Overview

What Dreamweaver is, and what it is not.

It is a program designed to help you build and maintain a web site. It does this through assisting you with HTML coding and file management. It is not, however, a program that replaces the need to understand the basic concepts of HTML scripting and web page development. It also is not a program that will “design” a web page for you. But really these are all good things because it means, thankfully, you’re always the driver!

Furthermore, this is not to say that if you lack knowledge of HTML scripting and web page development you will be unable to create a web site with Dreamweaver. Instead it is to point out one simple fact: if you know nothing about HTML or web page development and use Dreamweaver you might be able to build an OK web site… But if you have, or obtain, a working knowledge of web page development and a familiarity with HTML scripting and couple that with the use Dreamweaver you will build a great web site.

Below is a list of what I think you should know about HTML and web page construction to use Dreamweaver to build a successful web site.

What you should know about HTML scripting:

Tags:

Which tags are always needed in a web page, where they go, and what should/can go into them (html, head, title, body, and DOCTYPE).
Syntax: open/close, attributes (incase you need to add something Dreamweaver does not provide or understand).

Other code:

You should be aware that Javascript, CSS, and other Advanced things are not HTML but interact with it. They all need to be written correctly (syntax) and need to be in the right spots in the page as well. To be sure... Dreamweaver can help you with scripting them as well, but knowing even a bit about them (or that fact that they exist) helps as you continue to work on and develop your site.

What you should know about Site Development & Page Construction

File types (media types, and how they "sit" in your site: inline, embedded, etc…):
- Some types of files/media (such as a video clip) can be displayed right in a browser (usually with a plugin) but some can't and require that they be downloaded and opened in a separate application. As a rule if it can be displayed in a browser Dreamweaver can help with it... but sometimes only in a minimal way. Being aware of "what you're playing with" and how a browser interacts with it is important so you can ensure that the code that is written will work they way it should -- sometimes these means going to a developers site of the media type and reading about the code you will need to use.
File/site management:
- Generally you will create and save your files on your computer and then move them to your web server. This is referred to authoring locally and publishing remotely. You can use FTP to do this, and Dreamweaver can help... actually, in my opinion, site synchronization is one of the cooler tool Dreamweaver has that can help you stay on top or your site file management.
Server Stuff:
- Web servers are usually configured to serve a file with a particular name as a "default" -- i.e. if no page name is written at the end of a url -- knowing what files are served as homepages on which ever server you will be publishing the site on is therefore, pretty crucial! There are a few that are typical:
  index.htm, default.htm, home.htm, start.htm. All of these can of course be .html as well. When in doubt go with index.htm though, its pretty much the standard!
Browsers:
- Remember, as in never ever ever ever forget, they are all just applications;
- They all simply “interpret” code based on how they were built... so your HTML scripting will look different from browser to browser -- sometimes even from one version of a browser to another.
Computers and Monitors: yeah... they’re different too – so again it will look different depending on where you view your pages.
- Often times people configure their computers to perform slightly differently. Sometimes the screen in darker, or larger than you might expect for example. Keeping this in mind will help you decide on where things are placed, the "size" of your page, and also have an effect on the colors you choose.