Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed- P3

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed- P3: The good news is Dreamweaver provides numerous windows, panels, inspectors, and toolbars forstreamlining the way you build websites. The bad news, unfortunately, is that Dreamweaver providesnumerous windows, panels, inspectors, and toolbars for streamlining the way you build websites. Why somany windows, panels, and so on, Dreamweaver is unprecedented in the feature set it provides, allowingdevelopers complete control when building websites and applications....
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Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Unleashed- P3As you can see, the options in the drop-down menu dont resemble point or pixel sizes; instead, they referto HTML sizes. Although the default size of the page is set as an absolute value of 3, you have the option ofselecting from a list of absolute or relative sizes for your page. The absolute size is a straight number from 1through 7, with 1 being the smallest and 7 being the largest. With relative sizes, you can either add to orsubtract from the default font size of the page, otherwise known as the base font. For example, because thedefault font is 3, you can add to that value by choosing +1, and the type will appear as an equivalent to anabsolute size 4. To demonstrate this, try experimenting with the various sizes within a new blank page. Asyou can see from my page (FontSizes.htm contained within the Assets folder), shown in Figure 2.21, thedefault font size (base font) is 3. However, choosing the relative value of +1 displays the equivalent of theabsolute value 4. The same concept holds true for the relative value –1. In this case –1 displays similar tothe absolute value of 2. Figure 2.21. Use relative font sizes to scale up or down from the base font size. [View full size image]Sounds confusing, right? I wouldnt worry too much about working with fonts and sizes. Development getseasier and much more flexible after we move into Cascading Style Sheets. For now, lets modify ourexample by highlighting the paragraphs of text (not the headings) and choosing an absolute value of 2. Asyou can see from Figure 2.22, the text is changed. Figure 2.22. Change the size of text within our fictitious companys web page to an absolute value of 2. [View full size image]You may need to add additional line breaks before your text to prevent the text from overlapping thebackground image.Text ColorsYet another frustrating topic in web development is that of choosing the right colors for your website. Unlikein print publishing programs or word processing programs, where you can choose from a color palettecontaining millions of colors, browsers choose from a web-safe color palette of 216 colors that are commonto all computers. This guarantees that the colors we choose will be accurately viewed on browsers,independent of platform or operating system. Tip Web safe refers to the spectrum of 216 colors that are guaranteed to work on a 256-color (8-bit) computer. When colors were introduced to the Web in the early to mid 1990s, the majority of developers were designing their web pages on antiquated systems that, at best, had an 8-bit video card installed. Because the hardware couldnt support a range beyond 256 colors, a web-safe spectrum of 216 colors was introduced to make web page colors as compatible across the board as possible. Today, these systems are rare, and the need to rely on the web-safe color spectrum has diminished greatly. Realistically, the only time youd need to rely on the 216 web-safe colors is when development is targeted to small form factor devices such as a PDA or a cell phone.Dreamweaver organizes web-safe colors within the Text Color palette available just to the right of the Sizemenu. Selecting this chip opens the Color palette, also shown in Figure 2.23, and turns the pointer into aneyedropper, allowing you to not only sample colors from within Dreamweavers interface but also from anyother application or image that is visible on your screen. Figure 2.23. The Color palette opens, allowing you to sample from a list of colors directly from Dreamweavers interface—or anything else on your screen. [View full size image]A complete list of features supported by Dreamweavers Color palette are outlined next: Color Cubes— Displays a list of web-safe colors organized within cubes, starting with Black cubes on the left, followed by grayscale cubes, RGB cubes, CMYK cubes, and so on. Color Preview— Displays a larger preview of the color when your mouse rolls over a color cube. Hexadecimal Value— Displays the hexadecimal value of the color when your mouse rolls over the color cube. Explaining the concept of hexadecimal values can be a lengthy topic. For this reason, additional information can be found at the following page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal_color. Default Color— Choosing this option returns the selection back to its default color. System Color Palette— If you have a good idea that the majortity of your users will be browsing to your site using better-than-average video cards, you can think about using a wider range of colors for your site. If this is the case, you may want t ...