Beginning dreamweaver MX

With this book you''ll quickly be creating powerful, dynamic web sites with Dreamweaver MX - the latest version of Macromedia''s powerful, integrated web development and editing tool.

You''ll learn how to use the tools and features of Dreamweaver to construct three complete sites using HTML, JavaScript, Active Server Pages (ASP), and databases.

We start by creating a hobbyist site - The Cooking Place - that you can use to list your favorite recipes, ingredients, and dishes.

What does this book cover?

As you build this site you''ll learn how to use Dreamweaver MX to

Plan, create, and set up a web site Add web pages to the site and edit their content Use Stylesheets and templates to create a consistent style across the site Use tables, frames, and layers to lay out web pages Add dynamic effects - like drop down menus - to web pages using JavaScript and DHTML Interact with users via forms on web pages Create dynamic ASP web pages to respond to user actions and input

As you progress through the book, the sites you create become ever more ambitious. The second site you build is a fan site for soccer that provides information on upcoming events for fans around the world.

As you build the second site you''ll learn how to use Dreamweaver MX to:

Add logic to your ASP pages, so that you can display different information to different users, based on their location, or even the time of day Keep track of users as they move around the site, so that you can learn what parts of your site are the most popular Secure parts of the web site so that only authorized users are allowed to see sensitive information Personalize the web site for individual users - so that the site appears in the colors of the user''s favorite team or so that the user only sees events in their home country Store and extract information about users and upcoming events in a database - and use this information to dynamically create web pages

The final site in the book shows off many of the advanced features of Dreamweaver MX, as you walk through how to design a modular, extensible, and scalable site, and create a set of dynamic building blocks that can be quickly modified and reused in different sites.

As you build this site - which is used to display a set of images that users can view and purchase - you''ll learn how to use Dreamweaver MX to:

Create a set of building blocks whose look and content is determined dynamically by the settings in a database Create a content management page that you can use to mange the database that stores information about the images on the site, including their title, price, and how they should be laid out Put the building blocks you created earlier to a variety of uses, including a news blogger, a media display, and a product display Use Dreamweaver Extensions to make our building blocks easy to reuse and to add e-commerce functionality to the site

At the end of some of the chapters you''ll find a series of suggested exercises from the author that are designed to test your understanding of what''s been covered in the chapter as well as to encourage you to experiment with the features of Dreamweaver MX and to modify and extend the example applications.

Who is this book for?

This book is primarily for complete beginners to web site programming who have access to Dreamweaver MX and want to learn how to create dynamic web sites with it.

But the book doubles as a comprehensive reference to the features of Dreamweaver MX, so it will also be a useful resource to more experienced web developers who want to learn how to use the latest version of Dreamweaver.

As you work through the book, you''ll learn how to program using Active Server Pages (ASP), but this will prove useful even if you eventually want to use Dreamweaver MX to create web sites with JavaServer Pages (JSP), ASP.NET, PHP, or ColdFusion MX. Programming in any of these languages is very similar in Dreamweaver MX, and the core concepts you learn in building web sites with ASP are applicable and easily transferred to other languages. To help, the book includes four appendices that provide fast paced guides on how to get started using JSP, ASP.NET, PHP, and ColdFusion MX with Dreamweaver MX.

What do you need to use this book?

To run the examples in this book on your computer you''ll need:

Dreamweaver MX Microsoft Windows 98, 98SE, 2000 or XP Professional

If you don''t have a copy of Dreamweaver MX you can download a 30-day evaluation edition from Macromedia at http://www.macromedia.com/software/trial_download/ . The evaluation edition is fully-featured, and you''ll be able to use it to work through all the examples in the book.

If you have Microsoft Windows Me, Windows XP Home Edition, or a Macintosh you''ll still be able to create all the examples in the book but to see them in action you''ll need to use a remote server, as your operating system doesn''t, by default, include a web server that can process ASP pages. Fortunately, getting access to an ASP web host is easy -- there are dozens available. And to make things even easier, the book includes detailed information on how to set up a web application to use a remote server or web host.

