Time is money, as we all know – no more so than in the world of website design. If you’ve mastered the basics of Dreamweaver, or perhaps even some raw html coding too, you might be frustrated at just how long it takes you to plan, design, and execute a site. Unless you’re a seasoned designer with a bespoke specification you promised to do for a client, then there are much simpler, stress-free ways of making websites quickly – you do it with templates.

“Isn’t this cheating, or cutting corners?” I hear the experienced webweavers among you cry. Well, perhaps in the past it was considered a cheap shortcut for the inexperienced designer, but today, templates are big business, and used by everyone, from the smallest personal family site, to a big corporate business. Even better, if you create your own templates while working on a site, you can update the whole thing at once instead of page-by-page.

What is a template? Think about how most websites are structured – it usually follows a pattern. You have the logo at the top, the navigation buttons or sections, the larger concentration of text in the middle, and the footers. You can buy commercial templates that have certain themes, for example – gardening, or for an e-commerce mobile phone business. The sheer variety of themes is huge, and you can usually find what you’re looking for. Some are even free! Most are cheap (under 50 pounds sterling), but you’ll pay more for ‘exclusivity’, that is, the template is then no longer offered for sale to anyone else, so it’s exclusively yours.

Other templates are the ones you can create yourself within Dreamweaver. Let’s say you have a site with ten pages… and you make one small change. Do you have to change every single page to implement the new part of it? Not with a template. You only need to alter the template, and the pages will get updated alongside it. Simply create a page with no unique content (meaning, the basic navigation and layout that is on every page, regardless of content) and then go to file – save as template.

Voila! You have a template to work from (notice that there’s a bar at the top of the screen that reminds you that you’re working with a template). You can beaver away and edit sections of the template, but make sure you tell Dreamweaver which of your web pages will be using the template – by going to modify, then template, then “apply template to page”.

Perhaps now you’ve grasped the basic advantages of templates, you’ll want to know how to do more with them – or if you’re very confident, you might want to turn your hand to professional web design (or template design!) in order to earn some money doing it. Get yourself some more training to back up your ambition, and then join one of the many reselling sites for templates.

The market for designing templates can be lucrative if you know where and what to sell. You earn a commission from every template, or you can adapt them (with the correct license permissions) and try and make your living as a web designer. Why not give it a go?

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on dreamweaver.training, please visit http://www.microsofttraining.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rich_Talbot

Learn how alternate fonts in dreamweaver will show up to a user if their web browser does not display the font you have chosen for your dreamweaver website.

Dreamweaver Tutorial: Setting Up FTP in Dreamweaver:

Okay, you created a Web site and tested it, and you’re ready to upload it to the Web. It’s time to put the Dreamweaver publishing tools to work. If you’re using a commercial service provider, you most likely need the Dreamweaver FTP features, covered in detail in this task and the remaining tasks in this chapter. Note that you must complete the site-setup process, before you can configure the site for uploading. You also need the following information from your Web hosting service:

- The FTP host name
- The path to the Web directory (optional but useful)
- An FTP login or user name
- An FTP password

After you gather all your FTP information and complete the site setup, you’re ready to access the Dreamweaver publishing tools and prepare the program to upload your Web site. In this task, you set up Dreamweaver to connect to your server via FTP, a process you need to do only once for each site you work on. In the next task, you use Dreamweaver to upload pages to your server by using the connection you establish in this task.

Follow these steps:

1. Choose Site?Manage Sites to open the Manage Sites dialog box.Alternatively, you can choose Manage Sites from the bottom of the Site drop-down list in the Files Panel, as shown in this figure.

2. In the list of defined sites, select the site you want to publish and then click the Edit button.

3. Select the Advanced tab from the top of the Site Definition dialog box, and then select the Remote Info category from the left side.

4. Click the drop-down arrow to the right of the Access box, and then select the publishing option best suited to your Web server and development environment. If you’re using a commercial Web host (the most common option for small do-it-yourself sites), choose FTP. If you’re working at a university, a large company, or an organization that has its own Web servers, refer to the nearby sidebar, “The multiple Dreamweaver publishing options,” to understand your choices here, and check with your system administrator to find out which option is best for your system.

