Some newbie questions (Dreamweaver)

[grubas8]

Hi!

I am taking my first unsure steps creating a website, using
Dreamweaver 6.1. Perhaps somebody here can help me with the following
questions:

1) Is it possible to put a visible border around a layer? Layers seem
to be a great way doing layout, since you can put them anywhere on a
page. However, sometimes I'd like to have a border around a layer. Can
it be done? How?

2) Is there a good tutorial for Dreamweaver somebody could
recommmend?

3) I'd like to limit access to parts of my site with a password. How
do I do that?

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed (e-mail address removed) writing in

Hi!

I am taking my first unsure steps creating a website, using
Dreamweaver 6.1. Perhaps somebody here can help me with the following
questions:

You would do better getting to know the actual markup language. That
way, if Dreamweaver weaves you a nightmare, you'll be able to fix it.

1) Is it possible to put a visible border around a layer? Layers seem
to be a great way doing layout, since you can put them anywhere on a
page. However, sometimes I'd like to have a border around a layer. Can
it be done? How?

What layers? There are no layers in HTML (except for a proprietary
element from Netscape years ago that is not used).

2) Is there a good tutorial for Dreamweaver somebody could
recommmend?

I am sure there are, but you would do much better for yourself, and the
Internet, if you would learn the language itself. It's not very
difficult.

3) I'd like to limit access to parts of my site with a password. How
do I do that?

You could try javascript and be insecure, or you can do it server side.
It depends on what you have available.

 

[Ed Seedhouse]

Hi!

I am taking my first unsure steps creating a website, using
Dreamweaver 6.1. Perhaps somebody here can help me with the following
questions:

1) Is it possible to put a visible border around a layer?

There is no such thing as a "layer" in either html or CSS. This is an
"invention" of Dreamweaver that should be avoided like the plague.What
Dreamweaver actually does in this mode is position your page elements
with the CSS absolute positioning rules, a well known way to produce a
brittle page that does not work correctly under different viewpoint
sizes and font enlargements, all of which you have no control over.

Can the Dreamweaver "layers" and learn to write valid and semantic html,
and then style it with CSS.

"WYSIWYG" editors on the web are a snare and a delusion because, unlike
paper, there is no "WYG" available. "What you get" will vary from
browser to browser and system to system and there is nothing whatsoever
you can do about that, except design with that fact in mind. The web is
not paper!

 

[Neredbojias]

1) Is it possible to put a visible border around a layer? Layers seem
to be a great way doing layout, since you can put them anywhere on a
page. However, sometimes I'd like to have a border around a layer. Can
it be done? How?

Yes, but...
In general, "layers" are outside the document flow and thus are not a good
way to do layout. Bordering can be done with css, for instance in the head
section:

<style type="text/css">
div {
border:2px solid yellow;
}

2) Is there a good tutorial for Dreamweaver somebody could
recommmend?

Google for "Dreamweaver tutorial".

3) I'd like to limit access to parts of my site with a password. How
do I do that?

Again, research it via tech info sites. It's quite possible though not
simple.

 

[Timothy Ace Holleran]

As the gang says, forget the "layers" crap.

Try <div style="border: 2px red solid;>[Put text and pictures in this
container]</div> To pisition div's on a page, learn all about tables from
any good html help site, such as http://htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/tables/ .
Use empty table cells to place other cells roughly where you want them. You
can lear this in a couple of days.

Ace in CT

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

As the gang says, forget the "layers" crap.

About the only useful bit in your message, to reiterate what others have
already said. Now the top-posting and lack of trimming....

Try <div style="border: 2px red solid;>[Put text and pictures in this
container]</div>

Inline style may be useful for a short demo example in Usenet, but in
application on your page better to add styling in a stylesheet rather
than pepper your markup with style attributes

..framed { border: 2px solid red; }

To pisition div's on a page, learn all about tables from
any good html help site, such as http://htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/tables/ .
Use empty table cells to place other cells roughly where you want them. You
can lear this in a couple of days.

Ah, yes reference a tutorial that is circa 1995 to a newbie!

To OP this not a good way to start out. In most cases one does *not*
need each element to be precisely position on the page because you do
not know what the page size is! Better to make you page flexible and
adjust the layout to fit whatever your visitor's window is at the time.
Only use positioning when it is critical to the design and even then
many times there are ways to still make the design flexible.

Try the tutorials at www.htmldog.com. They are a bit more contemporary.

Ace in CT

Signatures prefaced with two hyphens a space followed by a carriage
return are preferred as decent newsreaders will remove the signature in
replies...

<snipping extra stuff...>

 

[Timothy Ace Holleran]

About the only useful bit in your message, to reiterate what others have
already said. Now the top-posting and lack of trimming....
Take care,

Jonathan

Hey Jon, if I had a home page that looked like Little Works, I wouldn't be
so quick to criticize. Ouch!

tah

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Hey Jon, if I had a home page that looked like Little Works, I wouldn't be
so quick to criticize. Ouch!

And how does this relate to not recommending circa 1995 markup methods
to a newbie?

