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Setting up Dreamweaver

I can't stress how easy and fast Dreamweaver is once you get the hang of it. You need to know some HTML code of course.
You need to do this first step or your images and web pages will not all appear in the same folder on your hard drive. You will not be able to set up the cache of all your files, check your links in dreamweaver or make a site map.

I have DW 4. I advise buying Dreamweaver MX or 8. I am assuming that what applies to the latest versions still applies to DW 4. These steps apply to DW 4.

1. Create a local folder on your hard drive: I do this: C:/ozwebhub but of course it could be anything. I advise making a new directory on your C drive though: don't put it into My documents or anything.

2. Open Dreamweaver, go to Site/New

3. Site Name : Insert Title of page : Tick enable cache: Tick refresh Local File List Automatically. In Local Root folder click on the little folder on the right and search for the local directory you have just created. Add in your full URL where you see http: Click OK

4. An untitled document will appear. Cut out that text in the Title (which says Untitled document) and name it with your own title.

5. Save as 'index.html' for the first page. Hosts recognize this. Dreamweaver seems to save as .htm by default, not html, but your server will recognize .html before it will recognize .htm so be careful about changing your index file.

5a. To change File extension from .htm to .html

Go to Edit/Preferences/General/Files Options/Check Add Extension when Saving to .html

6. Go to Site Files : click on index.html on Right in Local Folder

7. Go to Site in same document. Go down to Set as Home Page.

8. Site cache will set up automatically, but as you create more pages (which you do in the same way, minus Point 7) you may like to got to Site/Recreate Site Cache occasionally.

Now, watch the video for more tutorials in Dreamweaver

 

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© Jenny Campbell