5. In the FTP Host text box, type the host name of your Web server. Directory text box, type the directory on the remote site in which documents visible to the public are stored. The information you enter in this field depends on your server. In some cases, you can leave the field blank if you log in directly to your site; in other cases, you use a different path, such as users/mysite/domain. Check with your service provider or site administrator to find out how your server is set up.

6. Enter your login name and password. Web services require a username and password to gain access to your Web server, to ensure that you’re the only person who can make changes to your Web site. If you select the Save check box, Dreamweaver stores the information on your local computer and you don’t have to retype it every time you log in to your Web server. Click the Test button to make sure that you entered everything correctly. If there are no problems, Dreamweaver responds with the message Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 connected to your Web server successfully.

7. Select the Use Passive FTP option or the Use Firewall option only if your service provider or site administrator instructs you to do so. If you a use a commercial Web-hosting service, you shouldn’t need to select any remaining options in this section of the dialog box. Select Use Secure FTP if you have a secure Web server, but be aware that not all hosts support secure FTP. If you select this option and see an error message when you press the Test button, deselect the option and test again.

8. Click to select the Maintain Synchronization Information check box; Dreamweaver then automatically keeps track of any changes you make to pages on your local computer that haven’t been uploaded to the server. Note: I never recommend that you select the Automatically Upload Files to Server on Save check box because I think that you should test your pages on your local computer before you publish them to the local site.

Leaving this box deselected prevents the possibility of accidentally uploading errors automatically every time you save a page on your local computer. The Enable File Check In and Check Out option opens an advanced feature that can be used to track files when multiple people are working on a Web site. 9. Click OK to save your Web server information settings and close the Site Definition dialog box. You’re ready to start using the Dreamweaver FTP features, covered in the next section.

Dreamweaver Tutorial: Working With Files in Dreamweaver:

Background Information: File Management Principles

All the files on your computer are controlled by your operating system (OS), whether you have Windows or Mac or whatever. That means that everytime you save a file, your OS decides where it will be stored on your hard drive and keeps a record of it so you can open the file later. Your OS also keeps track of what you move and delete. All programs that are on your computer have a special relationship with the OS for file management, but web development software has extra tasks.

Your web files have special needs because anytime you move or delete a file, it has an effect on other files that are linked to it. So, Dreamweaver also has file management tasks related to the web development environment. Dreamweaver keeps a record of all the links on your site. (Remember that the code for a photo is also a link. ) Then when you move, Dreamweaver will ask if you want to update the other pages that link to that file. If you delete a file, Dreamweaver will warn you, if there are other pages using that file. Dreamweaver is actually a package of programs and one of them does the file management tasks.

Viewing the Split Screen with Local Files and Remote Files in one Screen

Dreamweaver has a way to view both remote and local files in one screen. To get there, you have to be in the Files panel group with the Files tab on top.

You must also have a site defined and chosen so that the files show up in the Files panel.

Go to the Split Screen icon. If you are using Dreamweaver MX or Dreamweaver MX 2004, the icon looks a little different than in other versions, but it’s like a white page with a T in it.

That will take you to a window that shows the files on your computer on one side (the Local Files) and the files on the server on the other side (the Remote Files). Depending on how your Preferences are set, you may see your Local and Remote files reversed. If you are using a Mac, this window will probably open in a small window, not full screen.

This list is the same as the single column list you see on the right side of your Dreamweaver screen.

Notice that the two lists are different. For example, your working files may only show up in the Local files. That is because it is for your work use, not for your viewers. Also, you may have a new folder of files that don’t show up in the remote view. That folder just hasn’t been uploaded yet because the files aren’t finished.

From either the split screen or the single column in the main screen, you can add new files, delete files and move files in a way that is very similar to working in My Documents in Windows.

Always keep track of whether you are seeing the Local or Remote files. If you delete files from the Local side, you are deleting them off your own computer.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nora_McDougall-Collins