Veronica's Dreamweaver/Flash: January 2012

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Section 1: Welcome to Flash

I knew that Flash was a major contributor to many Websites’ interactivity, and there are Websites that display some pretty heavy duty interactive features. After taking an HTML class that touched on some JavaScripting, I had some trepidation about taking this class. My fingers bled as did my eyes as I typed what seemed like thousands of lines of code just so that I can add a countdown clock on my Website. After watching the introductory section of Flash, I am looking forward to creating interactive features into a Website project. I did not realize how this application makes a typically laborious task easier while producing results that are professional looking.

The first section introduces the user to what Flash does and its uses as well as giving us a tour of the interface and workspace. Although there were parts that appeared over simplified, I really appreciated that they did take this much time to go over what is often an overlooked part in many other training environments, the Welcome Screen.

This is what you see when you first execute Flash.

Above is a screenshot of what the user will see when they first open Flash. From here the use can navigate to what task they want to employ; for our first lesson we were instructed to choose ActionScript 3.0. However, this view also gives you the option to open previous projects, other scripting languages, and templates. I would highly recommend that a beginner not disable this feature yet.

Default View with Essential Workspace chosen.

Veronica's Work space view.

This second screenshot displays the default view. Please note that the workspace is named Essential (located in the upper right hand of the tool bar) and only show the most commonly used panels and tools. In the next screenshot, I customized my workspace and named Veronica Work Space.

In addition to the work space and interface, the first section covered the type of file extensions that can be used for Flash documents including open standards such as gif, jpg, and html. With this knowledge, we will make a go at it and see what we can create.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Basic HTML in Dreamweaver

I took an HTML class last year and used NotePad++, a free text editing application, to write the HTML code for our project Web sites. It displayed line numbers and assigned text colors that identify what type of HTML code is being written. In addition, it allowed the code writers to preview the page in a variety of browsers. Dreamweaver takes this concept and gives it an extra mega shot of vitamin B12. I know we were learning to write basic HTML, but I would love to have been able to use this application as well.

This is some powerful Web authoring tool. Below is my screen shot of the two ways the basic HTML page can be displayed in Dreamweaver. Please note that I did my writing in the design view. This WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) feature is the feature that probably attracts many Web designers to use Dreamweaver.

For me, I was able to focus on the content of what I was writing rather than making sure that I used the correct tags and that they were opened and closed appropriately. The default view has the version of the HTML used in the document, the initial elements, and the start and end <body> element tag already written in. All I had to do at this point is to type in the design panel. The code panel was being populated with the elements that I was adding to the page. Because I did have some HTML training, I can also make some editing to the page by using the code view if necessary.

Screen Shot of Code and Design View in Dreamweaver

Saturday, January 21, 2012

My First Blog Post

Hello all and welcome to my first blog. This is the first week of class and I found myself already behind . I am typically more organized than this, but there were a few glitches in my life that disrupted my typically prepared self.

Well anyway, what I learned this week though is getting this blog set up is not as hard as I thought. I love to read blogs, but have not considered setting one up (I have never been one that shares thoughts, ideas, and feelings outside of my small circle of friends and family). Since this blog is for sharing with my classmates and Professor, I hope that we can use this forum to collaborate and inform each other about this class and the projects we will be engaged in. I am looking forward to working with all of you.

If anyone is experienced in this forum and can offer suggestions, I would welcome it.