Dreamweaver is a coding editor that lets you to put together webpages. A normal website will have various differing types of media on it. It is important to understand what Dreamweaver can and can’t do in terms of manipulating your site. It’s main purpose is for editing and generating code and this should be understood.
Dreamweaver can do a variety of things when it comes to graphics. You can position and resize graphics on your page. more sophisticated editing of an graphic is however not possible and will require the use of a graphic manipulation application such as Photoshop or GIMP. Dreamweaver does allow you to to put borders round images or make them hyperlinks. Similar can be said of animated GIFs but once again Dreamweaver cannot manipulate these mini animations. Rollover graphics on the other hand are a different matter. Rollover images change when you hover the mouse cursor over them. Dreamweaver provides a handy wizard for creating these types of graphiccs. Dreamweaver achieves this by adding Javascript to your code. All these techniques have an associated Dreamweaver tutorial online if you wish to pursue them further.
It is also possible to resize and reposition Flash animations with the help of Dreamweaver. Exercise caution when expanding a Flash animation however as it can effect the content. For creating and editing animations Dreamweaver is not appropriate. For that purpose you would need a copy of Adobe Flash. Dreamweaver also cannot be used to change video or audio clips but it does give the user wizards to allow you to quickly embed relevant players into your page. Audacity is a free to download online software you can use for audio editing. It is worth purchasing a copy of Final Cut if you are looking to do some in depth video editing. Once again, a Dreamweaver tutorial can be found online for any of these methods.
For basic PHP code Dreamweaver can also be used. For example, you can add buttons and text fields to your page to create forms. Dreamweaver can then supply the code to connect the form to your database. Dreamweaver has only been designed to create basic PHP code. If you’re looking to do something more complicated like creating a subscription plan or ecommerce for your site you will need more than just a wizard and good knowledge on the subject. If you’re planning to set up any site with money involved extra care needs to be taken. If you mislead a visitor in any way you could end up breaking the law.
The main benefit of Dreamweaver is that it allows you to preview your webpage while you code and also lets you directly adjust the design without adjusting the code. With the tools and features available through Dreamweaver you can format text, create shapes and adjust graphics without touching the code. Dreamweaver only gets you so far though. For in depth editing of animations, graphics, video and audio you will need other software. If you’re ever stuck trying to do something a bit more complex and the tool to use isn’t obvious then it is highly recommended to look up a Dreamweaver tutorial.