Author Notes

Charles E Brown transferred his creative skills from music - he has a doctorate in music and studied with Igor Stravinsky (which led to an association with Pablo Picasso) - to computers in 1981. In addition to a busy music schedule, Charles does web design for major corporations, is a busy trainer conducting nearly 100 workshops per year, is a frequent speaker at conferences, and recently released the book Fireworks MX From Zero to Hero for Friends of Ed publishing. He does software seminars for The PC Learning Center in northern NJ and can be reached through www.pclearningcenter.com.

Imar Spaanjaars graduated in Leisure Management but accidentally ended up in IT. After working for a large corporation and doing some free-lance work, he is now working at the software development department of a small IT company in the Netherlands specializing in Internet and Intranet applications. As a software architect and lead developer, he's responsible for designing, building and implementing medium to large scaled Intranets for Dutch companies.
When he is not busy building web sites, or teaching other people how to do so, he likes to read as much as possible about new developments in software land. He also enjoys playing 3D shoot 'em up games if he's got the time for it.

Todd Marks is an avid developer, designer, instructor, and author of information display technologies. In 2000 Todd moved from teaching Mathematics and Computer Science in the public sector to VP of R&D at digitalorganism (www.digitalorganism.com). In 2002 Todd established an information technologies portal, MindGrub Technologies (www.mindgrub.com) and currently works for the Media Edge division of Exceptional Software (www.exceptionalsoftware.com). Todd has worked extensively with ActionScript, PHP, Lingo, and numerous other development languages, placing cutting-edge code in several projects. Todd's efforts have earned three Flash Film Festival nominations, Macromedia Site of the Day, two Addy Awards, and several educational partnerships. Todd is a Macromedia Certified Developer, Designer, and Subject Matter Expert, and has contributed to several books including Flash MX Video, Advanced PHP for Flash MX, Foundation Dreamweaver MX, and Flash MX Most Wanted Components.

