Fireworks vs/ Dreamweaver

Hi,

I am a university student and I am doing an assignment about a web page construction. I am using Dreamweaver for the Web page, and Fireworks for the navigation buttons and pop up menu. I am using a two-frame set in Dreamweaver (left frame as the Navigation bar, and right frame as the main page). At first the navigation bar worked perfectly under this situation. But later after I inserted the pop up menu to some of the buttons, those modified buttons did not work (I could click on the pop up menu, but nothing happened). But it is very funny that if I just open the navigation bar page, these pop up menu works.

Here is the URL in case you need to look at the source code:
URL

The site is still under construction, but you can at least try the first pop up menu for the pages called Intro1.htm and Intro2.htm

Hope there is enough information for you.

wkccheung

I can see several things that you should work on first:

1. Your code needs to be heavily commented, e.g. 'What we are doing here and why we are doing it?'

2. Most of us use descriptive names (at least as much as possible) for images, buttons, etc., such as 'frames_page1_over.gif' rather than the cryptic "Navigation_r7_c1_f3.gif" type filenames you are using. Makes it much easier to see at a glance what's going on.

3. Get rid of the spaces in filenames and directories. You can spot these by the '%20' items in the source code of the page. Some servers don't mind spaces; most do, and do funny things when they run across them. The major source of troubles like this is space names in directories - don't use them - use an underscore ( _ ) instead.

4. Your popups popup right over the existing menu items. Part of the problem is the focus of the mousepointer. This is going to be a problem with the width of your nav frame.


A few comments on your design and such (and they are worth exactly what you're paying for them! so do not take offense - they are just from MY perspective).

StudioMX (Dreamweaver) is full of goodies (I use it too). However, just because the goodies are available doesn't mean you should use them. A design philosophy I try to follow is to get done what I want in the most effective, accessible and easiest way possible. I think you've made your project more difficult for yourself than it needs to be, in terms of debugging and so on.

Frames-based design is on its way out. I believe that frameset definitions are going to go the way of the dinosaur before long, mainly because for the most part there are usually far easier and more elegant ways of presenting your page. Frames are needlessly complicated and time-consuming to debug (as you are finding out). For instance, you could use a template on your site that includes the header and navbar, with content in the righthand section. You would achieve the same look and functionality, but lose all the problems.

Having said that, I realise that you are a student and you probably need to learn frames and such. But I'll wager that as you move on, you'll lose your enthusiasm for them...

Hi steve1959,

Thanks for the comment and advices. I have some elaborations after reading your message:

2. I only saved the full navigation bar under one file, but those funny file names was generated by Fireworks itself. So should I make any alternations to the names? (I know it is more easier to read as what you've commented on).

3. Yeah, I agreed with that. I have had some problems with it before, so I have changed the file name with two or more words to just one. The underscore is a good sugguestion for me actually. I might use it later on.

Sorry....... I just pressed the wrong button and ended my previous message...........

Let me continue..........

4. The reason I set the pop up menu right on top of the navigation bar is because I want to leave more room for the main frame to prevent viewers to scroll the page left and right (if viewer has a 800 x 600 resolution). If that causes problem, I can change the setting to the side.

Ok. That's it for now.

I sure would. Would make your code much easier to read. Just make sure that you change the names every place that you need to - maybe one at a time. Change the filename and then use find/replace in your code.



What causes the problem is that the pointer doesn't transition cleanly to the popup box. Also, as you move down the menu list, the popups obscure the underlying menu choices, so you have to move over to make the popup disappear then move back to the menu.