Tips for the Tutorials and Web Design or Go Back to Main Tutorial page
Tips for the Tutorials
1. In each Dreamweaver, PowerPoint, and Flash Tutorial there is a toolbar in the top right corner which can be used for controlling the segment. It looks like the image below. Please review all and then try all the buttons in the Getting to know your work space tutorial before continuing with the rest of the tutorial. Button are labeled as follows:
Note: The Rewind and Fast Forward buttons only go one slide at a time, so hit pause before using either button..
2. Use your computers volume control to increase or decrease the volume, while listening to the tutorial (the tutorial toolbar has no volume control button). If possible, use headphones!
3. While listening to the tutorial pause as necessary and perform each step in the tutorial, rewind as necessary. This is self-paced so take your time.
4. These particular tutorials are large files and can be used with a 56K modem, however this is not recommended. For optimal performance use with a high speed connection. (cable, dsl, etc..)
There are many things to consider when designing a web or web page:
1. Think about your user, Who will be viewing this site(audience)? What is its purpose(educational, commerce, etc..)? What is their Internet connection speed(56K, cable, etc..)?
2. Think about the content, What will the content of the site be(images, text, animations, etc..)?
3. Know that when a page pops up the user only sees the first 6 inches of the page when it loads, so any important information should be included in the first 6 inches of everypage whether its about the site or links to other pages within the site.
4. Keep your page size small. Even though there has been a sharp increase in the number of high speed Internet users assume that most of your users are still running with a 56K modem. By making this assumption you'll be able to keep your file sizes small. A good range would be 1K-100K. Anything over that will take more time for the user to download your page and they may lose interest and navigate away from your page. Using images, animations will make your file sizes larger so be aware of this when including them in your web.
5. Images and animations do make a site more interesting and fun, so if you are going to use animations and images consider these following tips:
A. If using images don't use bitmaps. If your image is a bitmap convert it using any photo editor. Bitmaps will give a high quality pictures but are very large and take a great deal of time to download. Instead use .gif, .jpg, or .png.
a.The .gif is great for pictures that have only a few colors like the DreamWeaver picture on the previous page or simple graphics you've created that only have minimal colors.
b.The .jpg is better because it shows more colors than the .gif, however sometimes pictures will bet distorted if you change them from say a bitmap to a jpeg.
c. The .png is the beter of the 3, granted its no silver bullet but it will retain almost all the colors of a bitmap and not have the distortion of a jpeg in many instances. All three of these formats are smaller file formats and will allow the user to see the picture without the large size
B. If using animations use the.swf foramt or create animated gifs.
a. The .swf format is the native Flash format. Flash has become the standard for creating animations on the web. Generally speaking if you create a Flash animation in Flash the file will generally stay small. If you incorporate small movies, or pictures Flash will still convert then file but it will increase the files size.You can insert pictures into Flash and then create a .swf of just the picture and it will allow you to protect a picture that you don't want downloaded.
b. Animated gifs can be made in Flash or any other animation program that gives you the option to save your creations as animated gifs. In general the animation is generally the same size and in some instances smaller than the .swf still retaining the same quality image quality in the animation.
Last updated: July 7, 2005