An Interview with David McFarland: Author of
Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual
by Bruce Stewart
07/16/2001
Macromedia Dreamweaver is one of the most elegant and powerful Web page
creation programs on the market. Dreamweaver deploys a rich WYSIWYG
environment for building cross-platform, cross-browser Web sites;
but unlike most visual editors, it doesn't clutter up the underlying HTML
code by inserting unnecessary tags. Dreamweaver is a favorite of multimedia
designers, thanks to its smooth integration with other Macromedia applications
like Flash and Shockwave.
David McFarland is an experienced Web designer and teacher, and he has
recently written Dreamweaver 4:
The Missing Manual. As Dreamweaver has added functionality, like
site-management tools, it has also
become more complicated to use. David's latest entry in the popular Missing
Manual series will help users get the most out of this complex program. We
asked David what makes his book different from the existing documentation, and
what he likes and dislikes about Macromedia Dreamweaver in this
oreilly.com interview.
Stewart:
What is your background, and how long have you been using Dreamweaver?
McFarland:
I've been building Web sites since 1995, when I designed and
produced an online magazine for a San Francisco communications company. I
then went to work at the University of California, Berkeley, where I was
the Webmaster for the school site, and later, the Webmaster of the
Berkeley
Multimedia Research Center. I've since started my own Web
development company, and I'm an instructor at various institutions in the
San Francisco Bay Area. I've taught Dreamweaver, Web Design, and JavaScript
programming at UC Berkeley, the Center of Electronic Art, the Academy of Art
College, and Ex'Pressions Center for New Media.
I've been using Dreamweaver since version 2, when I got hooked on its
rapid site-building tools. I've found that the combination of my
professional life--real-world, hands-on production for commercial
clients--and my role as a teacher--where I've had to learn everything
Dreamweaver offers--has really helped me master the program.
Stewart:
What are the most common areas of Web design that your students
have trouble with?
McFarland:
Students have a lot of trouble translating their visual
ideas, especially when it comes to laying out a Web page, into the
sometimes strange world of HTML. The freedom that users experience when
initially designing a Web page with programs like Fireworks, Photoshop, or
Illustrator just isn't there when they have to start thinking in terms of
tables, rows, columns, and cells, the most common tools for structuring a
page.
That's one thing I try to do in my book: bridge the gap between what you
want and what HTML offers. Dreamweaver 4 has made huge leaps forward in
this regard, too. It has powerful tools for creating professional-looking
sites; tools that don't produce sloppy or bulky HTML. Once students
get an understanding of how they can use HTML and Dreamweaver to get the
look they want, their designs become much more sophisticated.
Stewart:
Do you think it's possible to be a good Web designer without
learning HTML?
McFarland:
Well, let's put it this way: You can be a much better designer
if you understand HTML. That doesn't mean you have to hand-code your pages
from scratch; I haven't done that for a long time. But, if you know how
HTML works, which tags do what, and how different browsers handle
particular code, you'll be better positioned to exploit the subtle nuances
of HTML. I think I have a really good understanding of HTML, and I dip
into the code of my pages all the time. I'll use Dreamweaver for most of
the heavy lifting, but then, I'll look over the code, and make changes
here and there. And at times, it's often easier to do some tasks, like
selecting a row of 1-pixel-tall table cells, directly in the code. If I
didn't understand HTML, I wouldn't be able to do this. To help experienced
as well as novice designers, Dreamweaver 4 includes in-depth references on
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), HTML, and JavaScript. And all these references
are published by O'Reilly. In many ways, Dreamweaver is as
good a tool for learning HTML as it is for creating it.
Stewart: What Dreamweaver features do your students find most
useful?
McFarland:
The new Layout View is a big plus for many designers coming
from a more traditional print design background. But there are so many
other elements of the program that really make the process of Web design
and production run smoothly and quickly. I think people often
underestimate the extreme productivity boost Dreamweaver brings to the Web
development process. You can produce a site in a remarkably short time if
you understand and use Dreamweaver's many labor-saving features. The same
applies when you've finished a site and need to keep it up to date and in
working order. Dreamweaver's site-management abilities, for example, can
save you literally days of work when you need to reorganize the files in
your site, or move, rename, or delete pages, graphics, or other files.
Stewart: What is your favorite Dreamweaver feature?
McFarland:
I'd have to say all of Dreamweaver's site-management tools.
They do so much to speed up development and make sure links and paths on
pages don't break that I can't imagine doing Web design without them.
These tools have increased my productivity and helped me make sure my
sites all function the way they're supposed to.
Stewart:
Are Dreamweaver's site-management features robust enough to support large site
development, where many different designers are involved in the creative
process?
McFarland:
Dreamweaver 4 has added support for two heavyweight versioning
systems: WebDAV and
Microsoft's Visual SourceSafe. This should
make many corporate IT departments very happy. Now Dreamweaver can be
integrated seamlessly into a large-scale development process that involves
many developers using different development tools. Even if you don't use
these systems, Dreamweaver offers a collaborative system that lets a team
of Dreamweaver users check in and check out files--preventing one person
from accidentally destroying another's work.
Stewart:
What features of Dreamweaver do you feel are most misunderstood or
underutilized?
McFarland:
I don't think people know about Dreamweaver's Find and Replace
tool. It's a lot more powerful than you might think. With it you can search
multiple pages, even an entire Web site. This tool supports regular
expressions, and it has an amazing HTML tag search that lets
you identify HTML that meets specific conditions. For example, you can find
tags with, or without, specific attributes; or inside, or not inside, other
tags. Then you can perform many operations on that tag, such as removing the
tag from the page, which is great for stripping out the font tag if you've
migrated to CSS; or adding an attribute to the
tag, which, for example, lets you add an ALT description to a
particular image wherever it appears in your site. A huge time-saver.
