Adding Links

In Fireworks, you used the Property inspector to assign links to the slices. In Dreamweaver, you assign links to text or to an image on the page. You can use the Property inspector as you did in Fireworks, but you can also use the Files panel and simply point to the linked file.

1.	Double-click the about.htm file on the Files panel. Title the page About Us. On the About page, you see the text from the text slice.
2.	Select the candy image. You will use this image as the link to your home page.
3.	Type home_page.htm in the Link text box of the Property inspector. Type Return Home in the Alt text box. The name you enter is the pathname to the file as it relates to the current file. In this case, both the about.htm and home_page.htm files are located in the same folder, so you need to enter only the filename. Note If your home page has a different name, be sure to type that name instead.
4.	Save your file and then preview it in the browser. Click the candy to check that you are taken to the home page. Close the browser and return to Dreamweaver. Typing the link in the Property inspector works fine, but if you make a spelling error in the name, the link won't work. In the next step, you will use the Files panel and point to the link file to enter its name.
5.	Open the facts.htm file by double-clicking it on the Files panel. Title the page Facts and Recipes. Select the candy image on the page. Look in the Property inspector to the right of the Link text box. You should see a circular icon and a folder icon. If you click the folder icon, you can browse to the file you want to use as the link. The circular icon called Point-to-File is what you use to point to the file on the Files panel. Tip To use Point-to-File, you need to be able to see both your Document window and the files on the Files panel. You may need to move the windows so that they are side by side and not overlapping one another.
6.	Drag the Point-to-File icon to the home_page.htm file on the Files panel. Release the mouse button when you are over the file on the Files panel. As you drag the icon, you'll see an arrow extend from it to help you place the link on the file. When you release the mouse button, the name of the file you pointed to is inserted in the Link text box. In this example, you could have just as easily typed the link as you did in step 3. The advantage of using the Point-to-File icon is revealed when you want to link to files that are within subfolders. For example, look at the text box labeled Src above the Link text box. The Src text box points to the location of the candy image. Since it is in the images folder, its pathname is images/candy.gif.
7.	Save and then close your file.