Video:How Get Started With Adobe Dreamweaver

Transcript:How Get Started With Adobe Dreamweaver

Hi, this is Dimitri LaBarge for About.com, and today we're going to talk about getting started with Adobe Dreamweaver.

Dreamweaver is a Web Editor

Maybe the most popular and most noteworthy web editor is Dreamweaver from Adobe. Currently at version CS 5.5, it's an exceptionally robust and powerful solution. Dreamweaver offers functions to help keep complex sites organized and synced, and terrific inspection modes to help keep your code clean and free of errors. That kind of capability can be daunting; fortunately, there are easy ways to get started.

How to Get Started in Dreamweaver

In the current version, it doesn't get much simpler. As soon as you load Dreamweaver, there's a Getting Started link right there on the Welcome Screen. Click this link. It leads right to Adobe's comprehensive Dreamweaver Developer Center.

Now since we're using Dreamweaver 5.5, we're going to click the link that says Learn Dreamweaver 5.5. Great. Now you're at Adobe TV, and you're going to start viewing video episodes that give you an overview of Dreamweaver, and then more detailed tours of different functions.

Navigating the Developr Center in Dreamweaver

Let's go back to the Developer Center. We're going to assume that you have never built a website in Dreamweaver before, so click the link that reads Build Your Own Website. This will bring up a tutorial about setting up Dreamweaver. This is crucial--this setup is what differentiates Dreamweaver from, say, a text editor.

Basically, we're going to set up a local folder for us to put our website files, and then set up a remote folder where our website will live on the internet. Then Dreamweaver will keep all the files synced together. Let's see that in action. On the Welcome Screen, click Create New Dreamweaver Site. First, pick a Site Name for Dreamweaver to recognize and keep the files grouped together. Then, pick a Local Site Computer on your computer. I'll leave the default in the Documents folder.

Now click Servers. If you have a basic FTP setup to your web server, this is where you put in that information. Now click Save, and then Save again. You now have a basic sync set up, and you can now create files within that site structure.

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