Dreamweaver's Assets panel is a little known jewel, offering a convenient way of using and reusing web page elements such as images, colours and Flash movies. It also contains two types of assets which are unique to the Dreamweaver environment: library items and templates. Templates act as master pages which control the layout of all the pages in a site or in a certain section of a site. Library items contain web fragments which you may insert anywhere you like, on any page you like. The power of library items stems from the fact that if you update the library item, you can simultaneously update all the pages into which you have inserted that item.
I must emphasise here that library items are a Dreamweaver feature and are not part of the Worldwide Web Consortium's specifications. This may make them unattractive to some developers, especially bearing in mind that the functionality they provide can also be obtained through the use of server-side includes and that server-side includes is a standard feature offered by most web servers. If you decide to stop editing your pages in Dreamweaver, library items will simply cease to be recognised.
Apart from this slight limitation, library items are nothing but good news. They offer a great way of adding such items as navigation panels, headers and footers to a page and being able to update the item right across the site simply by updating the original library item.
There are two ways of creating library items. The first and most common method is to highlight some content which already exists on the page and convert into a library by opening the Assets panel, clicking on the library icon then choosing New Library Item from the Assets panel menu. The second method is to simply create a blank library item and then add content to it. To do this, simply choose New Library Item from the Assets panel menu while no content is highlighted on the current page. In fact, you don't even need to have a page open.
Library items can be edited at any time by simply double-clicking the name of the item in the Library section of the Assets panel. The library item opens in a window similar to an HTML document window. However, since you will often be editing elements out of context, you will often not be able to see the item as it will appear when inserted into a page.
As soon as you save changes you have made to a library item, Dreamweaver will offer you a chance to update all instances of the item on all pages into which it has been inserted.
I must emphasise here that library items are a Dreamweaver feature and are not part of the Worldwide Web Consortium's specifications. This may make them unattractive to some developers, especially bearing in mind that the functionality they provide can also be obtained through the use of server-side includes and that server-side includes is a standard feature offered by most web servers. If you decide to stop editing your pages in Dreamweaver, library items will simply cease to be recognised.
Apart from this slight limitation, library items are nothing but good news. They offer a great way of adding such items as navigation panels, headers and footers to a page and being able to update the item right across the site simply by updating the original library item.
There are two ways of creating library items. The first and most common method is to highlight some content which already exists on the page and convert into a library by opening the Assets panel, clicking on the library icon then choosing New Library Item from the Assets panel menu. The second method is to simply create a blank library item and then add content to it. To do this, simply choose New Library Item from the Assets panel menu while no content is highlighted on the current page. In fact, you don't even need to have a page open.
Library items can be edited at any time by simply double-clicking the name of the item in the Library section of the Assets panel. The library item opens in a window similar to an HTML document window. However, since you will often be editing elements out of context, you will often not be able to see the item as it will appear when inserted into a page.
As soon as you save changes you have made to a library item, Dreamweaver will offer you a chance to update all instances of the item on all pages into which it has been inserted.
About the Author:
The author is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Training, a UK IT training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver training courses in London and throughout the UK.
