Adobe recommends the following minimum requirements for running Dreamweaver on a Macintosh:

Adobe recommends the following minimum requirements for running Dreamweaver on a Windows system:

Part I begins with a look at what's new in Dreamweaver CS3—and there's an awful lot to cover. Next up, you'll find an overview of Dreamweaver's philosophy and design. To get the most out of the program, you need to understand the key advantages it offers over other authoring programs and their deficiencies, which Dreamweaver addresses. Part I takes you all the way to setting up your first site.

Although Dreamweaver is partly a visual design tool, its roots derive from the language of the Web: HTML. Part II gives you a solid foundation in the basics of HTML, even if you've never seen code. It also shows you how to get the most out of Dreamweaver's code environment with any language. Chapter 6 describes what you need to know about the overall structure of a Web page, including the all-important <meta> tags.

Reflecting the current emphasis in Web design on Cascading Style Sheets, Chapter 7 lays the foundation to CSS. In this chapter, you learn the basics of CSS, as well as how to define and apply styles in Dreamweaver. Following the introduction to CSS, you learn the three fundamentals of static Web pages: text, images, and links. In Chapters 8, 9, and 10, you explore how to completely incorporate these elements.

After you master the basics, you're ready to learn about some of Dreamweaver's true power tools in Part III. First up is one of the most important constructs of HTML: <div> tags, also known in Dreamweaver as AP elements. Chapter 11 examines this brave new world of pixel-perfect positioning, AP elements that fly in and then disappear as if by magic, and Web sites that can change their look and feel at the click of a mouse. Chapter 12 offers an in-depth look at the capabilities of Dreamweaver behaviors. These bring a great deal of interactivity to AP elements specifically and to your Web page in general. Each standard behavior is covered in detail with step-by-step instructions.

Chapter 13 explores the various uses of tables—from a clear presentation of data to organizing entire Web pages. Here you learn how to use Dreamweaver's visual table editing capabilities to resize and reshape your HTML tables quickly. Forms are an essential element in dynamic Web page design, and you learn all about them in Chapter 14. Chapter 15 presents another fundamental HTML option: lists. You study the list in all its forms: numbered lists, bulleted lists, definition lists, nested lists, and more.

Chapter 16 investigates the somewhat complex world of frames. You see how Dreamweaver has greatly simplified the task of building and managing these multifile creations, particularly with the Frame objects. You also learn how to handle more advanced design tasks such as updating multiple frames with just one click. If you want to delve into the 4th dimension in Web design, you get an opportunity in Chapter 17 with the exploration of timelines.

Chapter 18 takes the Web to a whole new level: Web 2.0 to be exact. With the introduction of the Spry framework, Adobe has made the sophisticated inner-workings of Ajax accessible to every Web developer. This chapter explains what Ajax is and how Spry fits into the picture before diving into the wide range of Spry tools available in Dreamweaver CS3, including Spry Data, Spry Widgets, and Spry Effects.

Chapter 19 begins an in-depth investigation of Dreamweaver's power to create dynamic Web pages by describing how to set up your basic connections and recordsets. Chapter 20 explains how to insert text from a data source onto your Web page and how to format it after it's incorporated. You also see how to relate other Web page elements—such as images, Flash movies, and other media files—to a data source. Chapter 21 continues the exploration by delving into Dreamweaver's powerful Repeat Region server behavior as well as discussing techniques for hiding and showing your data at will.

One of Dreamweaver's most useful features, the Live Data Preview, is examined extensively in Chapter 22. Chapter 23 enters the world of multipage applications and explains how variables and other data can be passed from one page to another.

In recent years, the Web has moved from a relatively static display of text and simple images to a full-blown multimedia circus with streaming video, background music, and interactive animations. Part V contains the power tools for incorporating various media files into your Web site.

Graphics remain the key medium on the Web today, and Adobe's graphics programs are the world leaders. Chapter 24 delves into methods for incorporating both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Fireworks graphics as well as graphics management through Adobe Bridge. Special focus is given to the Dreamweaver-to-Photoshop and Dreamweaver-to-Fireworks communication links and how your Web production efforts can benefit from it.

In addition to Dreamweaver, Adobe is perhaps best known for one other contribution to Web multimedia: Adobe Flash. Chapter 25 explores the possibilities offered by incorporating Flash and Shockwave movies into Dreamweaver-designed Web pages and includes everything you need to know about configuring MIME types. You also find step-by-step instructions for building Shockwave inline controls and playing Shockwave movies in frame-based Web pages, as well as how to add Flash Buttons, Flash Text, and the new Flash elements.

