CSS and Dreamweaver

css sheets in dreamweaver

[uk_designer]

Hi there I'm new to this forum so hope you'll give me a chance! About a year ago I got dreamweaver and have since created a site of about 10 pages maybe using tables. Since then I've decided to change the site and make it look better. I did a University course(I'm 19) about creating web sites but in the course we used Frontpage Express and for our project we created a site in Frontpage that used CSS sheets by simply editing the template sheets already provided in the site wizard. I am very new to learning the actual code as dreamweaver is a WYSIWYG but want to use CSS sheets with dreamweaver. However though I've looked at the process and it seems that you have to defince each style e.h. h1, h2, h3, links which I'm not used to doing as in Frontpage it was already predefined.

Is there any way that I can import a predefined style sheet with all attributes set and incorporate this into dreamweaver to eidt where necessary?
Thanks for your time

[ncsuk]

Hi UK_designer and welcome to the forums.

To import a stylesheet simply use the string below and place it in your gead tag.

<link href="scripts/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

Obviously the href needs to point to the file that you are wanting to import.

If you need more information please feel free to ask.

[BlobFisk]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, uk_designer!

The best advice I can give you is to jump in and start learning CSS. It may seem daunting at first, but once you're familiar with the basics you'll find that creating your own stylesheets is quite straightforward and will give you huge power and control over the look and feel.

One of the best places to start learning is right here! Work your way through Nick_W's superb CSS Crash Course [webmasterworld.com], which will set you well on the way.

And, as ncsuk said, if you get stuck - just ask!

[uk_designer]

thanks guys for a response so soon I will take on board what you've said. Incidentally my site is incase you want to have a look, feel free to suggest any improvement. Incidentally it's best viewed at 800x600 screen.

[edited by: NFFC at 11:19 am (utc) on June 17, 2003]

[edited by: uk_designer at 12:06 pm (utc) on June 17, 2003]

[BlobFisk]

You should look into fluid page design (there are a huge amount of discussions on it here) that uses the entire available screen space, regardless of resolution. Designing for a particular resolution is very restricting for anyone using a different setup.

[uk_designer]

Hi all ive taken a look at the crash course link you provided me with Blob but still feel that its too advanced for me and really going over my head. Ideally what I want would be to have the CSS sheet creater in Frontpage but in dreamweaver instead so that all the formatting is already done and i can use dreamweaver as normal. Is this possible?

[BlobFisk]

Dreamweaver does have a CSS pane (I think from version 3 or 4 upwards).

Window > CSS Styles (The shortcut is Shift+F11)

This will allow you to easily restyle any element you want, or create new style classes. It's a easy to use little tool that should do the job for you.

[uk_designer]

Yeah bob ive seen that option but it seems that you have to define all of the attributes from scratch, which is a little hard for beginner.

[BlobFisk]

I think that you should set a little time aside and try and come to grips with the fundamentals of CSS. Believe me, it's easy once you get over the initial "What the...?" factor! ;)

Nick_W's Crash Course is excellent, or have a look at the w3school [w3schools.com] CSS courses.

You'll find, that while it may appear time consuming and tiresome, once you get into it, defining elements is not as bad as you may think. You don't have to redefine every character - the cascading nature of CSS can help you here.

Even if you did find a pre-written CSS file for you to use (and I'm not familiar with the system you've mentioned), you may well spend an equal amount of time altering it to suit your needs as you would have starting from scratch.

Don't think of it as being too advanced - it's just new and unfamiliar and that always seems daunting (believe me!).

If you get stuck - just ask, there are many, many fine people here that'll answer your question within minutes if not seconds.

That really is the best advice that I can give!

[jackson]

uk_designer

Hi - yes, you may find that Dreamweaver in any version will soon tend to get in the way of a good thing.

When you get the hang of it, you may find that a good text editor could do the job just as well if not faster and a lot cleaner than DW. Notepad can do the job but there are others - some free and others as shareware or commercial packages. Many of the better text editors have built in CSS support - that is, commonly used CSS tags and components. Once on steady ground you'll be surprised at how quickly and easily these things can be done. Enjoy.