I need Help with Dreamweaver

Hello everyone gracious to read or maybe even respond to this thread. I have a question regarding Dreamweaver MX. I am new to this program and HTML, I have used HTML in the past and I am semi-coherent and knowlegable of basic HTML Code. My question however is in Dreamweaver, why is it that when I Have a specific background image and I place text on a certain spot in that specific page that when I view it in Internet Explorer It looks totally different? Is this normal or am I another Moron? Well as you can tell I am a Dreamweaver Virgin so in your responses, please be kind. Thank you and have a nice day!

 

what do you mean it looks totally different? are you actually using html coding or are you using the wysiwyg editor?

 

When I am using Dreamweaver in the Design mode and place text in a specific spot on the background it looks differently..

 

differently how? wrong location? wrong font face? color?

 

Hello,

Do you have an example of a webpage where this happens?

D

 

Hello Doug, Yes I do however I have yet to upload it to the internet because I currently do not have an FTP account with a server. Let me explain what's going on. I have a background for my web page that I am currently editing. At the bottom there is a long thin rectangle. When I try to place text there during the editing phase, there is no problem what-so-ever. It goes exactly where I want it. However when I preview that same page in Internet Explorer, the text is sometimes below or above that grey rectangle. Is there a way to fix this? Also, If I begin to edit the top of the page while the text that I have placed at the bottom of the page is still there, it moves as I type. How can I stop this from happening? Your help is very much appreciated!

 

I'm going to have you do this: save the html file as a txt file and attach it to this thread. You said before you knew html. Have you edited the page with html to see if it still moves the text?

 

are your tables set to a width of a percentage or a static number? if its a perentage I know the IE window is bigger than the dreamweaver window and it could be making the tables bigger and somehow distorting it.

 

Here it is Ace!

Dear Ace, I know very minimal HTML, I've created one website prior to this soley using HTML and some free html editing software on the host server. So no I have not tried to just use HTML to edit this page. I have saved it as a text document, hopefully you will be able to figure out what's going on. Thank you soo much for your help thus far. PS-Do you know of any free websites that have help and tutorials on Dreamweaver that are decent? I've visited a few yet like only some of them. Thanks again.

 

Dear Wookie, I am not using tables in my document. I have however read that they would be a benefit to me and I will take your advice. Thanks!

 

#1 rule why I hate using wysiwyg editors like that.. you always end up editing the code anyway..

My personal suggestion is to learn how to hand code it all. You'll end up with cleaner code and code that YOU know you wrote. Your style is important to how you undertsand it. To me, having generated code it like trying to go through someone elses code and figure out what they did.. BLECH!!

 

ok, i've got your code. where do you want your text?

i would also suggest using tables. you'll get much better results with where you want your text. I agree 100% with kodo...you need to learn the code yourself. trying to use the design view will only frustrate you (see? its already happened ). if I were you, I would get a learn html book and go through it until you can make the pages they have for examples without using the book. all the pages i've done, i've coded in notepad using html.

 

Hey Ace, If you can see the picture in the code I sent you I would preferably like it to be at the bottom inside the rectangle. If you can't see the picture, I would like to have the text in the bottom towards the center of the page. Maybe like three or four tabs in. That would BE AWESOME!! Thanks soo much. And while I have you on here is there anyway I can make it so that when I am using the editor when I have text at the bottom that it is stationary. I was working with it earlier this morning and everytime I would enter new text or anything the new tex that I was putting into the document would be indented and everything just like that text on the bottom..How can I stop this from happenening? Tables? Thanks soo much for your help!

 

ok. i don't have dreamweaver on this computer, so I'm doing this all with html. also, you didn't send the picture, so I don't have it. on this page, i've created two tables. the first table has a border. the second doesn't. what you can do now is go by the code i've placed and add your own. you can edit the contents in table one and it will not effect table two. i highly suggest using html to do this. if you don't want borders on your tables, either change the line border=1 to border=0 or delete border=1.

rename the txt file to html

 

examples

Drewzer03,

I put together a quick example. The code is not pretty, but it shows some tables taking up the space that you are using "<br>" to do. These tables will include the data you want to present on your page.

It seems you want the captec... to be at the bottom of the page, the best way to do this is with an include file. It is a bit more complicated, but more effective. Once you get the gist, and the syntax right, it is easy. I did it with php but you can do it with other languages (I just don't know how . "<?" and "?>" are the php tags.) Basically, the php tells the server to pull the file "cap.inc" and include it at the bottom.

If your server supports php, try uploading these two files to the same directory and see what they do. (change the html.txt to html.php and cap.txt to cap.inc) If your server doesn't support php, find out what language it does, and search for the proper include syntax (I am sure someone here can tell you). Ammending the tags should be straightforward.

Another benefit of includes, which pays off big time in the long run is if your company info changes, you just change the include and the info changes on every page. (instead of changing the company info on every page )

I hope this helps.

D

 

please never .INC for any files that have code in them unless you include the.INC extension as executable by some ISAPI component. They are the same as text files and can be read straight up. Big security no no. They should always be in extensions that are executed at runtime, like .PHP . ASP. ASPX or whatever dynamic language you're using.

 

Point taken. Thanks,

D

 

fyi:
Drewzer hit me up on aim and i got him all taken care of.

 

Thank you Everyone!

To everyone who helped me on my mission to understanding Dreamweaver, many thanks. I have figured it out for the most part thanks to Ace, Kodo and Doug. You all have been really great and I thank you again. Soon my site will be online and when it is I will definitely post the address! Thanks again! Have a great one!
Drew

 

Hello Again

Once again I am calling on the gracious folks here at Major Geeks for some help. I am using dreamweaver, as previously mentioned, and I am also using tables to help organize the text and images I have on my site. Works Great by The way! However I have recently added a google safe search onto my site and now I am un able to place the table that has my image and the text I was working on next to this search box. Is there a reason why? If you have the solution and I'm not logged on here feel free to IM me. My SN is Drewzer85. Thanks again!