Chapter 26 covers digital video in its many forms—downloadable AVI files, streaming RealVideo displays, panoramic QuickTime movies, and the newest, hottest media: Flash video. Chapter 27 focuses on digital audio, with coverage of standard WAV and MIDI sound files as well as the newer streaming audio formats like MP3.

Although Web page design gets all the glory, Web site management pays the bills. In Part VI, you see how Dreamweaver makes this essential part of any Webmaster's day easier to handle. Chapter 28 starts off with a look at the use of Dreamweaver Templates and how they can speed up production while ensuring a unified look and feel across your Web site. Chapter 29 covers the Library, which can significantly reduce any Webmaster's workload by providing reusable—and updatable—page elements. Chapter 30 describes Dreamweaver's built-in tools for maintaining cross- and backward-browser compatibility, including the essential Browser Compatibility Check, which reviews your page for rendering issues in a number of modern browsers.

Until now, individual Web developers have been stymied when attempting to integrate Dreamweaver into a team development environment. File locking was all too easily subverted, allowing team members to inadvertently overwrite revisions. Site reports were limited in scope and output only to HTML, and, worst of all, version control was nonexistent. Dreamweaver CS3 tackles all these concerns while laying a foundation for future connectivity. In Chapter 31, you see how you can tie Dreamweaver into an existing Visual SourceSafe or WebDAV version control system. Other new features covered include custom file view columns and enhanced Design Notes accessibility.

I can't think of any new technology on the Web that has gained widespread acceptance as quickly as XML has. In a nutshell, XML (short for Extensible Markup Language) enables you to create your own custom tags that make the most sense for your business or profession. Although XML doesn't enjoy full browser support as of this writing, it's only a matter of time—and little time at that. Chapter 32 shows you how to apply this fast-approaching technology of tomorrow in Dreamweaver today, with a special section on Dreamweaver CS3's new XML/XSLT technology.

Dreamweaver is a program with immense capabilities for expanding its own power. Chapter 33 explores the brave new world of Dreamweaver extensibility, with complete coverage of using and building commands as well as custom tags, translators, floaters, and C-level extensions. With its own set of objects and behaviors, Dreamweaver complements HTML's extensibility. Finally, Chapter 34 examines server behaviors, describing every standard one in detail and then exploring the use of the Server Behavior Builder, Dreamweaver's tool for creating custom server behaviors.

The appendix describes the contents of the CD-ROM that accompanies this book. Throughout this book, whenever you encounter a reference to files or programs on the CD-ROM, please check this appendix for more information.

Because Dreamweaver CS3 Bible is a cross-platform book, it gives instructions for both Windows and Macintosh users when keystrokes for a particular task differ. Throughout this book, the Windows keystrokes are given first; the Macintosh are given second in parentheses, as follows:

The first action instructs Windows users to press the Ctrl and Z keys in combination, and the second action (in parentheses) instructs Macintosh users to press the Command and Z keys together.

When you are instructed to press two or more keys simultaneously, each key in the combination is separated by a plus sign. For example:

The preceding tells you to press the three listed keys for your system at the same time. You can also hold down one or more keys and then press the final key. Release all the keys at the same time.

When instructed to click an item, move the mouse pointer to the specified item and click the mouse button once. Windows users use the left mouse button unless otherwise instructed. Double-click means clicking the mouse button twice in rapid succession.

When instructed to select or choose an item, you can click it once as previously described. If you are selecting text or multiple objects, click the mouse button once, press Shift, and then move the mouse to a new location and click again. The color of the selected item or items inverts to indicate the selection. To clear the selection, click once anywhere on the Web page.

When instructed to select a command from a menu, you see the menu and the command separated by an arrow symbol. For example, when instructed to execute the Open command from the File menu, you see the notation File

I use italic type for new terms and for emphasis and boldface type for text that you need to type directly from the computer keyboard.

A special typeface indicates HTML or other code, as demonstrated in the following example:

<html>
<head>
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
</body>
</html>

This code font is also used within paragraphs to designate HTML tags, attributes, and values such as <body>, bgcolor, and #FFFFFF. All HTML tags are presented in lowercase, as written by Dreamweaver, although browsers are not generally case-sensitive in terms of HTML.

The code continuation character (