Week 17: Dreamweaver and CSS Workshop

Throughout today's session I have been continuing with the web authoring workshops. Today we focused on introduction to Dreamweaver and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). The aim of today's workshop was to understand the elements within Dreamweaver and how CSS works. The main aim was to use the new skills learnt within Dreamweaver by creating 3 linked pages including images, background colours and text.
When carrying out this task today I felt confident in the new skills and knowledge I have gained. I understood the different stages of creating the webpages within Dreamweaver. I took notes throughout this task to help me understand the different tools within Dreamweaver and I can also write my Skills Audit with these notes. Throughout this session I was guided through the different parts of the workshop based on CSS. I learnt many new skills and have gained knowledge in terms of Dreamweaver and the creation of webpages, some of these skills and knowledge include:

• Organising Folders- I have learnt the importance of organising the 'Root' folder. I have created 3 folders within this, these include HTML (webpages), Images (images ready to upload to webpage) and RAW (Any word document files). It is important that these files are organised so the webpage file is able to locate the files for the certain webpage being edited. If the saved webpage HTML file cannot locate a file the webpage could potentially be broken.
• Properties Panel- I have learnt the functions of the properties panel which is located at the bottom of the Dreamweaver. This includes the page's font size, font colour, font style, background colour and headings text colour and size. This is located within every page which is created within Dreamweaver.  
• Creating 'New Site'- In the tool bar along the top of the screen is a button for site- new site. I learnt how to create the new site with the correct settings. This involved Dreamweaver going through a defining process to create the initial site page. This involved me selecting certain settings. I can also create a new file (new page) to appear in the same file (Dreamweaver page) so I can edit the different pages at the same time without having to re-open the files.
• Linking pages together- Another skill I learnt was linking the different pages together, so when I previewed these within the web browser I can click on a button (text) to link t one of the webpages. For example, I linked the index page to page 2 and back again to the index page. I did this using the properties panel and using the pick whip tool and select the 'Link' box and drag the tool to the page 2. I added the link to a piece of text within the page and this automatically links the pages together. Another piece of knowledge I gained was the use of the'_self selection' within the properties panel. This relates to the links I have made. This keeps my different pages within one browser window when a link to another page is selected.
• Flash Text- I also learnt about Flash Text, this is a swf file and I used this to create a text link button. I firstly created the text which I wanted to appear on the webpage. I selected the font, colour and size. I created the link button 'Back' within my webpage 2. I added this swf file to page 2 to link back to the index page, I selected this index page from the drop down link menu in the properties panel.

From the above knowledge and skills I have learnt I feel confident about using CSS and Dreamweaver when creating my own website. I feel confident because I am able to explain the different tools used within Dreamweaver for CSS. Reflecting on this task I believe I have completed the task of creating 3 different webpages interlinked using Dreamweaver and CSS tools. I have gained more knowledge and skills which I can improve and develop when creating my own webpages. A strength I believe I had when completing this task is the method of taking notes of the different tools and how they work in terms of Dreamweaver and CSS. This will therefore help me when I write my skills audit for this session and subject area of CSS.
I will continue to reflect on the skills and knowledge I have gained by writing my skills audit for this session. I will include the various elements which I learnt about, their purpose and the appearance of this within the web browser.