Starting with DW

DW is not a simple program. Its user interface is a bit more complex than a word processor. In fact, you can compare the user interface of DW to that of programming environments like Microsoft Visual Studio.

Do not let this intimidate you. Let's start with just the most basic features of DW. Figure 2.1 is a screenshot of DW when you start it up.

Figure 2.1: The start up screen of DW.

Let's take a look at the various components of this screen. Figure 2.2 highlights the tabs that represent categories of components that you can insert into a web page. We can ignore this part for now.

Figure 2.3 highlights the buttons controling the view. The default, Design View, is appropriate for now.

Figure 2.2: Component tabs of DW.

Figure 2.3: View control buttons of DW.

The large window in the middle is the editing area. This is where you edit a webpage in a WYSIWYG manner.

Figure 2.4 highlights the most important area for this chapter. This area lets you control properties of whatever element is selected. Since a web page is primarily a text document, it is usually displaying text formatting controls.

Figure 2.4: Properties control pane of DW.