KillerSites Blog

Use Dreamweaver CS3 templates to save time

May 1, 2008

Hi,

When I was working on the redesign of the killersites.com, I found (as a starting point) that the templates that ship with Dreamweaver CS3 useful.

Dreamweaver CS3 starter templates

Dreamweaver has a nice collection of bare-bones web templates. One thing I found cool about these templates, is that they contain a lot of notes that describe why they (the web-nerds at Adobe) have certain things in place – like the specific code they used to deal with a given CSS layout issue.

… This is another good way to learn more about CSS.

An added bonus: tested layouts

The templates are solid, in that you can be sure that they have been tested to work in the major browsers.

… This beats having to tinker with this yourself! That way, you can concentrate on the design.


The killersites.com facelift

killersites.com-web-design

For my redesign of killersites.com, I used one of the Dreamweaver templates as a starting point. I found that it was well structured, such that it could withstand the changes I needed to make to it.

… Many CSS layouts are fragile, in that if you change just a little bit about it, the whole thing can start to fall apart.

How to find the Dreamweaver CS3 templates

Dreamweaver CS3 ships with many templates that you can access either by the ‘Welcome Screen’ or by going into:

dreamweaver-new-document

File > New

.. This will open up the ‘New Document’ window where you will be able to choose from four categories:

  1. Blank Page
  2. Blank Template
  3. Page from Template
  4. Page from Sample

In ‘Blank Page’, I used a template called: ‘2 column liquid, left sidebar, header and footer’. Not the most exciting name, but it does tell you what you’re getting.

If you are a Dreamweaver CS3 user, or someone just interested in exploring quality CSS templates, I would suggest taking a look at the Dreamweaver templates.

PS: you can download a free 30 trial of Dreamweaver CS3 if you don’t have it already.

And if you are interested in learning Dreamweaver, you can view my free Dreamweaver video tutorials.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com