MACROMEDIA 38028779 - Macromedia Dreamweaver - Mac, Using Manual, Page: 101 / 582

Planning and Setting Up Your Site 101
Planning and gathering your assets
Once you know what your design and layout will look like, you can create and
gather the assets that you will need. Assets can be items such as images, text, or
media (Flash, Shockwave, and more). Make sure you have all of these items
gathered and ready to go before you begin developing your site. Otherwise, you’ll
have to continually stop development to find an image or to create a button.
If you are using images and graphics from a clip-art site or someone else is creating
them, make sure you collect them and put them in a folder on your site (see
“Organizing the site structure” on page 98). If you are creating the assets yourself,
make sure you create them all before you start development, including any images
you need if you are using roll-overs. Then organize your assets so you can access
them easily while creating your site in Dreamweaver.
Dreamweaver can make it easier for you to reuse page layouts and page elements
in various documents by using templates and libraries. However, it is easier
to create new pages with templates and libraries than it is to apply them to
existing documents.
Use templates
if many of your pages will use the same layout. Plan and design a
template for that layout, and then you can create new pages based on that
template. If you decide to change the layout for all the pages, you can simply
change the template.
Note: There are certain restrictions on what changes you can make to documents that are
based on templates. Templates are best used in collaborative environments, to ensure that
everyone is using the same page layout. Library items may provide more flexibility for use
outside of collaborative environments.
Use library items
if you know that a certain image or other content will appear on
many pages throughout your site; design that content ahead of time and make it a
library item. Then if you change that item later, the updated version appears on all
pages that use it.
For more information on reusing page layouts and elements, see “Reusing
Content with Templates and Libraries” on page 375.