I had been using Macromedia merchandise for my website development for years. I recently determined a brand new way to the layout that has made my life a lot less complicated. Before the “Layers” characteristic, I continually observed it was difficult to make a web page look the way I wanted it to because I had to position everything into tables or position my pix around my text and hope for the best. Now, Dreamweaver gives this killer shortcut to making an internet site: Layers. Imagine being capable of placing whatever (text, tables, pix, whatever) wherever you want!! This is an absolute godsend in the design world as far as I am concerned.
Now, I just located this option in Dreamweaver 8. There had been previous variations of Dreamweaver (MX2004, and many others) that also allowed for this selection. Either way, I am glad that I discovered it and put it to use, as it has made a well-sized distinction inside the layout for websites for me.
The idea is simple: create a new page. To try this, you need to first set up inside Dreamweaver’s web page manager a domain from which you may work. By right-clicking on the site name inside the homes bar, you get a drop-down menu with a couple of options, one of which is “New File.” Create a brand-new HTML document, after which double-click on that document to open it inside the main Dreamweaver running window. The subsequent step is to insert your first layer. Under the “Insert” segment of the pinnacle device bar, visit “Layout Objects,” after which to “Layer.” A little blue field will appear on your page. If you click on the perimeter of the field, you get those little squares around the perimeter of the container, bearing in mind resizing. You will also note a small rectangle within the higher proper-hand facet of the new layer. While you click on your mouse button in this rectangle, it allows you to reposition the layer wherever you want to locate it on your website.
You can now add whatever you want inside this box (layer) together with text, flash movies, pics, tables, library items, and so forth. The maximum excellent characteristic of this is that you have total manipulation over where it’s placed on your web page. Dreamweaver will automatically write inside the html code the precise X & Y coordinates that your browser will translate to reveal the web page nicely. It doesn’t get any better than this.
I determined this selection to be very similar to working in Adobe Photoshop because with layers, you’ve got total management over each part of the design without the stress related to internet layout.
Now, say you want to feature a few texts on a layer, but the textual content runs some distance off the page or a long way off the layer container size you chose. Well, Dreamweaver has resolved that issue properly. In the properties inspector at the bottom of the display, you’ve got a drop-down box categorized as “Overflow.” If you drop down this field, you’ve got some alternatives: Visible, Hidden, Scroll, and Auto. For instance, I am explaining here; you’ll select “Scroll.” This tells Dreamweaver to write down in the code that if your textual content overflows the dimensions, you are certain for the layer field to insert a scroll function, permitting your visitors to scroll down the text to read something you positioned in that layer box. Pretty slick!!
Other capabilities with the usage of layers are that you have a choice to call your layers inside the Layers Tab on the upper right-hand device menu and set the succession of every layer. I suggest that if deciding to use more than one layer, you keep yourself a primary headache and label each layer according to what it is related to on your screen. This makes modifying the layer later on a whole lot less complicated.
Layers can help you have the freedom within web layout that must be there alongside. I propose you give this a try, play with it, and notice what creative things you can provide yourself with. Go nuts with this feature and have fun with it. You by no means recognize what is going to come out now that the boundaries have been dropped!
Other functions, which are pretty slick, include the capacity to overlap photos on a web page. If you have been doing an inventive presentation or something similar, this new function may appear at the top right-hand side of the “Layers” Properties field. Just installed a test mark underneath “Prevent Overlaps,” and you should not fear it. Dreamweaver will routinely ensure that nothing overlaps within the layers. However, in case you did want to have an overlapping impact of, say, two pictures, then ensure that the Prevent Overlaps is unchecked, and you will, in addition, unlock the magic of this outstanding function.
In closing, that is a sincerely superb function, but it takes a few getting used to. It breaks all of the regulations we had previously discovered that we should and could not do with web design. This takes that to the following stage without making you reach for the aspirin.
A few different alternatives encompass a command referred to as “convert layers to tables” and “convert tables to layers.” On the top toolbar in Dreamweaver, if you go to ‘Modify’ - Convert - you’ve got the two alternatives I mentioned. Clicking on convert layers to tables will automate Dreamweaver to start calculating down to the pixel, a way to design a table out of the information you have given to it by setting layers on the web page in positive areas. This characteristic is specially used for web surfers with a browser that is not updated (i., version 5 or earlier versions of Internet Explorer or Netscape). The new versions of most primary browsers now help and properly show layer content inside the browser window. But if you suppose that your target audience might not have updated browsers, you definitely might not forget this feature. Personally, I don’t use it because it’s miles uncommon that people in recent times have an outdated browser era with all of the Automated Windows Updates and all.
