imagine that both GoLive and Dreamweaver are likely to see changes in the future that will either make them more compatible or make one of them obsolete. Im betting on Dreamweaver, not only because Im the author of this book, but because it has the largest market share; but its hard to predict what will happen to GoLive, which is also a strong Web design program. Other HTML editors In the early days of the Web, lots of different visual HTML editors were being used. Today only a few major ones are left. The few that I discuss here seem to capture most of the market. Still, you may find yourself inheriting sites built in really old editors such as Claris HomePage, or Symantec VisualPage. Each of these programs present fewer problems than either Frontpage or GoLive because they arent capable of creating the complex, high-end features that are hardest to migrate from one program to another. For the most part, you can open any HTML page with Dreamweaver and continue developing it with little concern. If you run into problems, remember that you always have the option of re-creating the page from scratch in Dreamweaver - a sure way to get rid of any unwanted code. You may also want to use the Dreamweaver Clean Up XHTML feature to identify potentially problematic code. To use this feature, choose Commands?Clean Up XHTML and then select the elements you want to alter in the Clean Up HTML dialog box. No matter what program your site is originally created in, as you consider how best to convert your work into Dreamweaver, pay special attention to unusual code output, nonstandard rules about HTML tags and syntax, and sophisticated features such as CSS, Dynamic HTML, and sophisticated programming, such as ASP, Java, or CGI scripts. These Web page elements are most likely to cause problems when you import them into Dreamweaver. Chapter 1: Introducing Your New Best Friend 31 32 Part I: Fulfilling Your Dreams Chapter 2 Setting Up a Web Site with Dreamweaver In This Chapter _ Building a new site _ Making new pages _ Creating links _ Getting your Web site online If youre ready to dive in and start building your Web site, youve come to the right place. In this chapter, you find what you to need to start building a Web site whether you are working on an existing Web site or creating a new one. First you discover an important preliminary step - site setup, which enables Dreamweaver to keep track of the images, links, and other elements in your site. Then, you get into the fun stuff, creating your first page and adding images and text. Before you start creating or editing individual pages, setting up your site using the site-management features in Dreamweaver is really important. Whether youre creating a new site or working on an existing site, follow the steps in the next section to get Dreamweaver ready to manage the site for you. The site-management features enable Dreamweaver to keep track of the elements in your site, automatically create links, update your server, and even manage a team of developers. With the enhancements in this latest version, all these features are even more powerful and easy to use. You can use Dreamweaver without doing this initial site setup, but many of the features - such as automated link checking and the capability to store commonly used elements in the Library - wont work. Setting Up a New or Existing Site The site-management features in Dreamweaver are designed to ensure that