Core Computer: Dreamweaver Notes

Setting up your page in Dreamweaver:

If you have not done so make sure you have defined your site.

Probably the first thing you need to so is set up your page with a title, a background colour or graphic and define the text colour. In other words you need to set the properties of the page.

The way you do all this type of work is to use the page properties function which you find under the modify menu.

Choose Modify > Page Properties

Define the title of your page

This title is a public title by this I mean it a title that it is for everyone to see not a title that simply makes sense to you. This title appears in the gray title bar at the top of the browser when a page is viewed. The illustration below is from my web page. Name your page sensibly, as the title for an HTML document helps users identify and keep track of a page they're browsing. When a page is book marked, the page title appears in the bookmark list. If a page is not titled, the document appears in the browser with the title Untitled Document. This is not helpful for the user.

With the Document window active, in other words make sure you have clicked on the document to activate it choose Modify > Page Properties to see the page property options.

In the Title field of the Page Properties dialog box, type name the page.

Click OK.

The title appears in the title bar of the Dreamweaver Document window.

Background Colour

From this dialogue box you can select the page background colour to your page. Click the small arrow at the base of the box next to Background.

Select from the menu the colour you want the page to be.

Background Image

You can also set a page background image:

To do so click the Choose button to navigate to the image file. (This image file should be kept in your images folder in your site)

Throughout Dreamweaver you are give the option to browse and select files. The term simply means Navigate to. You can also simply type in and enter the path to the background image in the Background Image box. What happens with a background image is that the web browser tiles (repeats) the background image if it does not fill the entire window.

Colour of text and links

Often when you use a background image you need to change your text colour in order to read it. It is from here that you can do that. Simply click the small arrow at the base of the box next to text.You can also define the colour of your links, and your active and visited links.

After making all these decisions click OK.

You may now want to go Page layout with layers In Dreamweaver to prompt your memory of what we did in class

These notes are written for students who undertake the Core Computer course at School of Art, Australian National University. Students of the course should feel free to contact any member of staff with comments questions and general suggestions..

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