 

[dorayme]

Hey Jon, if I had a home page that looked like Little Works, I wouldn't be
so quick to criticize. Ouch!

tah

Well, you have not got a page like that so don't come the raw
prawn with a mensch like Jonathan.

"coming the raw prawn" is an Australian expression:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=raw+prawn

while

mensch |men ch | |m?n?| |m?n?| is


noun ( pl. menschen |?men ch ?n|or mensches) informal
a person of integrity and honor.
ORIGIN 1930s: Yiddish mensh, from German Mensch, literally
Œperson.¹

 

[Travis Newbury]

"WYSIWYG" editors on the web are a snare and a delusion because, unlike
paper, there is no "WYG" available. "What you get" will vary from
browser to browser and system to system and there is nothing whatsoever
you can do about that, except design with that fact in mind. The web is
not paper!

The code produced by Dreamweaver will produce web pages that work
perfectly well in virtually everyone's browser. That said, Learn HTML
and CSS. They are pretty simple. Combine a tool like dreamweaver
with a good foundation of HTML and CSS knowledge and you will have a
very powerful combination.

 

[JD]

Hey Jon, if I had a home page that looked like Little Works, I wouldn't be
so quick to criticize. Ouch!

Wow. That's so mature, "Ace".

 

[JD]

The code produced by Dreamweaver will produce web pages that work
perfectly well in virtually everyone's browser. That said, Learn HTML
and CSS. They are pretty simple. Combine a tool like dreamweaver
with a good foundation of HTML and CSS knowledge and you will have a
very powerful combination.

DW makes a fantastic HTML editor in code view, that's for sure. It has
the best code hints I've seen anywhere.

 

[Timothy Ace Holleran]

Look, I'm all done with you guys. Jonathan was the first to be rude.

Please, don't worry about perfectly good newbie tips from 1995 when you have
a Fisher-Price website! And you other nancy-boys rise to defend him! IU can
imagine the gawdawful crap you're putting on the web.

Grubas, go elsewhere for advice. These people are hacks!

 

[Andy Dingley]

DW makes a fantastic HTML editor in code view, that's for sure. It has
the best code hints I've seen anywhere.

Like "Don't use the title attribute as it's incompatible with NS4" ?

 

[Andy Dingley]

Look, I'm all done with you guys.

Don't let the door hit you in the arse on your way out, you might
catch your frock in it.

Jonathan was the first to be rude.

He just posts faster than the rest of us.

Please, don't worry about perfectly good newbie tips from 1995

No, you recommended that a fresh, unblemished newbie _begin_ by
learning techniques that became obsolete 10 years ago. That's _not_ a
good recommendation.

 

[JD]

Like "Don't use the title attribute as it's incompatible with NS4" ?

Code hints in DW refer to the little menus that pop up when you're
typing in code view, listing the available
elements/attributes/properties/values (depending on the context).

It's an extremely helpful feature.

 

[Sherm Pendley]

Upside-down. Please don't do that.

Look, I'm all done with you guys. Jonathan was the first to be rude.

You gave bad advice. It would have been rude for Jonathan to let it stand
without comment.

Please, don't worry about perfectly good newbie tips from 1995 when you have
a Fisher-Price website!

To begin with, your "tips" weren't prefectly good - they were woefully out-
dated. And secondly, Jonathan's comments were about implementing the HTML
code, not about aesthetics or design. Changing the subject with the usenet
equivalent of "you're ugly" is childish. Grow up.

sherm--

 

[Bergamot]

Code hints in DW refer to the little menus that pop up when you're
typing in code view, listing the available
elements/attributes/properties/values (depending on the context).

It's an extremely helpful feature.

DW is not the only editor that has this feature. BTW, I find it an
extremely annoying and distracting feature and disable it the moment I
come across it. TEHO

 

[Andy Dingley]

Code hints in DW refer to the little menus that pop up when you're
typing in code view, listing the available
elements/attributes/properties/values (depending on the context).

Or in the case of the title attribute, warning you _not_ to use it.
That's hardly a helpful practice!


Last version of DW I used did this a year or so back. I don't know if
it still does it.

 

[Timothy Ace Holleran]

It's hard for me to believe how devoted you are to coding, all of you, when
your sites look so ugly.

You are so worried about insipid coding that you have lost sight of cogent
design.

The jonathan little and west virginia sites are eyeslaughter. If I gave my
clients dog-doo like that, I would starve.

You can rant about CSS and your silly standards, thinking that this is all
hard-and-fast science. It's also about aesthetics, a topic which is foreign
to you. It doesn't matter a whit how much HTML, XML, JS, Flash or Ajax you
know if the end result looks like the amateurish pabulum you put on the web.

I know all these standards. I make my living developing web sites. Good,
basic HTML tutelege is available readily on HTMLGoodies, no matter how old
it is. I'm sure there are other, newer sites with better tips. Again, I say,
how can you dispense advice when you can't build an attractive one of your
own?

Stop trying to be cutting-edge and worry about the general look and feel of
your sites. Then counsel others.

You are more concerned about how to build a clock than if it actually works.

Bring it on, skirts.