Starting up

About Dreamweaver Digital Classroom

Adobe® Dreamweaver® lets you design, develop, and maintain web pages and websites. Designers and developers both use Dreamweaver, which lets you create and edit content using either a visual layout or a coding environment. Dreamweaver CC also provides tight integration with other Adobe products such as Photoshop® CC.

The Adobe Dreamweaver CC Digital Classroom helps you to understand these capabilities, and how to get the most out of your software, so that you can get up-and-running right away with the CC version of the software. You can work through all the lessons in this book, or complete only specific lessons. Each lesson includes detailed, step-by-step instructions, along with lesson files, useful background information, and video tutorials.

Adobe Dreamweaver CC Digital Classroom is like having your own expert instructor guiding you through each lesson while you work at your own pace. This book includes 18 self-paced lessons that let you discover essential skills, explore new features, and understand capabilities that will save you time. You’ll be productive right away with real-world exercises and simple explanations. Each lesson includes step-by-step instructions and lesson files available for download after registering your book at http://www.digitalclassroombooks.com/epub/dreamweavercc. The Adobe Dreamweaver CC Digital Classroom lessons are developed by the same team of Adobe Certified Instructors and Dreamweaver experts who have created many official training titles for Adobe Systems.

Prerequisites

Before you start the Adobe Dreamweaver CC Digital Classroom lessons, you should have a working knowledge of your computer and its operating system. You should know how to use the directory system of your computer so that you can navigate through folders. You also need to understand how to locate, save, and open files, and you should also know how to use your mouse to access menus and commands.

Before starting the lesson files in the Adobe Dreamweaver CC Digital Classroom, make sure that you have installed Adobe Dreamweaver CC. The software is sold separately, and not included with this book. You might use the free 30-day trial version of Adobe Dreamweaver CC available at the Adobe.com website, subject to the terms of its license agreement.

System requirements

Before starting the lessons in the Adobe Dreamweaver CC Digital Classroom, make sure that your computer is equipped for running Adobe Dreamweaver CC. The minimum system requirements for your computer to effectively use the software are listed on the following page and you can find the most current system requirements at http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/tech-specs.html.

Windows

• • Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor
• • Microsoft® Windows® 7 or Windows® 8
• • 1 GB of RAM
• • 1 GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on removable flash-based storage devices)
• • 1280×1024 display with 16-bit video card
• • Java™ Runtime Environment 1.6 (included)
• • Internet connection and registration are required for software activation, membership validation, and access to online services.

Mac OS

• • Multicore Intel processor
• • Mac OS X v10.7 or v10.8
• • 1 GB of RAM
• • 1 GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash-based storage devices)
• • 1280×1024 display with 16-bit video card
• • Java™ Runtime Environment 1.6
• • QuickTime 7.6.6 software required for HTML5 media playback
• • Internet connection and registration are required for software activation, membership validation, and access to online services.

Starting Adobe Dreamweaver

As with most software, Adobe Dreamweaver is launched by locating the application in your Programs folder (Windows) or Applications folder (Mac OS). If you are not familiar with starting the program, follow these steps to start the Adobe Dreamweaver CC application:

Windows

1 Choose Start > All Programs > Adobe Dreamweaver CC.

2 You are now ready to use Adobe Dreamweaver CC.

Windows 8

1 Use your mouse to right-click an empty area of the Start screen and click All Apps.

2 Click the Adobe Dreamweaver tile to launch Dreamweaver.

3 You are now ready to use Adobe Dreamweaver CC.

Mac OS

1 Open the Applications folder, and then open the Adobe Dreamweaver CC folder.

2 Click the Adobe Dreamweaver CC application icon.

3 Close the Welcome Screen when it appears. You are now ready to use Adobe Dreamweaver CC.

Menus and commands are identified throughout the book by using the greater-than symbol (>). For example, the command to print a document appears as File > Print.

Access lesson files & videos any time

Register your book at www.digitalclassroombooks.com/epub/dreamweavercc to download the lesson files onto any computer you own, or watch the videos on your Internet connected tablet, smartphone, or computer. You’ll be able to watch the Digital Classroom videos anywhere you have an Internet connection.

Resetting the Dreamweaver workspace

To make certain that your panels and working environment are consistent, you should reset your workspace at the start of each lesson. To reset your workspace, choose Window > Workspace Layout > Compact.

Loading lesson files

Dreamweaver CC Digital Classroom includes files that accompany the exercises for each of the lessons. You can download these lesson files after registering your book at http://www.digitalclassroombooks.com/epub/dreamweavercc.

For each lesson in the book, the files are referenced by the name of each file. The exact location of each file on your computer is not used, as you might have placed the files in a unique location on your hard drive. We suggest placing the lesson files in the My Documents folder (Windows) or at the top level of your hard drive (Mac OS).

Hosting your websites

While you can work on everything in this book using only your computer, you will eventually want to create websites that you share with the world. To do this, you will need to put your website on a computer connected to the Internet that is always accessible. This is known as a web server. If you don’t want to get involved in hosting a website, you can pay a company to provide space on their web servers for you. Subscribers to Adobe’s Creative Cloud service can publish and host their sites using Adobe Business Catalyst and Adobe Dreamweaver CC. Another good place to look for a hosting provider is here: http://www.microsoft.com/web/hosting/home/. If you want to set up your own computer for hosting a web server and you are using any Windows computer, you can turn it into a web server at no cost by using the Web Platform Installer available at: http://www.microsoft.com/web. If you are a Mac OS user, you can get Mac OS X server from Apple to use a Mac OS computer as a web server.

If you are just getting started, you don’t need to worry about web hosting just yet. But you’ll find this information useful once you start creating sites, and you learn how to manage sites using Dreamweaver.

Additional resources

The Digital Classroom series goes beyond the training books. You can continue your learning online, with training videos, at seminars and conferences, and in-person training events.

Additional Adobe Creative Cloud Books

Expand your knowledge of creative software applications with the Digital Classroom book series. Books are available for most creative software applications as well as web design and development tools and technologies. Learn more at DigitalClassroomBooks.com.

On-demand video training from the authors

Comprehensive video training from the authors are available at DigitalClassroom.com. Find complete video training along with thousands of video tutorials covering Dreamweaver and related Creative Cloud apps along with digital versions of the Digital Classroom book series. Learn more at DigitalClassroom.com.

Training from the Authors

The authors are available for professional development training workshops for schools and companies. They also teach classes at American Graphics Institute, including training classes and online workshops. Visit agitraining.com for more information about Digital Classroom author-led training classes or workshops.

Seminars and conferences

The authors of the Digital Classroom seminar series frequently conduct in-person seminars and speak at conferences, including the annual CRE8 Conference. Learn more at agitraining.com and CRE8summit.com.

Resources for educators

Visit digitalclassroombooks.com to access resources for educators, including instructors’ guides for incorporating Digital Classroom into your curriculum.