Introduction	p. 1
What Does this Book Cover?	p. 2
Who is this Book For?	p. 4
What You Need for this Book	p. 5
Conventions	p. 5
Customer Support	p. 6
Errata	p. 6
E-mail Support	p. 7
p2p.wrox.com	p. 7
Why this System Offers the Best Support	p. 8
The Cooking Place
Chapter 1 Getting Started with Dreamweaver MX	p. 11
A Brief Overview of the Internet	p. 12
Static Web Pages and Dynamic Web Pages	p. 12
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)	p. 13
How the Page Gets to the Browser	p. 14
Dynamic Web Content	p. 16
Dreamweaver MX	p. 19
Installing Dreamweaver MX	p. 19
Installing a Web Server	p. 24
Installing Microsoft's IIS Web Server	p. 25
Getting Started with Dreamweaver MX	p. 29
The Dreamweaver Workspace	p. 35
Panel Groups and Panels	p. 36
The Property Inspector	p. 37
The Insert	p. 38
Setting up the Preview Browsers	p. 38
Summary	p. 42
Chapter 2 Creating a Website	p. 43
Creating a Website	p. 44
Creating a Website in Dreamweaver	p. 44
Physical Directories and Virtual Directories	p. 44
The Site Definition Feature	p. 45
Creating a Web Page	p. 51
Adding Metadata and Header Information	p. 56
Building our Page Design	p. 58
The Table Structure	p. 59
Preparing the Workspace	p. 60
Building the Top Table	p. 62
Adding Content to the Top Table	p. 66
Building the Middle Table	p. 71
Building the Bottom Table	p. 78
Summary	p. 80
Chapter 3 Site Structure, Navigation, and Content	p. 83
Site Structure and Navigation	p. 84
Expanding the Site	p. 84
Building a Navigation System	p. 85
Implementing Navigation Buttons	p. 87
Pop-up Menus	p. 93
Behaviors	p. 94
The Site Map	p. 98
Viewing Dependent Files in the Site Map	p. 100
Adding Content to Pages	p. 101
Inserting Text and Graphic Combinations	p. 107
Inserting Graphics into the Text	p. 111
Adding Links to the Text	p. 116
Summary	p. 119
Chapter 4 Stylesheets and Templates	p. 121
Cascading Style Sheets	p. 122
How CSS Works	p. 123
CSS Rules	p. 124
Creating and Implementing a CSS Stylesheet	p. 124
Adding More Styles to a Stylesheet	p. 129
Techniques for Inserting CSS	p. 134
Cascading	p. 136
CSS Classes	p. 139
Classes and Logical Markup	p. 142
Pseudo-Classes and Pseudo-Elements	p. 146
Templates	p. 150
Creating a Template	p. 150
Creating New Pages from a Template	p. 152
Editable and Non-editable Regions	p. 153
Editing Template-based Documents	p. 153
Libraries	p. 158
Summary	p. 161
Chapter 5 Using Layers and Frames for Layout	p. 163
Frames and Framesets	p. 164
How Framesets Work	p. 164
A Frameset-based Solution	p. 165
Advantages and Disadvantages of Framesets	p. 166
Manipulating the Frameset	p. 174
Finding Your Way Round the Frameset	p. 174
Using Hyperlinks with Frames	p. 177
Layers	p. 185
Summary	p. 190
Chapter 6 Behaviors and Dynamic Effects	p. 191
An Overview of Browser Scripting	p. 192
Dynamic HTML	p. 193
Attaching Multiple Behaviors to an Element	p. 197
Using Layers to Provide Extra Information	p. 199
Swapping Images	p. 204
Hidden Layers	p. 208
Using Image Maps with Behaviors	p. 212
Summary	p. 216
Chapter 7 User Interaction with ASP and Forms	p. 219
HTML Forms	p. 220
Form Validation	p. 234
Improving Forms with CSS	p. 236
Introduction to Dynamic Content	p. 238
Dynamic Web Pages	p. 240
Active Server Pages (ASP)	p. 242
Creating an ASP Page	p. 244
Using Forms with ASP	p. 247
Conditional Output	p. 249
Bringing it all Together	p. 251
Summary	p. 254
The Soccer Site
Chapter 8 Adding Logic to Your ASP Pages	p. 257
Our Sample Site	p. 258
Creating the Basics of Our Site	p. 258
Creating the Site Structure	p. 262
Passing Values from Page to Page	p. 273
Creating a Form That Uses GET	p. 274
The Request Object	p. 275
The Response Object	p. 276
Sending Values with GET	p. 276
Retrieving Submitted Values	p. 279
Sending and Receiving Values Using POST	p. 280
Post Back	p. 281
Using Information on Multiple Pages	p. 286
The Session Object	p. 286
Enabling Session State	p. 287
Exploring Session State	p. 290
The Global.asa File	p. 293
Saving Values for Use Throughout the Site	p. 296
The Application Object	p. 296
Creating a Hit Counter	p. 298
Summary	p. 301
Chapter 9 Keeping Track of Users	p. 303
Saving Information about a Page	p. 304
Cookies in Detail	p. 305
Forewarned is Forearmed	p. 310
Buffering Output	p. 310
Changing Code Logic	p. 311
Improving the User's Browsing Experience	p. 311
Site Tracking	p. 319
Grouping Code Together	p. 319
Using Include Files	p. 321
Page Monitoring	p. 322
Summary	p. 331
Chapter 10 Securing Websites	p. 333
Protecting Pages	p. 334
Creating a Login Form	p. 334
Enhancing the Login Form	p. 341
Protecting Our Pages	p. 353
Improving Usability: Using the Referrer	p. 357
