How to create a website template in dreamweaver cs3

Another dialog box will appear asking you whether you want to update links. Click "Yes". Dreamweaver will create a new folder in your computer's website folder called "Templates". If you look at the filename displayed at the top of the window, you will notice that Dreamweaver has replaced the current file with the template file.

This is what we want, since we need to configure the template. By default, Dreamweaver creates a template that has no editable regions. That is, when you create a page based on the template you just saved, you will not be able to change anything on that page. To fix that, we will need to specify areas of the template that can be modified. Select the large bold text "Welcome" in the main content section of your document by dragging your mouse over it.

Your page may not have the word "Welcome" of course, but if you look at the picture above, you should be able to locate its equivalent on your site. We will mark this text, "Welcome", as editable so that it can replaced with the title of whatever page you are creating. A dialog box will appear. Type "Page title" into the box and click OK.

Dreamweaver marks that section with a visual cue to show you that it is editable. Select the paragraph under that page title and mark it editable as well. When prompted for a name to give that editable section, supply it "Page description". Since the "Products" subtitle and the section that follows may not be present in the other pages of the website, we will mark the entire of this section as an "Optional Region".

To do this, select the entire block comprising the "Products" subtitle, the picture underneath and the block of text beside the picture with your mouse.

You can give this section whatever name you wish, since the content of your block will differ from my sample page. If in doubt, just accept the default name given. Save the template by clicking "File Save" on the menu. You will be prompted with a message that putting an editable region in a block prevents users from creating new blocks in that region. Click OK. At present, your home page, the index. Since we want Dreamweaver to handle all the mundane and tedious job of updating all our pages every time we change the design of our site, we need to associate the page with the template.

The least troublesome way to do this is to overwrite your old index. You can do this with no loss of data since your template was created from the index. Click "File New". A dialog box appears. You saw this dialog box in chapter 1. This time, look at the left column and click "Page from Template". The middle columns will show information about the template you created earlier, and the rightmost column will show a thumbnail picture of your template. Make sure that the checkbox for "Update page when template changes" is checked.

Click "Create". Click "File Save As". A dialog box opens allowing you to specify the filename. Enter "index. Click "Save". A message box appears asking if you want to overwrite the existing file. That's it. You have replaced your old index. Many sites, especially companies selling some goods and services on the Internet, have a page known as an "About Us" page. This page basically tells the customers more about the company and its business.

On some personal sites, the "About Us" page contains information about the author of the site. It may even contain a brief resume or curriculum vitae CV. Click "File New" again and select "Page from Template" if it is not already selected. Once again, click "Create". Above your document, in the line with "Code", "Split", "Design" and "Title", replace the existing text in the "Title" field with "About Example.

We have examples of literary works, pulp fiction, text books, movie reviews, scripts, chairs, tables, household appliances, and so on. We even have examples of examples. Dreamweaver Site: This is an example of a Dreamweaver site, created with the help of thesitewizard.

The tutorial teaches you how to create a basic but fully-functional website which you can modify and augment to suit your needs. Leave the left column sidebar alone for now. We will add a navigation menu to this section in later chapters of this tutorial. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and replace the word "Footer" with anything you wish to put at the bottom of the page. For example, you can place your copyright notice in place of this word.

Once you are satisfied with your page, click "File Save As A dialog box will appear asking you where to save the page. Type "index. Be sure to type the name "index. It is thus very important that you do not change the name of the file to something else. Before we proceed to polish the page so that it looks at least half-way decent, we need to publish the page to your web host. One reason we're going to do this now, even before we've finished the page, is that Dreamweaver needs the information about your actual website's address or URL before it can correctly handle things like links and images on your web page.

Even though you entered it earlier when you set up your site, it only integrates such information into its system when you publish your page. So even though the page is probably an embarrassment to you at this stage, please complete the following steps, or you will encounter problems later.

