- Creating New Files
- Getting a Head Start
- Turning off the New Document Dialog Box
- Opening Files
- Creating Content
- Page Properties
- Modifying the Page Color and Background
- Saving Your Work
- Saving a Copy of a File
- Previewing in a Browser
- Printing from the Browser Window
- Colors and Web Pages
- Colors and Windows
- Colors for the Mac
Getting a Head Start
If you're very new to page design, or if you've laid out pages using other kinds of environments, you may want to start with a page that's not entirely blank. You may want to get a head start on learning Dreamweaver's features by starting with some basic layouts. Or you may be fresh out of layout ideas and may glean some inspiration by starting with a basic page.
To start a page based on a built-in design:
From the menu bar, select File > New. The New Document dialog box will appear.
In the Category list, select Page Designs (Figure 3.7). A list of page layouts will appear (Figure 3.8).
Figure 3.7 Click on Page Designs in the Category list. Page Designs (Accessible) use page designs restricted to certain tags; see Appendix C on the Web site for this book.
Figure 3.8 When you select the name of a page design, a small preview will appear to the right.
Click on the name of the design to display an abbreviated preview of the page.
When you find something you want to check out, click Create. The page will appear, with image placeholders and dummy text, in a new, unsaved Document window (Figure 3.9).
Figure 3.9 Your page will appear in a new, blank Document windowmake any changes you want, play around, make a solid page design, whatever you likebut don't forget to save your page.
Tips
Many of these layouts include links, placeholders for images, and tablesthe basics of these elements are discussed later in this chapter, and the details are covered in Chapters 6, 5, and 12, respectively.
To find out about using built-in frameset pages, see Chapter 13. To find out about using built-in CSS style sheets, see Chapter 11.
These built-in files could be thought of as templates, but in the world of Dreamweaver, a template is a file type ending in .dwt used to create other files. To find out how to use these and the Templates tab of the New Document dialog box, see Chapter 17.