Adobe’s Dreamweaver CS4 is a very widely-used tool for building websites. Due to the massive increase of the web over the past ten years, a staggering number of people have become involved in the development of web sites in some shape or form. The term web developer normally refers to someone who not only builds web sites but also understands the main technologies that drive the web: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ASP, ASP.Net, PHP, etc.

Dreamweaver originally fell into the second category. However, the fact that it now has excellent features for site management, code editing and collaboration means that it also falls into the first category and may help to explain why it has become an industry standard tool for website development.

Learning to use a program like Dreamweaver is not unlike learning to drive a car. You can only really learn by doing, not by watching someone demonstrate techniques. Websites are as varied as literature or commerce. You can build a website around just about any theme or business.

Each time you go through the cycle of designing, building, testing and deploying a website, you will gain more experience and confidence in using Dreamweaver. Then, when the need arises, you can delve a little deeper, attend training courses, read books and then get back to the business of putting together web pages.

The web technologies which Dreamweaver allows you to manipulate with its visual tools fall into three main categories. Firstly, we have HTML the basic component or raw material of a web page. Secondly, we have those technologies which enhance HTML: dynamic HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Flash… Thirdly, we have the server applications: PHP, ASP, ASP.Net, ColdFusion and JSP.

Dreamweaver allows teams of developers, designers and other web site contributors to work together on the same files without treading on each others toes. When Dreamweaver’s collaboration features are activated, opening a file causes it to become unavailable to other members of your team and flags the file as currently being modified by you.

The HTML 4 specification recommends the use of CSS for the formatting of web page elements such as text and tables, as against the use of embedded tags such as FONT. CSS is used for page layout as well as for formatting page elements. It allows developers to separate the layout and formatting of pages from their code, making pages faster to load, more accessible and search engine friendly.

Are you looking for training on Dreamweaver? We offer Adobe Dreamweaver courses in London and all over the UK.