Don't worry about the page being so plain. If you've not advertised your website's address URL to anyone, no one will even know your site exists, so this preliminary version of your page will be seen by no one but you. People will not visit your site out of the blue just because you happened to sign up for a web hosting account today. It's not that easy to get visitors.

Another reason that you're publishing your page at this time is so that you can get familiar with both the major stages in the design of a web page. Once you get this hurdle out of the way, and you know how to get your web page from your computer into your web host's computer, you have mastered what is arguably the biggest technical challenge a newcomer is likely to face.

Don't let this scare you though — it's actually quite easy! To publish your website, start up the Site Manager again. To do this, click "Site Manage Sites In the dialog box that appears, click on your website's name, then the "Edit The dialog box you encountered when you first set up your website appears.

Click "Next We will now change it to the actual values we need for uploading publishing your web page. In the drop down box, select "FTP".

Basically you will need to enter the information that your web host provided you when you first signed up for a web hosting account. Web hosts typically provide you with a whole bunch of details about your account when you first sign up. Among these is something known as your "FTP address". FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is the usual means by which you transfer your web pages from your own computer to your web host's computer.

Transferring your pages from your computer to your web host's computer is known as "publishing" or "uploading" your pages. If you have your own domain and are hosted on a commercial web host , this address is typically your domain name prefixed by "ftp". For example, if your domain is "example.

Check the email you received from your web host for more details, or ask them if you cannot find the details. If the address is indeed "ftp. To answer "What folder on the server do you want to store your files in? Some web hosts tell you that you need to place your web pages in a folder called "www". Still others say that you are to place your files in the default directory that you see when you connect by FTP.

If your web host tells you to simply upload the files when you connect via FTP, leave the box blank. Otherwise if they tell you that you need to publish your files in a "www" directory or some other folder name, enter that folder name in the box given. If the host does not mention this at all, chances are that you can simply leave the box blank. Again, this information has to be supplied by your web host.

Enter your password in the box for "What is your FTP password? Get your password from your web host if you don't already know it. If you don't want to have to keep entering your password every time you publish your page, you can leave the "Save" checkbox activated. Otherwise, if you are sharing your computer with others and don't want Dreamweaver to save your password, you can uncheck the box. If you like, you can click the "Test Connection" button to check that you have entered all the information correctly.

When you are finished, click "Next Finally, to publish your website, click "Site Put". When Dreamweaver pops out a message asking you whether it should "Put dependent files? This merely means that it is to upload things like your images and CSS files that are required by your web pages. Before you proceed further, you need to test the version of the web page you have uploaded. This way, you will know whether you've made any mistake when entering your details earlier.

Start up your browser. Type the URL web address of your website. This is the address that you typed into the "HTTP address" field earlier. If you have entered the FTP details correctly, you should see the page you created earlier in your web browser. If you get an error like "No DNS for www. Put simply, this means that you probably only just bought your domain name. It takes time for a new domain name to be recognized around the world usually 2 or more days , so it's possible that your ISP has not yet updated its name servers to recognize your new domain.

Some web hosts give you a temporary address which you can use to access your website in meantime. If you have that, use the temporary address to check that your site has been uploaded properly. If you have not done so, please refer to Creating a New Template. Creating a new template-based page is very similar to creating a new page or template.

If you have not yet created a template, please refer to Creating a New Template. From the File menu, select New The New Document dialog box appears. From the Categories list, select Page from Template. In the Site scroll box , select the site that contains the template on which you would like to base your new page. NOTE: You may have only one site listed in this box. In the Template for Site "the desired site" scroll box, select the template. Templates can be applied to web pages that have already been created.

When a template is applied, Dreamweaver scans the page for region names for more information about regions, see Templates: An Overview. Since the page is not based on a template, there will be no region names associated with it. Therefore, when Dreamweaver scans the page for region names, a mismatch will occur. Without a region name, Dreamweaver is unsure as to where the existing content of the page should be placed. To remedy this situation, you will need to select what region the page's content shall be moved to.

The Select Template dialog box appears.