for a list of tutorials http://www.adobe.com/support/dreamwe...ial_index.html as a starter for 10

[chris ashdown]

Thanks jont

I have a couple of books on dW but was thinking more on how to use it with actinic, and what files you need to open etc rather than a full DW instruction book

I will never become a DW user for making sites either with Actinic or otherwise but would like to see what it offers over the normal designer page views in actinic

[RuralWeb]

what files you need to open etc rather than a full DW instruction book

V8 works differently to V7 in that there are no templates to open and edit. You create a design using DW and then insert Actinic content eg nav bar, shopping cart etc the design is then registered with Actinic and you then carry on in Actinic as you would with V7 ie adding products.

Changes to the inner layout ie product layouts etc are done in Actinic. While any further mods to the outer layer can be done in DW as it is now linked to DW.
As jont says to be able to use DW with V8 you will need to know how to use DW as a design tool to be able to create the outer layer which is needed before you get to the point where you plug in Actinic.

There is no simple guide as DW is huge and can do so much - you may also have to consider using photoshop/fireworks to produce the design for the outer layer prior to dropping it into DW.

[Virtuaffinity]

I still think there needs to be some sort of step by step, DW to Actnic tutorial available though. I've been using DW for years but I'm going through the process at the moment of converting DW site to actinic and finding it a complete ball ache.

To what extent do you design the site in dreamweaver before registering it? A general idea of potential functions to allow for would be nice, do I build the template with mock functions (search etc) and then replace them?

Don't bother building it in standard compliant XHTML because actinic just converts it to HTML.

Paths to background images in CSS?

All these things and more could easily be covered by a well written tutorial. I don't think anyone is asking for tutorials on how to build a site in DW but some proper support for the product would be nice. I've read lots of posts on here from people trying the DW route and they just get told to look at the start guide and advanced user guide. DW isn't mentioned once in the getting started guide and has only 3 mentions in the advance guide none of which explain the process. There's a brief explanation of the DW plugin in the actinic main help menu which I find a pain in the @ss to use because you can't work in actinic with it open.

Sorry just need to get that off my chest.

[los_design]

Once you cotton onto the Actinic DW principle you will be amazed at how easy it is.

One point you need to remember is that your custom design 'surrounds' the inner layout or the engine of actinic.

The extent really does depend on your level of expertise but to be honest, you can re-write a whole site and slap into it some act variables quite easily.

As long as you ensure you maintain your control over the css/inner layouts you can really go to town.

If you understand DW you will have very few issues integrating.

Some basic steps are:

1 design your outer layer in DW
2 register it with Actinic (page type or every page)
3 slap in some variables and voila.

I know, before you shout it is not that simplistic BUT that is really the core process and it is up to you how complex or simple you wish to make it.

Feel free to shout if you need any advice.

Regards

[Virtuaffinity]

Some basic steps are:

1 design your outer layer in DW
2 register it with Actinic (page type or every page)
3 slap in some variables and voila.

Thanks for replying Los, with regards to the above, to what extent can I use CSS for the layout? What doc type, XHTML is out right? I tend to design sites with html files in the root then and image folder and css folder etc, when you register with actinic do those paths then get ignored?

You can see my initial test here where I've used CSS for layout http://mtvs.virtuaffinity.net/acatalog/Books.html

Problem 1: The image behind the cart info (CSS background image) doesn't show

Problem 2: The CSS doesn't work at all on the home page http://mtvs.virtuaffinity.net/

TIA

[los_design]

Wow

Wished I had never asked (only kidding)

You can control all of the layout using css. One way we ensure the css remains in control is to hard code the ref link into your head document thus taking actinic.css out of the equation.

I am sure others use different tactics, but it is the one that works for us in version 8.0.
Give that a try first and we shall attack the others issues accordingly.

Regards

[pinbrook]

another way to ensure css file getspicked up

open actinicstylesheet within actinic, remove all of the code except

@import url("theme.css");

replace theme.css with the name of your own file

leave this line in your DW registered design

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="actinic.css" />

your css file should now get picked up

Paths to background images in CSS?

place these inside single quotes

[Virtuaffinity]

Thanks both for you help, I seem to be making some progress now, if a little slow. http://mtvs.virtuaffinity.net/

I copied all the images into the preview html folder so they would show in actinic then had to manually ftp them to the root of the site to get them to work online.

[los_design]

Hey Roy

Looking good mate

Regards

[jont]

http://mtvs.virtuaffinity.net/

Gary Numan in his rightful place alongside Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy

[Virtuaffinity]

I think I have the measure of it now guys, I've even managed to use a different CSS template for a section, just wanted to thank you all for your valuable input.