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Overview of Dreamweaver's Help Files and Tutorials

Help files

Other resources

The help files that Macromedia provides are informative and easy to use. Tutorials are also availble in Dreamweaver.

Help Files

To access the help files you can either use the F1 key or go to the Help menu and choose Using Dreamweaver.
The Help Window's row of icons at the top perform a variety of functions, such as:

 

    Hide Button: Only shows half of the screen containing the help file currently being displayed. If there is no help file chosen, the Help home page will be displayed. If you wish to view the left half of the screen again, click the Show button.
 
 
    Back button: brings you to the previous help file accessed. It will be greyed out if it can't go back any further.
    Forward button: After using the Back button you can return to the file you were using when you clicked the Back button by clicking forward. It will be greyed out if there is no file to go forward to.
    Home button: returns you to the Dreamweaver MX help home page
    Print button: allows you to print the current file.
    Options button: Gives the same options as the buttons such as back, home, hide, etc.
 
The Contents tab gives a complete list of all the topics. Click on a title to expand it and see the next level down of topics. When you click on a topic, it expands and displays whatever topics are below it. To see a particular topic, click on it once and it will be displayed on the right hand side of the window.
 
The Index tab allows you to see all the topics in a list of headings and sub-topics. This tab allows you to type in a keyword (such as Flash buttons) and have all related topics displayed. To read one, double click on the topic or click on it once to highlight it, then click the display button. The file will then be shown on the right hand side of the screen.
 
The Search tab enables you to search for a specific word or phrase and it will list the topics in which that word or phrase occurs. This is different than the index because it will not show the results in a hierarchical order and will highlight the word or phrase everytime it appears in the text. If you put the phrase in quotation marks, it will find that exact phrase rather than each word.
 
The Favorites tab allows you to create a list of help topics that you wish to bookmark.
    Go to the Contents, Index, or Search tab and locate the topic
 
    Click on the Favorites tab. Click the Add button to add it to the Topics list. To read the file, click on the topic once and then click the Display button. If you wish to remove a topic once it is on the list, click on the topic and then click the Remove button.
 

 

Other Resources

Dreamweaver offers tutorials as well as help files. Tutorials are different than help files in that they offer a step by step instruction whereas the help files give a concise explanation of a topic.
 
To access the tutorials, go to Help > Tutorials and browse to the topic you wish to learn. The Tutorials open in a separate window which allows you to do the lesson in Dreamweaver while leaving the tutorial open.
 
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