springB @ UVA: November 2006

"Lesson No. 3: You will be forced to choose between the ideal and the practicable"

CSS Resources -

Agenda for Intro to Dreamweaver 8 -

The Workspace - design vs code view, panels, menus, quick tag editor...
Managing/Defining Sites - local and remote setups, FTP, templates (if time)...
Code Cleanup - Commands, source formatting, Word HTML, Find/Replace...
Behaviors - swap image, W3schools.com button animation, CSS multi-element rollovers...
The CSS panel - New CSS Rule, text, tags, a:hover, boxes...

Screencapture for FTP setup:

Best Practices, at the Macrolevel:

Design for your audience - 10 guidelines for user-centered design
Design for multiple browsers - NetMechanic tutorial
Design for multiple monitor sizes - CSS Layout Gala, Liquid round corners tutorial
Design for multiple entry points
Write for the Web - How users read on the web
Optimize images for the Web - AKSI tutorial
Optimize for search engines - Google Webmaster guidelines, Web-Source tutorial, Wikipedia
Optimize for download speeds (code amount+images+script processing+Internet traffic)
Clean up your code - W3C Markup Validator, WebXact, NetMechanic HTML Toolbox)
Let the browser do the work for you

SitePoint.com has posted an FAQ on Web Design titled Bulletproof HTML: 37 Steps to Perfect Markup. It includes additional best practices, but beware of techno-speak.

Web Design is a skillset that includes:

Web Design Resources:

springB @ UVA