I want to upgrade from tables to CSS I need a good manual for dreamweaver (online if is posible). I star to use CSS and I read here in the forum that the best thing to do is use CSS so I want to start.
_LOBO_What version of Dreamweaver are you using? I can't speak for versions newer than 4.0, but Dreamweaver does not support GUI CSS layouts, meaning that a CSS layout using DIV tags will not render in DW the way it would in a browser.
I don't know, maybe MX would. The best way to find out is to go to <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.alistapart.com/">http://www.alistapart.com/</a><!-- m --> which uses a CSS layout, and save the home page complete with the files. Don't save it as an archive file (M$ IE only). Then open the HTML file in DW MX. If it looks like in DW like it does in a browser, then DW MX probably supports enough CSS to create a CSS layout.
Honestly, the best way right now is to learn CSS yourself and write the HTML by hand. I don't know of any point-and-click website-building tools that support CSS layouts. Here's a couple references:
Pretty good for beginners
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.w3schools.com/">http://www.w3schools.com/</a><!-- m -->
Excellent for those with good to excellent knowledge of CSS, tackles many real-world problems and shows you solutions
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.alistapart.com/">http://www.alistapart.com/</a><!-- m -->
The official World Wide Web Consortium CSS 2.0 specs. They are harder to digest because they aren't tutorial-based.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/TNX">http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/TNX</a><!-- m --> Toicontien
And I have DW MX and I think he support CSS but is a bit Tricky to use, That is why I try to find a good DW manual focus in CSS.MX does support CSS, but you still have to set up your styles manually (create a new .css page to link to). Also, be ready to tweak the code.Hi,
I have DWMX and it does have a built in CSS editor which is pretty simple to use as long as you have a fair understanding of CSS in the first place. It will build internal and external stylesheets at the click of a button and will allow you to enter property values from a list etc.
However it does not provide WYSIWYG for CSS so there is not much point using it in design mode as you can't see the effect anyway. I use MX but keep it in code view and then preview the page in a browser to see if it looks like it should.
As mentioned above it is probably better to learn CSS first so that you understand what you are doing then you can use DWMX as a tool to help you produce the basic CSS more quickly and then adapt it by hand.
I believe Topstyle is quite a good css editor and think that it can be linked as the main css editor for DWMX. However it still is not wysiwyg but does give you some idea of what you are doing. The benefit of using an editor is that you can avoid spelling mistakes and you also get a list of properites and values that you can select. Of course you still need to know what you are doing so its still best to learn the basics first and then use an editor when you know what you are doing.
What I'm trying to say is learn about CSS first and then learn about CSS using DW. There are many good CSS sites and tutorials out there and have already been mentioned in the posts above.
Hope this helps.
PaulI totaly forgot about this, on the note of WYSIWYG CSS editors, Netscape 7 & Moz 1.x have the composer program, which does display a purely CSS layout as it would in the browser.
It isn't that great for designing the pages, but works just fine once you've got templates created and you're adding content.
Just another thought.
_LOBO_What version of Dreamweaver are you using? I can't speak for versions newer than 4.0, but Dreamweaver does not support GUI CSS layouts, meaning that a CSS layout using DIV tags will not render in DW the way it would in a browser.I don't know, maybe MX would. The best way to find out is to go to <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.alistapart.com/">http://www.alistapart.com/</a><!-- m --> which uses a CSS layout, and save the home page complete with the files. Don't save it as an archive file (M$ IE only). Then open the HTML file in DW MX. If it looks like in DW like it does in a browser, then DW MX probably supports enough CSS to create a CSS layout.
Honestly, the best way right now is to learn CSS yourself and write the HTML by hand. I don't know of any point-and-click website-building tools that support CSS layouts. Here's a couple references:
Pretty good for beginners
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.w3schools.com/">http://www.w3schools.com/</a><!-- m -->
Excellent for those with good to excellent knowledge of CSS, tackles many real-world problems and shows you solutions
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.alistapart.com/">http://www.alistapart.com/</a><!-- m -->
The official World Wide Web Consortium CSS 2.0 specs. They are harder to digest because they aren't tutorial-based.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/TNX">http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/TNX</a><!-- m --> Toicontien
And I have DW MX and I think he support CSS but is a bit Tricky to use, That is why I try to find a good DW manual focus in CSS.MX does support CSS, but you still have to set up your styles manually (create a new .css page to link to). Also, be ready to tweak the code.Hi,
I have DWMX and it does have a built in CSS editor which is pretty simple to use as long as you have a fair understanding of CSS in the first place. It will build internal and external stylesheets at the click of a button and will allow you to enter property values from a list etc.
However it does not provide WYSIWYG for CSS so there is not much point using it in design mode as you can't see the effect anyway. I use MX but keep it in code view and then preview the page in a browser to see if it looks like it should.
As mentioned above it is probably better to learn CSS first so that you understand what you are doing then you can use DWMX as a tool to help you produce the basic CSS more quickly and then adapt it by hand.
I believe Topstyle is quite a good css editor and think that it can be linked as the main css editor for DWMX. However it still is not wysiwyg but does give you some idea of what you are doing. The benefit of using an editor is that you can avoid spelling mistakes and you also get a list of properites and values that you can select. Of course you still need to know what you are doing so its still best to learn the basics first and then use an editor when you know what you are doing.
What I'm trying to say is learn about CSS first and then learn about CSS using DW. There are many good CSS sites and tutorials out there and have already been mentioned in the posts above.
Hope this helps.
PaulI totaly forgot about this, on the note of WYSIWYG CSS editors, Netscape 7 & Moz 1.x have the composer program, which does display a purely CSS layout as it would in the browser.
It isn't that great for designing the pages, but works just fine once you've got templates created and you're adding content.
Just another thought.