Dreamweaver FAQ
(Working on a Mac)
1. Why won't things LINK? They did last week!
Ans: Every time you sit down to Dreamweaver you have to jog its mind. You should open Dreamweaver and go straight to Site/Manage Sites. If the name of your site isn't there in the white box, click on Done and go back to "New". This doesn't mean you're starting all over again. It just means that Dreamweaver doesn't know where to look for your root folder. Dreamweaver needs to know where your root folder is or it won't be able to help you. Go to Site/New/Advanced and use the little blue folder to navigate to your root folder then click okay. At this point all the files for your website spring to life on the right hand side of the page. Now you have a nicely connected website in the making.
2. Where is my root folder? It was here last week!
Ans: Your root folder is your most precious possession. You should have a root folder some .html files and some image files. The words "root folder" should be in the name of the folder somewhere to avoid confusion. Nothing, but nothing, that you put in your website should come from outside this root folder (you'll get nasty broken links). Put things into the root folder using Finder BEFORE you fiddle with them in Dreamweaver. It gets very confusing if you try to do stuff in Dreamweaver on the fly. Now, you need to know exactly where your precious root folder is BEFORE you even open Dreamweaver. Is it on the Student Drive of a particular iMac in the Mac Lab? If so, you need to go back to THAT MAC. Is it on the Student Server (it shouldn't be, but I notice that some are there)? If so, get it off now by copying it to your USB drive. Is it on your USB? Good. The best spot for your root folder at this point is a USB drive that you personally carry around.
2. I put an image in my website and it's so huge I can't see around it or through it or over it or...
Ans: Resize your images in Photoshop before you plonk them on your page in Dreamweaver. If you grab the corner of an image and resize it on the page from within Dreamweaver, it will look small but actually, it's still big. It's still taking up space. You need nice little files for the Internet, that download quickly. But make sure that you've first kept a full-size, high resolution version of your artwork for marking. I recommend three, maybe four versions of everything you've been working on: A photoshop file (.psd) which, a large .jpg file (300 dpi), a web-friendly .jpg file (72 dpi) and if you want to be really nifty, a teeny weeny little thumnail. If you don't know what dpi means, you're just going to have to refer to the MacLab Reader.
3. How do I burn the CD on a Mac? I've never done it before. I can't even find where the CD goes...
Okay, there is an elegant slot on the right hand edge of the iMac. Put the CD in there and wait for the Mac to notice that it's there. When you get a dialogue box, click okay. You should be able to see the CD somewhere there on the left hand nav bar of a Finder window. Now open a new Finder Window and navigate to your precious root folder. Copy and paste it into the CD folder. Now, it hasn't actually "done it" yet... you need to take another step, which is to go to Finder/File/Burn.
4. Check out my movie page.
Tracy Sorensen June 2009