Tooltip Text

[Don_Cheke]

Wow, there is not much action on this forum - hopefully someone is watching.

I am trying to figure out how to create tooltip text on a text link in DW CS3, like one sees when they hover the cursor over a thread title as in the attached image.

Any suggestions?

[joeparis]

Don,

I believe the alternate text/tool tip is inserted into the link like this:

<a href="http://www.layersmag.com" title="This is the text of the tool tip for Layers Magazine">Layers Magazine</a>

But it's called "Title Attribute" if you want to look it up in the Help Files.

[Don_Cheke]

Thanks Joe.

I couldn't, for the life of me, remember that term.

I am also surprised that I didn't think about adding it with the code in the first place. I have been creating my own web site for years (with NS Composer) and have worked with code lots. I just started redoing my site website with DW and I guess I was reacting like a newbie, feeling a bit overwhelmed with the different interface and slightly different approach.

Thanks for pointing me back in the right direction.

[GarySped]

Don,

I just acquired Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks. I too am dissappointed with a lack of activity at these Forums. That being said looks like you might be the expert here for this particular Forum.

Maybe you can pose and answer some useful questions or provide tips you think are cool. I want to make the transition eventually of my "semi-professional'' looking brewing business website from Frontpage to Dw. It all about time though. And learning Dw.

Though I found it easy to convert all the Frontpage to Dw I want to change the interface radically. But starting from the existing F'page template. I do know about about coding so that should help.

Are there any other Forum sites out there you have found? What resources for Learning Dw and maybe Flash have you found most useful?

Regards,

Gary.

[joeparis]

Gary,

The Dreamweaver CS3 Missing Manual is a must buy.

[TORCH511]

I have said it often enough, but it bears repeating.

Don't learn Dreamweaver, learn HTML

Dreamweaver is a tool for generating web content, it can greatly speed up the process and can make the organization of entrie sites much more manageable. However there really is not a whole lot to learn. It is basically a file manager and a text editor rolled into one. The rest of the functions you can pick up easily enough as you go.

The trick to building solid websites is not to learn DW, but to learn the ins and outs of HTML/XHTML, CSS, some DHTML/Javascript and usually some sort of web based programming language such as PHP or Coldfusion.

And there are plenty of forums for HTML, CSS and any other web discipline, and why you do not encounter too many Dreamweaver Forums.

[GarySped]

Thanks Joe and Torch.

Some of us do need a grounding in Dw. Though I learned quickly to manipulate code with Frontpage.

So I will mention for the real newbie or home hobbyist (for a personal website) The Thomson Course Technology Learning series - seems these tomes are used in class instruction and, arguably, for ACE certification according to the publisher.

One I got ILL: The Web Collection Standard Edition: Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Flash CS3 and Fireworks CS3 Revealed. Use your local library and save 100's if not 1000's on books.

[joeparis]

I have said it often enough, but it bears repeating.
Don't learn Dreamweaver, learn HTML

I've been slowly working my way through Lynda.com's DW courses. At the beginning of most of them they state clearly that it is advisable to watch the HTML, XHTML and CSS courses first. Having watched them, I got myself a decent Text Editor (TextPad) and have been using it and Dreamweaver in tandem. I now find the DW vids much easier to understand, now that I can do a lot of it by simply coding. It appears to me however that DW provides many tools to make life easier when building a site (then there is the compatibility with PS, FW, etc). This is the voice of inexperience talking so I suppose with much more experience it is just as easy to code.

[TORCH511]

As a long-time Dreamweaver user (since DW3) I totally agree that DW is chock full of tools that make writing HTML faster and easier. However Dreamweaver still generates excessivly messy and inefficient HTML and I pick and choose what to use as writing it out by hand tends to be faster.

For example, when using a table, I find that it is generally faster to me to type the <table><tr><td>content</td></tr></table> than to use the table tool in WYSIWYG mode, and then make the adjustments to make the table as I want it.... and the HTML would not nearly be as clean.

Actually the problem is not inserting the table itself, it is when you start putting in the content that is starts to really screw stuff up.

So I stand by my opinion that if you learn HTML (and you use DW to do it) then learning DW just takes care of itself, hence why you should learn HTML and not DW.

[Don_Cheke]

Don,

That being said looks like you might be the expert here for this particular Forum.

Regards,

Gary.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Gary, but I am not that comfortable with DW just yet. I did, however, just get my web site completely updated. I am big on a clean and simple look, so that is what I did. I am not fond of web sites that are complex to navigate and take forever to load, so I stay away from those. I think my 7000 unique visters per month appreciate it.

I just love my new home page: http://www.textualcreations.ca/index.html

[Don_Cheke]

Here is a screen shot showing that I got my title attribute working. Yeh!

[ldrain]

another repeated link in support of Torch's argument:
http://www.w3schools.com

great examples, definitions, and tutorials covering X/D/HTML, Javascript, XML, CSS etc., etc. A good place to bookmark and reference when stuck.

Also, try using the code/layout view in DW if you are having a hard time getting used to code. that way, you can see what each of the DW elements look like in code form. DW also colors the code nicely, which is VERY helpful.

[CurtisMcHale]

I am totally behind Torch's points. I find DW very fast for navigating pages and coding but I very rarely use the WYSIWYG editor in it as it can really mess clea code up. If you learn to code to W3C standards you are much more likely to have a site that is more future proof that will also be easy to change the design of and will be easier for search engines to read and better from a user accessibility standpoint. Learn how to maximize what DW is good at but really learn HTML/XHTML and CSS to have a professional website.