How Adobe Dreamweaver Can Help You Design Websites

Website development has come a long way in the past few decades. Now, there almost seem to be too many options. Professionals who want a website will waste hours combing through various options to find the best one. For anyone looking for a slick and simple application, Adobe Dreamweaver is one of the premier programs that can help you design and launch your website efficiently.

What is Adobe Dreamweaver?

Adobe Dreamweaver was initially launched in 1997 and has evolved to become one of Adobe CC’s main applications. It is a web design and IDE (integrated development environment) application with a code editor with features like syntax highlighting, code completion, and even code introspection to generate hints to users. While its coding offers greater flexibility and customization to those familiar with code, it is not necessary to use Adobe Dreamweaver because it also has an excellent visual interface.

Main Features of Adobe Dreamweaver

Combining Visual Editing with Coding

While the ability to change the layout through code and visually edit your website is hardly something unique to Adobe Dreamweaver, it is impressive how seamless it is to switch from editing with code and visually editing. In other programs, switching from these editing styles leads to confusion. In Adobe Dreamweaver, even people with a basic understanding of HTML and CSS get great joy from how easy it is to edit their design via code and visual interface.

Solid Code Support

Adobe Dreamweaver offers support for HTML, HTML5, CSS, PHP, Javascript, and jQuery. You will automatically see changes made visually on the website. Plus, it even has code completion that will suggest code based on what you’re currently typing to help speed things up.

Bundled with Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

If you’re already an Adobe Creative Cloud user, you should take advantage of this application. There are some fantastic student software deals for anyone pursuing a college degree. Adobe Dreamweaver is one of the most effective Adobe applications, and you don’t have to purchase access to the entire Adobe CC library. You can only get Dreamweaver at a much lower rate.

How to Use Dreamweaver to Build a Website

1. Choose Your Adobe Creative Cloud Plan

As noted above, you can buy a full Adobe Creative Cloud subscription or just a monthly plan for Dreamweaver. There are student software deals, as well as offers for teachers or businesses. Your business or school may already offer you this software for free.

2. Basic Set-Up

Luckily, it only takes about five minutes to set up Adobe Dreamweaver. Once you’ve installed it, there will be a short tutorial to walk you through your design setup based on your previous levels of experience. If you’re a beginner, this is very helpful.

3. Decide Whether to Start from Scratch or Use a Template

While you may want to start completely from ground zero, there are some fantastic Adobe Dreamweaver templates out there. Decide whether you’d like to look for one that might serve as the foundation or inspiration for your website or if you’d prefer to start from the very beginning because you have a specific vision.

4. Starting from Scratch

If you want to start from the beginning, navigate to Site > New Site and specify the site’s name and where to save it in your folders. A quick pro-tip is also to create an images folder where all of your pictures can go when you are working on the site. Next, create your very first page by selecting File > New and then HTML from under “Document Type.” Name the file index.html, and you’ve got your homepage. After that, it’s up to you to customize the page and create as many other pages as you want.

5. Using a Template

To start with a basic template, click File > New and “Starter Templates.” Navigate to “Basic Layouts” and choose whichever one looks the most appealing to you. You can edit a template just like you would any other page on Adobe Dreamweaver. You can use both coding and the visual editor.

6. Publishing Your Site

When you’ve finished your website, you can easily upload it to the server that you’ve purchased hosting for and publish your website. Go to Site > Manage Sites and select your site. Select the pencil icon in the bottom left, then click “Servers” on the left-hand side and this time click the plus sign icon. Here you’ll add your FTP server information, which you should get from your host except for the “Server Name.” That’s for you to decide. Lastly, include your server root directory and URL so your sitewide links in Adobe Dreamweaver will work. After that, hit “Save” twice and select the files you want to upload. Then, click the icon that looks like a plug, and Adobe Dreamweaver will upload the files to your server. Your website should now be live.

As you can see, Adobe Dreamweaver is an elegant website designer that can have a professional website up and running within an hour effortlessly. It has incredible features and is an excellent tool for people looking to take their website design skills to the next step.