When it comes to building professional websites, Dreamweaver CS4 is capable of doing more than any other web design program—including previous versions of Dreamweaver. But the software's sophisticated features aren't simple. Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual will help you master this program quickly, so you can bring stunning, interactive websites to life. Under the expert guidance of bestselling author and teacher David McFarland, you'll learn how to build professional-looking websites quickly and painlessly. McFarland has loaded the book with over 150 pages of hands-on tutorials to help you create database-enabled PHP pages, use cascading style sheets (CSS) for cutting-edge design, add XML-based news feeds, include dynamic effects with JavaScript and Ajax, and more.

Perfect for beginners who need step-by-step guidance, and for longtime Dreamweaver designers who need a handy reference to the new version, this witty and objective book offers jargon-free language and clear descriptions that will help you:

• Learn how to control the appearance of your web pages with CSS, from the basics to advanced techniques
• Design dynamic database-driven websites, from blogs to product catalogs, and from shopping carts to newsletter signup forms
• Add interactivity to your website with ready-to-use JavaScript programs from Adobe's Spry Framework
• Effortlessly control the many helper files that power your website and manage thousands of pages
• Examine web-page components and Dreamweaver's capabilities with the book's "live examples"

The printed book is available through most major online and retail bookstores worldwide, and can be read online at Safari Books Online. For more information visit the O'Reilly store.

Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual © 2009 David Sawyer MacFarland. Reproduced by permission of O'Reilly Media Inc. All rights reserved.

Dreamweaver Behaviors

Like the new Spry tools, Dreamweaver's Behaviors let you add dynamic JavaScript programs to your Web pages without doing a lick of programming. Most Dreamweaver Behaviors have been around for a long while, but Dreamweaver CS3 added a new set of behaviors called Spry Effects that let you add dazzling visual touches like fading a photo in or out, highlighting a portion of a page with a flash of color, and shaking a <div> tag to catch a visitor’s attention.

Download the complete chapter:

• Chapter 13: Dreamwever Behaviors (PDF, 1.4MB)

Introducing Site Management

As the dull-sounding name site management implies, organizing and tracking your Web site's files is one of the least glamorous, most time-consuming, and errorprone aspects of being a Web designer. On the Web, your site may look beautiful, run smoothly, and appear to be a gloriously unified whole, but behind the scenes, it's nothing more than a collection of varied files—HTML, images, Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript, Flash movies, and so on—that must all work together. The more files you have to keep track of, the more apt you are to misplace one. A single broken link or missing graphic can interfere with the operation of your entire site, causing personal—even professional—embarrassment.

Download the complete chapter:

• Chapter 15: Introducing Site Management (PDF, 1.1MB)

Templates

Some Web designers handcraft sites with loving care, changing layouts, colors, fonts, banners, and navigation from page to page. But that approach isn't always practical—or desirable. Consistency is a good thing. Web pages that look and act similarly reassure visitors; when only important material changes from page to page, readers can concentrate on finding the information they want. Even more importantly, a handcrafted approach is often unrealistic when you’re cranking out content on a deadline.

Download the complete chapter:

• Chapter 19: Templates (PDF, 1.7MB)

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