Stewart:
The Missing Manual series promises to provide "the book that
should have been in the box." In what ways does your book improve upon
Macromedia's Dreamweaver documentation?
McFarland:
I don't want to disparage the hard work of Macromedia's
technical writers. The Dreamweaver manual has a lot of information in it.
What I've done is bring my experiences teaching and using the program
to help present
Dreamweaver's many powerful features in a way that's easy to understand.
I've also tried to put the program into the context of a real-world Web
development process. The problem most manuals make is they explain in
detail how to use a program's feature but rarely why or
when you'd use it. Just because a piece of software has some nifty
new widget doesn't mean that you should use it. Often new features are
added to software because the engineers can, not because the users
want them. A good computer book should be an advocate for the reader,
guiding him or her through the program, pointing out the useful and
the less-than-useful bits. (Besides that, my book shows some fun easter
eggs hidden away in Dreamweaver 4.)
Stewart:
Dreamweaver seemed to be originally intended for high-end Web
designers who coded by hand, but its visual editor and ease of use now
appeals to designers who don't want to get their hands dirty with the
code. Does Dreamweaver do a good job of supporting both these
communities?
McFarland:
Actually, Dreamweaver 4 has done a good job of reaching
out to both camps. In this latest version, Macromedia has incorporated a
full-featured text editor that includes syntax highlighting and even a
JavaScript debugger. This will make the legion of hand-coders very happy.
In addition, the new Layout View is a powerful visual tool for creating
complex yet surprisingly code-friendly tables. This is a major
breakthrough. In addition, whether you code by hand or use Dreamweaver's
visual tools, the site-management features of the program cannot be beat.
It is really a fabulous program for managing your Web site's files and
making sure links and file paths stay intact.
Stewart:
What are Dreamweaver extensions? Can you give some examples?
McFarland:
Ahh, extensions. One of Dreamweaver's not-so-well-known gems.
It surprises many people when they find out that much of the program is
itself written using the languages of the Web: HTML, JavaScript, and XML.
Many of the dialog boxes you'll encounter when using Dreamweaver are
actually simple HTML files. In addition, the program has its own
JavaScript-based API that lets programmers add new features to the
program. In fact, Macromedia's Exchange Web site has hundreds of free extensions that
you can download and add to Dreamweaver.
They range from simple objects that insert canned snippets of HTML to
very complex behaviors that add exciting, interactive JavaScript programs
to your pages. For example, one of my favorites is a simple extension
called Latin Text. It lets you insert any number of Latin words into a
page. In traditional design, this is called greeking, which is a fast
way to add text to a mock-up design for a client. You'd be surprised how
handy this can be.
On the other extreme, an extension called Layer Ani-Magic by PVII provides
very sophisticated tools for animating layers on a Web page--a task that
involves complex programming and a detailed understanding of Web browsers.
Best of all, if Dreamweaver doesn't do what you need, you can write your
own extensions. I've written extensions for my clients to make the process
of updating and maintaining their sites a much simpler process.
Stewart:
What do Dreamweaver Library items do?
McFarland:
A library item is an easy way to add and maintain a frequently
used snippet of HTML. Let's say, for instance, every page of your site
includes some kind of boilerplate legal mumbo jumbo. It's always the same
and appears at the bottom of every page. You can take this type of
information and add it to the Dreamweaver Library. Then, when you create a
new page, just drag the item from the Library to your page. You don't have
to recreate the HTML on each page or even copy and paste it. You can even
include links in a library item and when the item is inserted into a page,
Dreamweaver automatically resolves the link paths correctly. Even better,
every page maintains a connection to the item in the Dreamwevaer Library.
If you need to update that boilerplate information later, open the item from
the Dreamweaver Library, edit it, and then let Dreamweaver update all the
pages that use it. You can quickly update hundreds or thousands of pages in
this way.
Stewart: Are there any features you'd like to see added to future
versions of Dreamweaver?
McFarland:
Of course, there's always more to add, but I'd really love to
see Macromedia improve on what they've got. It's a great program now but
there are sometimes inconsistencies in the programs' user interface and
some features are a little clunky. For instance, you have to cut and
paste text from other applications. You can't just import a Word
document, for example, into the program. Page layout programs such as Quark
XPress or InDesign have sophisticated controls for that.
What I'd like to see is Dreamweaver reach the level of polish, control,
and usability of a Quark XPress, say. That would be fantastic. In
the near term, Macromedia must improve Dreamweaver's display
of cascading style sheets. The program does a pretty good job of creating
them, but a terrible job of rendering them in the program. If you're an
advanced CSS user, you'll find yourself having to constantly preview your
pages in a Web browser. Here's one place the WYSIWYG aspirations of the
program really fall down.
Stewart:
Sounds like some good suggestions. Thank-you very much for your time, David.
McFarland:
You're welcome.
Dave McFarland is the president of Sawyer McFarland
Media, a Web development and training company located in the San
Francisco Bay Area. In addition, he teaches JavaScript programming, Flash,
and Web design at the University of California, Berkeley, the Center for
Electronic Art, the Academy of Art College, and Ex'Pressions Center
for New Media. He was formerly the Webmaster at UC Berkeley, and at the
Berkeley Multimedia Research Center.
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