Preparing for Growth	p. 361
The FileSystemObject	p. 362
Summary	p. 368
Chapter 11 Personalizing Websites	p. 369
Personalizing GlobalSoccerEvents.com	p. 369
Using Color Schemes	p. 369
Remembering Our Theme	p. 384
Your Own Color Picker	p. 387
Changing the Site Badge	p. 395
Summary	p. 410
Chapter 12 Getting Information from a Database	p. 413
What Is a Database?	p. 414
The Sample Database	p. 417
Different Kinds of Databases	p. 419
Securing a Database	p. 421
Changing Access Permissions	p. 422
Creating a Database-Driven Site	p. 427
Enhancing Our Login page	p. 431
Fine-Tuning Access to Your Site	p. 439
What is an Access Level?	p. 439
Extending Access-Level Functionality	p. 444
Summary	p. 450
Chapter 13 Displaying Data in Web Pages	p. 453
Displaying Database-Driven Events	p. 453
Displaying a List of Events	p. 454
Extending the Repeat Region	p. 466
Fitering Database Values Using a Drop-Down List	p. 466
Viewing Details of an Event	p. 474
Linking the Event List to the Detail Page	p. 474
Showing Details of an Event	p. 476
Adding Error Handling	p. 481
Paging Data	p. 485
Limiting the Events List	p. 486
Navigating the Data	p. 487
Improving Our Navigation System	p. 490
Summary	p. 493
Chapter 14 Storing Information in a Database	p. 495
Maintaining our Events	p. 496
An Introduction to Using JOINS	p. 497
Viewing Available Events	p. 499
Creating New Events	p. 508
Adding a Simple Insert Form	p. 510
Spicing up the Form	p. 520
Changing Existing Events	p. 528
Deleting Events	p. 536
GlobalSoccerEvents.com	p. 542
Summary	p. 544
MediaEdge and Building Blocks
Chapter 15 Effective Site Design and Architecture: A Modular System	p. 547
The MediaEdge Website	p. 548
Overview of the Building Block Technology	p. 549
Navigation and Content	p. 551
The Layout	p. 553
Creating the MediaEdge Site	p. 555
Index.asp	p. 557
Setting up the Page Properties of Index.asp	p. 558
Table Layout	p. 560
Adding a Search Field using Flash MX	p. 563
Creating a New Server Behavior	p. 565
Implementing the New Server Behavior	p. 567
Images	p. 571
Using Cascading StyleSheets	p. 571
Summary	p. 575
Chapter 16 Creating the Building Block	p. 577
The Building Block	p. 578
The Building Block Database	p. 579
Creating the Database	p. 580
Creating the Sections Table	p. 581
Creating the Content Table	p. 584
Creating the Section_Content Table	p. 586
The Database Connection	p. 587
Using the Database in buildingBlock.asp	p. 589
Adding a Rollover Image to the Building Block	p. 592
Creating the Building Block Recordset	p. 594
Creating a Dynamic Image Server Behavior	p. 596
Making the Building Block's Images Dynamic	p. 599
Inline Frames (iFrames)	p. 603
Dynamic Dimensions for the Center Cell	p. 606
Creating Content	p. 608
Summary	p. 613
Chapter 17 Creating a Content Management System	p. 615
Updating the Database	p. 616
Adding Fields to our Content Table	p. 616
Creating a Subnavigation Table	p. 617
Overview of a Content Management System	p. 619
Content Creation	p. 620
Record Locking	p. 620
Single-Sourcing	p. 621
Metadata Creation	p. 623
Linking	p. 623
Ease of Use	p. 624
Content Storage Issues	p. 624
Permissions	p. 625
Publishing	p. 626
Presentation	p. 627
Building our CMS	p. 628
Creating a User Options Page	p. 628
Adding the Edit and Delete Buttons	p. 629
Developing a Content Creation Page	p. 633
Developing the Content Update Page	p. 638
Removing the ID Field	p. 641
Developing the Content Deletion Page	p. 642
Extending the Forms	p. 644
Summary	p. 646
Chapter 18 Completing the Building Block Structure	p. 647
Block Navigation	p. 648
blockNav.asp in Action	p. 650
Creating the New Files	p. 651
Session Variables	p. 656
Preventing Page Caching	p. 658
Creating blockMain.asp	p. 659
Search Capabilities	p. 663
Adding Content Data	p. 668
Overview of Adding Content	p. 668
Adding Content to the Sections Table	p. 668
Adding Content to the Content Table	p. 674
File Associations	p. 676
Loading Different Types of Content	p. 680
Summary	p. 680
Chapter 19 Going Beyond--Dreamweaver MX Extensions	p. 681
Dreamweaver Extensions	p. 681
Installing the Extension Manager	p. 682
Using the Extension Manager	p. 684
Extension Format	p. 685
The Macromedia Exchange for Dreamweaver	p. 686
Comments and Ratings	p. 687
Macromedia Approved	p. 688
Adding the PayPal Shopping Cart Extension	p. 688
Summary	p. 698
Appendices
A Using ASP.NET with Dreamweaver MX	p. 701
B PHP and MySQL	p. 715
C JavaServer Pages	p. 725
D Using ColdFusion MX with Dreamweaver MX	p. 739
E Using a Remote Server	p. 753
Index	p. 761

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Table of Contents