Welcome to Dreamweaver This guide introduces you to using Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 if you’re unfamiliar with any major aspect of it. The tutorials in this guide lead you through the process of creating a simple but functional website. Dreamweaver MX 2004 is a professional HTML editor for designing, coding, and developing websites, web pages, and web applications. Whether you enjoy the control of hand-coding HTML or prefer to work in a visual editing environment, Dreamweaver provides you with helpful tools to enhance your web creation experience. The visual editing features in Dreamweaver let you quickly create pages without writing a line of code. If you prefer to code by hand, however, Dreamweaver also includes many coding-related tools and features. And Dreamweaver helps you to build dynamic database-backed web applications using server languages such as ASP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), JSP, and PHP. Note: This guide is not a comprehensive manual for all of the features of DreamweaverMX 2004, nor is it an introduction to web design. For more detailed information about Dreamweaver, see Dreamweaver Help (select Using Dreamweaver from the Help menu). This chapter contains the following sections: • “Learning Dreamweaver basics†on page 8 • “Installing and running Dreamweaver†on page 9 • “Viewing the sample site†on page 11 Learning Dreamweaver basics To begin learning to use Dreamweaver, begin with this Getting Started guide. Then proceed to other resources, such as the help system and the Macromedia Support Center. How to use this guide The guide is divided into several chapters. We recommend that you read them in the following order: 1 This introduction provides basic information about installing and using Dreamweaver. 2 “The Dreamweaver Workspace†on page 13 provides an overview of the Dreamweaver MX 2004 workspace. 3 “Quick Site Setup†on page 17 explains how to set up a site. After reading this setup chapter, you can experiment on your own rather than reading the rest of this guide if you prefer. 4 If you’ve created web pages before but you haven’t used Dreamweaver, follow the static-site tutorials: “Tutorial: Creating a Static Page†on page 27, “Tutorial: Editing Code†on page 39, and “Tutorial: Linking and Previewing Pages†on page 47. These tutorials teach you the basics of how to create a small, but functional, static website using the Dreamweaver visual authoring tools. They also teach you the basics of using the tools for hand-editing code in Dreamweaver. 5 If you’re unfamiliar with the concepts behind web applications, read “Understanding Web Applications†on page 55. 6 If you want to learn about developing web applications, start by choosing a server technology (ColdFusion, ASP.NET, ASP, JSP, or PHP) and read the appropriate setup chapter: “Setup for Sample ColdFusion Site†on page 85, “Setup for Sample ASP.NET Site†on page 93, “Setup for Sample ASP Site†on page 103, “Setup for Sample JSP Site†on page 113, or “Setup for Sample PHP Site†on page 123. 7 If necessary, install a web server, following the instructions in “Installing a Web Server†on page 79. 8 To learn about developing a simple database-driven web application using Dreamweaver, follow the web application tutorial: “Tutorial: Developing a Web Application†on page 65. Within each chapter, you should read through the chapter in order. The lessons in this guide use page layouts and sample content provided with Dreamweaver. If you prefer to create your first Dreamweaver site using your own layouts and content instead, you can do so, but the lessons are easier to follow if you use the sample content provided.
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