Site News - February 2003

February 28, 2003

Announcement: Murray and I are speaking at MXNorth! For more information, please visit the support site.

Murrays Session: Starting with a discussion of site architecture and file naming, this presentation will introduce you to the fundamentals of some of the new features of DMX's Templates. We will cover template parameters and their use in template expressions in this discussion, and eventually use what has been learned to build a menuing system with downbutton states, and a page schema that permits unique branding on each page. All of this will be integrated into a single template page for optimal site maintenance.

Brads Session: As first implemented in Dreamweaver, its unique Templates were quite simple in nature and structure! Today, these beasts can become complex entities that are challenging to debug. The complexity comes from the significant expansion of Template features and capabilities introduced in Dreamweaver MX, including the addition of optional regions, repeating regions, parameters, expressions and nested templates. It can no longer be a simple look and solve troubleshooting situation, and this presentation introduces useful troubleshooting techniques to minimize the potential 'hairloss' issues that are now more commonplace with Macromedia Dreamweaver's new template technology.

Hopefully we will see many of you there!

February 14, 2003

Added: Tutorial - Revert your MX template to DW/UD 4 format. You may find yourself in a situation where you have upgraded to Dreamweaver MX and your colleagues have not, as yet, done so.

February 3, 2003

Announcement: Jörg Schmalenberger has done it again with DW-Exporter 1.0.2, a free Dreamweaver backup and restoration utility for Windows.

February 2, 2003

Added: Tutorial/Extensions - Template Third Party Tags. Are you tired of seeing the same old icon in design view of your template or child pages, when you have template expressions or passthrough expressions?

Added: Tutorial - Using Parameters & Expressions to make a Breadcrumb Trail within a Template Driven site. How many times have you wanted to have a visible trail through the folder architecture of your web site for easy navigation to a previous area (much like the Macromedia site and others)?

Updated: Tutorial - Controlling Button 'States' with Template Parameters & Expressions (formerly Buttons as Breadcrumbs). On a complex (or even a relatively simple) web site, one is always faced with the issue of displaying, in an easily grasped manner, some kind of roadmap (or 'breadcrumb') so...

February 1, 2003

To the family and friends of the Columbia Crew, who were brave and dedicated in their pursuit of knowledge, we mourn their loss.