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By Haiwang Yuan, haiwang.yuan@wku.edu
If you are still manually coding your library’s Web pages, you need to seriously consider using a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) visual HTML authoring tool. After trying a few freeware or shareware programs, I have now become a convert of Macro-media’s Dreamweaver. Savvy HTML authors do not need to lose a bit of their prowess as Dreamweaver provides a round-trip HTML authoring interface. That is, the HTML author has at their disposal both a visual Document Window to place objects like texts, tables, images, Flash movies as well as other multimedia plug-ins, and at the same time the HTML text editor. A favorite textual editor can also be brought in to work with Dreamweaver. It is like an automobile with both manual and automatic transmission. Shifting from one to the another is just a matter of a keystroke (F10 on both a PC and a Macintosh). What is good about this round-trip interface is that they are sensitive to each other. Have you ever had the experience, as you work with convoluted tables in the codes, of trying to find a particular cell? It is literally like trying to find a needle in the haystack. On Dreamweaver, when anything in one interface is selected, that block of the selection will be highlighted in the other. This sensitivity is also demonstrated by the thoughtfulness of Dreamweaver’s programmers: at the bottom left of the Document Window, there will appear anchor names whenever areas on the Document Window are selected that use those anchors, making selections of any part of a HTML document during its development a cinch.
By now you may already have felt Dreamweaver’s ease of use. The drag and drop feature is not only a time saver but also a trouble saver. Again, take convoluted tables for example, as tables are one of the best features the not-designed-for-formatting HTML has ever had. Incidentally, tables have many fine uses: mocking an image map and page layout as if it were produced on the PageMaker software. You may recall how difficult it is to create the correct “rowspans” and “collspans” that control the cell numbers in rows and columns of a table. On Dreamweaver, one only needs to select cells one wants to merge and click on the merger button or icon in the Properties Panel. To expand a cell into more rows or columns, one needs only to do the reverse.
A web site usually consists of multiple pages that have more or less the same look and navigation mechanism. That is where Dreamweaver’s “template” function shines. It allows instantaneous and simultaneous modifications to be made to numerous pages created upon a template. If only a small area of each of the page needs to be consistent and modified very often, then the “library” function proves useful. A copy of that section is saved into the library and is used when needed. The advantage of a library object is that, like a template that controls the layout of a whole page, it updates all the same sections of various pages by just making modifications to that one object. With templates, one can produce non-framed pages with the effect of frames; namely, the same navigation is kept on every page while its content changes. Then one need not worry about the difficulties that frames may generate, such as printing a page may end up printing only the menu bar.
Dreamweaver is also a good tool for managing a web site. Apart from its spell-checker and the internal link checking functionality, Dreamweaver’s “Check In/Out” function allows webmasters to monitor what their teammates are doing to the same pages he or she is working on. To check external links, one still needs to use a web-based service like LinkAlarm or NetMechanics.
The new version, Dreamweaver 3.0, now boasts the capability to extend its indigenous functionality. With its newly added Extension Manager, you can download for free a whole slew of small software that adds to the capabilities of Dreamweaver as if they were part of the software package. If you download an extension that creates a form such as a list menu with all the fifty states, then adding the list to your Web page is but a matter of a mouse click.
You may download a 30-day free trial copy of Dreamweaver 3.0 with full functions or purchase one from < http://www.macromedia.com/software/downloads/>. When you purchase, remember to ask for the education discount price. Software packages are usually as little as $99 per copy and maybe available in your university bookstore. You may attend a free 3-hour training seminar that Macromedia conducts at several locations of the country. If you happen to be anywhere close to the locations where the seminars take place, you have hit the jackpot. For details of the training seminars, visit <http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/events/>.
Dreamweaver is not the only professional Web authoring and site management tool that does all these wonders. Adobe GoLive 5, < http://www.adobe.com/products/golive/main.html> and Microsoft FrontPage 2000, < http://www.microsoft.com/catalog/display.asp?subid=22& site=768&x=31&y=9> are both worthy competitors. It is only a matter of which one you choose to use.
Haiwang Yuan is Assistant Professor and Web Site & Virtual Library Coordinator at the Western Kentucky University Libraries & Museum, 1 Big Red Way, Bowling Green KY 42101.
LIRT News, December 2000. Volume 23, number 2.
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