GOLIVE S MENUS

GOLIVE'S MENUS

As with all Adobe products, the GoLive menus are logical and well thought-out to make it as easy as possible for you to find what you're looking for. You will find menus in a number of places in GoLive. The application menus are located along the top of the screen and contain access to nearly all of GoLive's features. Take a second to click each of the application menus and examine the contents of each menu:

• The GoLive menu is available on the MacOS only and contains Web Settings and Preferences, as well as the About GoLive option. On the Windows operating system, Preferences and Web Settings are found under the Edit menu, and the About GoLive option is under the Help menu.

• The File menu enables you to open, close, import, and export files as well as set some file-related settings.

• The Edit menu contains the standard editing features in addition to selections for finding elements; checking spelling and code syntax; and settings for PDFs, colors, and keyboard shortcuts.

• The Type menu contains HTML text formatting options along with access to some cascading style sheet (CSS) features.

• The Special menu contains a variety of submenus to help you work with everything from JavaScript to tables to dynamic HTML (DHTML) timelines. You can also set the page properties from this menu and view document statistics such as character count and word count.

• The Site menu contains options specific to the management and editing of your site using the GoLive site window.

• The Diagram menu offers options for diagramming a website, setting up a staging server, and creating a table of contents.

• The Movie menu contains features for editing QuickTime movies.

• The View menu enables you to specify how things appear on the screen. It's also where you go to show or hide the rulers, grid, and smart guides.

• The Window menu is where you go to display palettes and toolbars. All open windows and documents are listed at the bottom of this menu, making it easy to see what's open and to switch between the listed items.

• The Help menu provides, as its main feature, access to GoLive help. There is a lot to know about GoLive, and Adobe's help files are comprehensive and easy to navigate. Before you spend time paging through the documentation, check the help files. This is also the menu where you can turn Tool Tips on or off, control how you want to check for software updates, and transfer the activation code if you need to install GoLive on a new computer.

Palette and Window Menus

Most of the palettes in GoLive contain some sort of palette menu that offers features and options for that particular palette. The site window and document window also contain minimenus of their own. The palette menus and window menus are indicated by a triangle pointing to the right, as shown in Figure 34.7.

Figure 34.7. Window menus and palette menus.

Button Menus, Object Menus, Tool Menus, and Status Menus

You may also encounter menus attached to buttons, objects, and status displays. Button menus are indicated by downward pointing triangles and typically display a list of options for a particular button. For example, the Open CSS Editor button in the upper-right corner of the document window will open the CSS Editor if you click it. If you click and hold on the button, however, other options are also available.

Object and tool menus are represented by a tiny angled triangle in the lower-right corner of the object or tool's icon in the Objects or Tools palette. Click and hold for a second on a tool to display its underlying tools. Simply click the object buttons to display their options. Status menus are indicated by downward-pointing triangles to the right of some status area, such as the Zoom Value located in the lower-left corner of the document window. Clicking on the arrow displays a list of options for displaying status information or, as shown in Figure 34.8, changing the view percentage.

Figure 34.8. Click the little downward-pointing triangle to display options for display and status.

Take note of buttons that contain button menus and examine the contents of the menu before clicking the button. In some cases, clicking the button may produce results you are not expecting. For example, if you click the Preview in Browser button located in the Document toolbar, your web page may launch and display in a number of browsers specified in the button menu.

You'll also find menus sprinkled throughout the various palettes and indicated by right-pointing triangles.

Context-Sensitive Menus

I always say, "When in doubt, check the context menu." If you're not sure whether an editing feature is available, or if you know it exists but just don't know where to find it, check the context menu. As with all Adobe products, you can access the context-sensitive menu by right-clicking (in Windows) or Control-clicking (on the Mac). A context menu will appear, displaying options for the thing you were pointing at when you clicked (see Figure 34.9).

Figure 34.9. The context menu shown here displays the various text-editing options available.