Adobe Dreamweaver Team Blog

Today a small but very helpful feature was added to Adobe BrowserLab, the Adobe web hosted service that helps you check for cross-browser compatibility. You can now save screenshots that BrowserLab generates, for easy reference or to send around to others.

If you have Dreamweaver CS4, make sure to download the BrowserLab extensions, so that you can launch the service directly from Dreamweaver, and exclusively preview frozen Javascript menus, Ajax data, local content, and more. All you need to do is download and install the two BrowserLab extensions. (Note - the BrowserLab team has made a couple changes to the extensions, so if you already have them installed you'll need to delete them and install the new ones).

BrowserLab is currently available as a limited free preview.

Not only is the title of this blog posting a topic of interest for many, many Dreamweaver users, it is also the title of a brand new book by Dreamweaver Community Expert and moderator, David Powers. We're very excited about this book because it promises to teach the very best CSS methods and techniques, from one of the best educators out there.

Between now and February 26th, 2010, APRESS is actually offering readers of this blog a 50% discount on the ebook version of Getting Started with CSS. Visit www.apress.com, search for the book by title, click the BUY AS EBOOK button, and enter the promotional code: DWBLOGMR.

Mr. Powers (the name is apt) is one of the most active members on the Adobe Dreamweaver forums, so if you have questions or comments about his book, you can always find him there.

It's easy enough to insert Spry widgets in Dreamweaver, but customizing them is another matter. Surprisingly, there are not a great number of resources out there that show folks how to customize Spry widgets. Below are some of the more popular and useful ones that might help you get to where you want to go.

Spry widget samples (ADOBE)
Code and styling samples of all of the Adobe Spry widgets, directly from the Adobe Spry team.

Customizing Spry Menu Bars in Dreamweaver (JUST DREAMWEAVER)
Resource page offering various Spry Menu Bar information available out on the Web.

Creating Custom Spry Widgets: Dreamweaver CS3 (LYNDA.COM)
Video series showing how to insert and modify a Sliding Panels widget.

Tabbed Panels and Menu Bar widgets: Dreamweaver CS3 (PEACHPIT PRESS)
Basic tutorial on inserting and styling Tabbed Panels and Menu Bar widgets.

Spry Validation widgets (LAYERS MAGAZINE)
Video tutorial on inserting and styling Spry form validation widgets.

Building Spry pages visually (ADOBE)
The Dreamweaver Help system. Each widget contains a customization section, which links out to the larger Spry Developer's Guide.

We get a lot (and I mean A LOT) of queries about CSS layouts -- what are they, how do they work, where do I go to start? Here are just a few of some of the best resources out there if you are trying to tackle this formidable but popular beast:

From table-based to tableless web design (ADOBE)
Popular two-part tutorial series on building a CSS layout from scratch, and converting table-based layouts to pure CSS.

CSS page layout basics (ADOBE)
Explanation of a basic CSS layout that breaks down the structure and rules that create the layout.

Creating a CSS layout from scratch (SUBCIDE)
An older but still quite useful step-by-step tutorial on creating a CSS layout.

Building your first CSS site (ADOBE)
Steps beginners through the process of defining structural elements and then styling them.

Tableless layouts with Dreamweaver CS4 (ADOBE)
Shows you how to create a simple two-column CSS layout.

Creating a simple three-column design (ADOBE)
Shows you how to build a three-column design, including using the "faux column" technique

Dreamweaver CSS starter layouts (ADOBE)
An article written for Dreamweaver CS3, but still useful as the starter layouts did not change in CS4.

Create a page with a CSS layout (ADOBE)
The Dreamweaver CS4 Help doc equivalent to the above starter layouts article.

CSS layout (HTML SOURCE)
A popular article describing many of the most common terms and principles used for CSS layouts.

In Search of the Holy Grail (A LIST APART)
Elegant article on creating the "holy grail" of CSS layouts: the three-column, fixed-width sidebars, liquid center layout.

There have been many, many posts on the Dreamweaver forums about problems with displaying FLV files. We've just updated the CS4 documentation to include a new troubleshooting section that might help a lot of you who are having problems. As this is a much-talked-about issue, please publicize this troubleshooting information as much as possible on other blogs and forums if you're able to do that.

Special thanks to David Powers who originally alerted us to the need for such a doc.

The doc does not and cannot cover all issues. There are still many users for whom this doc won't provide a solution. But hopefully, the information provided will be able to help a good majority of people having trouble with FLV.