| Studio MX is primarily a tool set for actually creating Web sites, but you're also likely to use it for "noodling" ideas and experimenting ”the equivalent of sketching on a napkin ”when you (or your client) are not yet sure exactly what you want the site to look like or do. FreeHand can be particularly valuable at this stage. Other tools you might want to leverage include the Dreamweaver Bindings panel, templates, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Using FreeHand for Mockups At the planning stage, when you're just experimenting with ideas, FreeHand has a number of features that recommend it for the job. For instance, it is the only program in the suite that can handle multiple pages in one document and output them all as HTML in one operation (using Publish as HTML). You may or may not end up using this HTML in your final project, but it does allow you to generate and view multiple Web pages quickly and easily. So FreeHand is an efficient tool if you're making mockups or sketches of multiple Web pages. FreeHand is also the only product that has built-in flowcharting , which uses its dynamically linked objects feature. Finally, Master Pages allows you to easily represent common elements, such as a logo or navigation bar, on multiple Web pages.  For more on using FreeHand for mockups, see Chapter 30, "Using FreeHand in Web Site Planning and Creation, " page 837 .
The Dreamweaver Bindings Panel If you're working with dynamic data, part of the planning/design process will be getting a feeling for how much room it will take up on the screen, how to present it legibly and usably, how it will harmonize with other design elements, and so on. Assuming you've already got your database installed, and you are successfully accessing it through the Bindings panel in Dreamweaver, populating HTML tables with data is a straightforward process in Dreamweaver. It's easy enough to create several different data layouts to see which one works best. Templates You may also want to spend some time browsing the templates in Flash and Dreamweaver. If you can decide early in the design process that you can adapt one of these to your needs, it can save you hours and hours of work. The template options show up when you start a new document file (File, New). CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can make it easy to experiment with different formats and see the changes in all your files, including text in Flash content. CSS originated in the HTML world as a way of controlling formatting in any number of documents by editing one simple text file, the style sheet. One of Macromedia's major focuses for Dreamweaver MX 2004 was deeper support for CSS-based designs. Dreamweaver MX 2004 is an excellent tool for creating and maintaining style sheets. And now the style sheets you manage in Dreamweaver can easily be applied to text in Flash, too. Dreamweaver also provides templates for style sheets and for HTML documents based on style sheets. Studio MX's CSS support isn't perfect. I'd like to see Flash use CSS for non-text designelements, such as background color . And I wish I could apply styles with one click in Dreamweaver MX 2004, the way I could in Dreamweaver MX. Nevertheless, I'm excited about Macromedia's clear commitment to making CSS central to the design process, and to expanding the power and convenience of CSS beyond HTML and Dreamweaver. Even Fireworks, with its Export to CSS Layers feature, enables you to export the layers of a Fireworks document to CSS layers , so that you can continue in Dreamweaver to move and re- size each layer individually, and even change which layer is on top of which. CSS offers a low-maintenance way of keeping formatting in sync in any number of HTML files. That is particularly valuable during the early design stages, when you may have to make global changes repeatedly. Consider making CSS an integral part of your strategy early in the design cycle. | 