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Dreamweaver, Web Page Development & CSS Resources
Get Found!
What's the good of having a web site with great resources, if no one can find you. And this is a common problem with patrons. You can fix it!
- Put your URL everywhere: on your business cards, signs, on the computer screen saver, on bookmarks, newsletters, anything that moves, get our URL out there.
- Still, people don't usually remember URL's. They search for you. Do a web search (you pick your favorite search engine!) for your library. Is it easily found? In the top results?
- Don't forget to give all your pages titles in the <head> section of your file. Include your library name in that title! Yes, on every page.
- Footers on every page of your web site too - include the library name, address, contact info. It's good to let people know which library's web site they're looking at. And the repetition of your library's name will help the search engines find you.
- Is your library name at the top of every page? If so, is an image? Words that are really images don't get indexed. You'll need to add 'alt' properties to all your images.
- Wikipedia? Is your library listed? Why not? People use wikipedia - a lot!!! And it also helps the search engines find you. Add an article for your library and link to it from your town or organization's wikipedia entry.
- Links to your site: Ask other town, school, area agencies, etc. if they'll link to the library. Don't go on a huge link trading campaign, that just gets annoying. But useful links to and from other appropriate agencies and businesss is useful.
- Online Outreach - great presentation by Sarah Houghton-Jan on how to make your library more findable.
- Sign up for my Online Outreach class! Check the main page of this wiki and the calendar to see where and when it's going to be offered.
CSS Tutorials, Templates, Resources
After you understand the basics of how CSS works, try playing around with other people's CSS files. Great way to learn the ins and outs. These are some tutorials and other resources to get you started with CSS.
Books
- Stylin' WIth CSS: A Designer's Guide, 2nd edition. by Charles Wyke-Smith. New Riders, 2008.
- CSS in 10 Minutes by Russ Weakley. Sams Publishing, 2006. Quick tutorials that cover all the basics. Great place to get started. Also has a website with example files & code from book.
- CSS Web Site Design Hands on Training by Eric Meyer, Peachpit Press, 2006. Very practical, real world approach to CSS. Lots of good tips and tricks.
- Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm, New Riders Press, 2nd edition, 2007.
- Creating a Web Page in Dreamweaver 8: Visual QuickProject Guide (Paperback), Peachpit Press (January 2, 2006)
Sources for free Images
Web Templates
- CSS Sculptor - Eric Meyer's tool for creating great CSS layouts - works with CS3 or CS4 ($99.99)
- Open Source Web Design - download free web site designs.
- Macromedia Dreamweaver Templates A selection of nice templates from Adobe.
- Free Dreamweaver Templates Links to sites with free downloadable templates to get you started on your web site. Main page of the site has links to sites with templates for a fee.
- Project Seven Professional templates for purchase. Good way to learn CSS, the templates come with a full explanation of the CSS style sheet that is used to create the template. Also has menu systems that you can buy to add to your web sites. (fee)
Other handy tools mentioned in class
- flickr Free photosharing site. Upload photos and flickr resizes them in a variety of sizes. So handy for quickly getting pictures ready for inclusion on a web page.
- Picnik Free online photo editing. Upload a photo or bring it in from flickr. Crop, enhance colors, adjust brightness and so much more. Very handy! NOTE: flickr has aPicknik built in now.
- TinyURL Need to put a very long URL on your page for some reason? Watch out, it may make your page layout go wacky. Use TinyURL to convert that long URL to something shorter.
- HTML & CSS validators - Handy page with a number of validators that can be used directly from this page.
Etc.
- WebXACT This site checks accessibility issues, broken links and more.
- Accessify.com The Tools & Wizards section has some handy tools for building accessible forms and more.
Invisible gif
Right click on the box abover to save the mysterious invisible clear.gif image to your computer. Yes, this is for 'old skool' table layouts. We should be using CSS for positioning, but that's another class.