Intermediate
Dreamweaver
Topics:
- Basic HTML
- Site management
- Assets
- Library
- Find and Replace
- Templates
- Cascading Style Sheets
- Forms
- Imagemaps
- Mouseovers
- Flash buttons & text
- Tables: Formatting & Sorting
- Settings
- Behaviors
Just for fun: Flash text and Flash buttons
These two options will require Flash installed on the users' computers, so they don't actually contribute to the usability of the site, and you shouldn't use them for essential information.
Inserting Flash Text
Flash text is actually a short movie with only text in it, that requires Flash to run. If the user does not have Flash 5 loaded on his computer, he/she will be asked to download Flash 5. Flash text does have the advantage that it doesn't depend on the fonts available on the users' computers: you can create Flash Text in any font you have on your computer, and because it is essentially a graphic and saved as a file, it will retain that font. The object with Flash text is to have a section of text -- usually a link-- whose color changes when the user rolls their cursor over it.
To put Flash Text on a page, click the cursor where you want the Flash
Text to appear, and either click on the Insert Flash Text icon in the
Common menu of the Objects panel 
,
or from the Insert menu, choose Interactive Images, then choose Flash
Text.
In the Insert Flash Text window
Set:
- Font and Size to use for the text
- Bold or Italic for style, if necessary
- Alignment for the text
- Color: the color the text is normally
- Rollover color: the color the text will turn when the user moves their cursor over it.
- Text: type in the text you want displayed. By default, you will see it in the font and size you chose.
- Link: the URL to link the image to
- Target: if you are working with frames, choose the frame to target; if you want the link to appear in a new window, choose _blank.
- BgColor: the background color for the piece of text
- Save As: the file name to save the Flash movie to. It needs to end in .swf
Click OK to have Flash create the text movie.
Flash Buttons
Flash buttons are movies of a graphic that change appearance when the user rolls his/her cursor over them. Many of them have space for text to be inserted; others are textless.
To insert a Flash button, click on the Flash Button icon in the Common
menu of the Object window 
,
or go to the Insert menu and choose Interactive Images, then Flash Button.
- Select a Style for the button (moving the cursor over the sample will show what the button will do) Note that some buttons don't have space for text.
- Button Text: if there is space for text on the button, type in the text you want to appear.
- Font and Size for the text
- Link: the URL to link to when the user clicks on the button.
- Target: if you want the link to go to a specific frame.
- BgColor: background color for the button. Most of the time, set this to the same color as the page background color.
- Save As: insert the file name you want the button saved under. It must end with the extension .swf
Click OK to insert the button.
Flash Object Properties
Flash objects have properties in the properties panel: 
In a lot of ways, Flash object properties are just like image properties: source File, Align, W (width), H (height). They also have a background color. However there are more properties available when you open the property panel to its fullest extent: V space and H space are the space around the object on the page. The Play button lets you test the object (if you click Play you can then move the cursor over the object and it will do the rollover thing). Unclick Play to edit the object.
If you need to change the movie itself, you can double-click on the object or click on 'Edit' in the properties window, to get the Insert Flash Text window back up.
Last Modified: November 18, 2002