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In this tutorial we will look at the variety of ways in which we can make attractive forms for our sites and web applications by using CSS. Forms are an important part of many sites and for web application design, much of the client-side development can be taken up with creating usable forms. CSS makes it easier to create attractive forms quickly, because once you have developed a default look for forms then you can reproduce that for every form on the site.
Read MoreIn this tutorial, we take a look at the different types of images used on the web. Starting with an in-depth behind the scenes look at how these images are constructed, we move on to checking out which image types are suitable in different web scenarios. Gaining a strong understanding of how images work and when to use them is important in the construction of any good website.
This tutorial will give you a sound theoretical knowledge in order to reduce your file sizes, speed up the viewing of your website and enhance the overall appearance. It is suitable for beginners.
Read MoreIn this new series, we look at Dreamweaver MX and Flash MX.
We start off by taking a look at what Dreamweaver can and can't do with Flash. The fact that there are some things that Dreamweaver can't do for us means that we dive into Flash and do that for ourselves. In order to do that takes a quick tour of the Flash MX interface and the basic terminology that you need in order to survive in a Flash world.
Along the way to becoming a master of Dreamweaver, Flash and PHP we'll be looking at how we can get information from PHP and databases into our Flash movies, how we can get information from our Flash movies to talk to PHP scripts and get it stored in databases and how we can use PHP to dynamically build up our Flash movies. The secrets of stages, scenes and ActionScript will all be revealed.
Read MoreThe beauty of the DOM is doing things on-the-fly, without hitting the server. In this tutorial, Tom shows us how to use DHTML to change the presentation of a page rather than its content, colouring alternate rows of a table in different colours to make it easier to read - and also shows how to highlight an individual record/ row.
Taught in Tom's usual easy-going style, this tutorial is suitable for beginners to the DOM and DHTML.
Read MoreChris explains the vision and the advantages of ASP.NET user controls - write once, use anywhere routines that modularise your development and helps seperate the back-end development team's work from the front-end 'design' work.
The example built up in this tutorial will prove very useful to over-worked developers; an ASP.NET user control that can be used on every page in a site to insert a rotating advertisment header (sourced from an XMLfile) and a copyright notice footer. The source code can be freely adapted and used in your own sites.
Read MoreIn this article, Matt continues his write up of his brief to build an artists' portfolio site. The customer requires an administration area of the site to upload, delete and rename images that are displayed on the front-end of the system. Matt teaches you how to build a password protected admin area using PHP and MySQL, and teaches you how to use the PHP Upload Extension to allow uploading and management of the image files.
Read MoreRegular Expressions often crop up on people's list of programming stumbling blocks. Whether in PHP, JavaScript or Visual Basic, their power for searching and replacing is eclipsed only by the user-unfriendliness of the syntax.
In this tutorial, Allan demonstrates the use and the syntax of Regular Expressions via the familiar interface of the Dreamweaver MX Find and Replace dialogue box, builds up a list of the must useful RegEx syntax and then applies in his Dreamweaver code.
Read MoreWeb lore has it that the DOM an off-putting, complicated and esoteric subject. However, the heart of the DOM is pretty straightforward.
Simply put, the DOM allows you to dynamically change the page all on the client side. We're not talking simple text color changes here, either. Want to add a whole table to your page? Go ahead and create one. Want to re-style every DIV on the page? Go ahead and do it. It will all happen at the click of a button, and it will all happen without sending the page back to the server. One seamless and smooth action that puts the punch in dHTML.
In this tutorial (which is suitable for beginners) Tom Dell'Aringa introduces the central concepts of the DOM and immediately gets his hands dirty, using JavaScript to alter the appearance and content of a page on the fly.
Read MoreWhether you are a web designer or primarily a back-end developer, you are likely to need to create forms for your web sites and applications - whether they are simple contact forms or complex survey systems making the forms easy to use and accessible to users whatever devices they are using will ensure that people can complete the forms and therefore increase the likelihood of visitors actually doing so.
Making our applications is important, not only because enabling all users to get the most out of the web should be seen as the right and ethical thing to do but because in many cases we are required by law to do so. Section 508 in the USA means that sites run by federal agencies must comply to the accessibility legislation laid out in this law, other countries are developing their own laws and there are even independent test cases being taken against owners of inaccessible sites.
Read MoreCSS is the stuff designers dream of, and in this second foundation article in a series dedicated to teaching beautiful CSS designs, the focus is still on understanding the principal means of designing with CSS via Dreamweaver MX.
This tutorial focuses on working with type, lists, positioning features. I'll also show you the Extensions dialog and how you can use CSS extensions to style your pages, teaching you to use CSS as a primary means of presenting and visual enhancing your pages far beyond the limitations of HTML and XHTML.
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