Behaviors

Dreamweaver not only makes writing HTML code easy, it brings the same ease of authoring to JavaScript and Dynamic HTML. Objects in a page (such as links, images, layers, or even the page itself) can have behaviors associated with them (such as reveal a hidden layer, swap images, zap the user to a new URL, or open a popup window) when a certain action is detected (such as when a user clicks a link, puts their mouse over an image or when the page finishes loading).

The small descriptions that appear in the navigational toolbar to the left were created using layers and associating behaviors (show-hide layers) with each of the links.

Examples of behaviors in Dreamweaver.

Library Items

Often an element will appear over and over again in a site and can be tedious to edit all of them correctly. Using the Library, you can define such elements (for example, a navigational table or a departmental masthead) and drag and drop them into your pages. When you change the library item, all pages that include that item are automatically updated.

The links at the bottom of the pages in this seminar are created using a library element.

Templates

Suppose you are in charge of creating a number of pages that are to have a similar look and feel to one another. Suppose you have a number of others working with you on the project and you want all the pages to have a consistent design. The solution: use templates. Templates are ideal when your site has many pages that have very similar format (such as Faculty biographies). One designer makes a template, marks which parts are editable and which are not, then everyone can use this template when creating future pages based on this scheme.

Extending Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver's open architecture has invited many third parties to make their own objects, behaviors, inspectors and commands. Real Networks, HP, IBM, and WebMonkey are just a few. If you are experienced in HTML and JavaScript programming, then take a look at some of the tutorials out there on creating your own Dreamweaver extensions.

Check the Resources page for links to pages with free extensions to Dreamweaver for download and information on how to make your own Dreamweaver extensions.