Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to all those who helped with this book, including my students, who always help me see technical issues through beginners ' eyes, and Murray Summers, whose technical edits provided a comfortable safety net to protect me from any embarrassing gaffes. (Thanks to Danilo Celic, too, whose contributions as technical editor for the previous edition of this book still shine through.)

Of course, without the hard work of the Dreamweaver team, this book wouldn't have been possible.

Finally, thanks to David Pogue whose unflagging enthusiasm and endurance is inspiring ; my wife, Scholle, for always being there; my mom and Doug; Mary and David; and Phyllis and Les, whose enthusiasm for this project never failed to encourage me.

”David Sawyer McFarland

The Missing Manual series is a joint venture between Pogue Press ”the dream team introduced on these pages ”and O'Reilly & Associates, one of the most respected publishers on earth. It's only because Tim O'Reilly and his team had the vision to take a gamble on this concept that this book came into existence.

Thanks, too, to agent David Rogelberg; David Sawyer McFarland, who was not only a dream author but who performed an eleventh- hour "beta read" of his own; Tom and Johnna Dinse for their masterful indexing talent; Jennifer Barber, Chuck Brandstater, Kate Briggs, John Cacciatore, Laura Chavanne, Danny Marcus, and Sada Preisch for their proofreading smarts; and the other Pogues ”Jennifer, Kelly, and Tia ”who make this series, and everything else, possible.

”David Pogue

The Missing Manual Series

Missing Manual books are designed to be superbly written guides to computer products that don't come with printed manuals (which is just about all of them). Each book features a handcrafted index, cross-references to specific page numbers (not just "see Chapter 14"), and an ironclad promise never to use an apostrophe in the possessive word its . Current and upcoming titles include:

• Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition by David Pogue

• Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

• Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition by David Pogue

• iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition by J.D. Biersdorfer

• iLife '04: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

• iPhoto 4: The Missing Manual by David Pogue, Joseph Schorr, & Derrick Story

• iMovie 4 and iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

• GarageBand: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

• Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

• Mac OS X Hints, Panther Edition by Rob Griffiths

• FileMaker Pro 7: The Missing Manual by Geoff Coffey

• Office X for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Nan Barber, Tonya Engst, & David Reynolds

• AppleWorks 6: The Missing Manual by Jim Elferdink & David Reynolds-

• Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

• Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual by David Pogue, Craig Zacker, & L. J. Zacker

Introduction

The World Wide Web continues to evolve , growing in scope and complexity, with new technologies popping up every year to make the Web look and work better. Even people building personal Web sites now employ various programming languages and server technologies to dish up content. Throughout its history, Dreamweaver has managed to keep pace with this changing technological landscape with each new version.

Dreamweaver MX 2004 is no exception: it's capable of working with more technologies than any previous version. Whether you're creating database-enabled Active Server Pages, using Cascading Style Sheets for cutting-edge design effects, or simply sticking to straightforward HTML pages, Dreamweaver has just about all the tools you need.

Any enterprising designer can create Web pages, Cascading Style Sheets, and even JavaScript programs with a simple text editor. In fact, Dreamweaver MX 2004 provides powerful text-editing abilities for creating basic text files or complex Java server pages. But why go to all that trouble when Dreamweaver's visual page-building approach makes your job of creating beautiful and complex Web sites so much easier? Whether you're new to building Web pages or a hard- core , hand-coding HTML jockey, Dreamweaver is a powerful tool that lets you build Web sites quickly and efficiently , without compromising the quality of your code.