Hi I have CS5 Adobe Creative Suite and I want to create some graphic "Buttons" to use for my web pages. What product in the Creative Suite is best suited for doing this?
Thanks In Advance!
Hi... I appreciate your quick response. I guess my next question is using an application like Photoshop (Which I'm just learning)... Is there any references or good books to explain this? I have a few books on Photoshop (And would certainly purchase one for Fireworks) but really haven't delved into them yet.
Is there any good web documents out there which could get me started with some basic button designs?
"button" designs are so 90's. Get with CSS and do it right. Here are some links for you -
HTML & CSS Tutorials - http://w3schools.com/
How to Develop with CSS?
http://phrogz.net/css/HowToDevelopWithCSS.html
Learn CSS positioning in 10 Steps
http://www.barelyfitz.com/screencast/html-training/css/positioning/
========================================
PRE-BUILT CSS LAYOUTS
For rock solid, commercial products that perform well in all browsers/devices, visit Project Seven:
http://www.projectseven.com/products/index.htm
Not Just a Grid CSS Framework (free)
http://www.notjustagrid.com/demo.asp
Ultimate Multi-Column Layouts (free)
http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog/ultimate-multi-column-liquid-layout s-em-and-pixel-widths
EZ-CSS Templates (watch the screencast to see how it works)
http://www.ez-css.org/css_templates
Dreamweaver CSS Templates for beginners (free)
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/dreamweaver_custom_te mplates.html
New DW Starter Pages (free)
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/introducing_new_css_l ayouts.html
I rarely if ever use images for navigation any more. CSS is so much better for this.
http://alt-web.com/DEMOS/CSS-Horiz-menu-2.shtml
For web images, use Fireworks or Photoshop to create images only. DO NOT allow these applications to generate HTML code for you.
Nancy O.
Alt-Web Design & Publishing
Web | Graphics | Print | Media Specialists
Nancy... That is incredible! Which brings me to one question... Where do I use the code? (I can break the code down once I have it working) but would love to get a page with this code in to toy around and learn a bit more.
What type of Template/Document do I need to create in? Where do I place it? I'm an old html coder and it's been quite a while since I've been designing websites but I'm hoping to change all of that...
Let me know... Thanks!
I'm glad to have sparked your enthusiasm for CSS. It's a very powerful web design tool as demonstrated by CSS Zen Garden. http://www.csszengarden.com/
Look at the links Murray already posted. Those are all excellent resources.
CSS code typically goes into an external stylesheet.css file to which all your HTML pages are linked. This way you can make site wide style changes by editing just one file.
To create an external Stylesheet
========================
In DW, hit File > New > Basic Page > choose CSS from the list. Paste the CSS code from my tutorial into the file and save it as menu.css to your local site folder.
To create an HTML page
==================
Hit File > New > Basic Page > and choose HTML from the list. Paste the HTML code from my tutorial into your new document between the <body> and </body> tags. Save as test.html to your local site folder.
To link external stylesheet to HTML page
==============================
http://alt-web.com/DEMOS/DW-Link-Stylesheet.shtml
Have fun!
Nancy O.
Alt-Web Design & Publishing
Web | Graphics | Print | Media Specialists
DW's code completion and code hinting features make working in Code View much faster. I mainly work in Code View or Split View with pre-built CSS code copied & pasted from other files.
If you're a very patient person, you could use the CSS properties panels & CSS editor to build your entire style sheet. It may take a while longer to work this way. Just be sure to preview in browsers often as Design View alone isn't 100% reliable.
Nancy O.
Alt-Web Design & Publishing
Web | Graphics | Print | Media Specialists
Prodigy9 wrote:
Nancy... I just tested out the style sheet for nav/menu bar you gave me. The menu bar comes up fine and looks great however I don't see the drop downs. Any thoughts?
Thanks a bunch!
It is to do with your code. Can you post a link to your test page so that we all can have a look at it and give you the appropriate advice.
Good luck.
Copy & paste the following code into a new, blank HTML document. For expediency, I embedded CSS code here.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>CSS Menu Test</title>
<style type="text/css">
/* BEGIN HORIZONTAL DROP-MENU */
#navbar{
position:relative;
width: 100%;
margin: 0 0 0 45px; /**adjust as needed**/
padding:0;
text-align:center;
}
#navbar li {
list-style: none;
font-size: 12px;
float: left;
text-align:center;
}
/**top level menu**/
#navbar li a {
display: block;
text-decoration: none;
margin-right: 12px; /* space between links */
color: #FFF;
width: 9em; /* adjust as needed or use auto */
padding: 8px;
font-weight:bold;
line-height: 1.50em;
background: #C33;
background: -moz-linear-gradient(#C33, #111);
background: -webkit-gradient(linear,left bottom,left top,color-stop(0, #111),color-stop(1, #C33));
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(#C33, #111);
background: -o-linear-gradient(#C33, #111);
background: -ms-linear-gradient(#C33, #111);
background: linear-gradient(#C33, #111);
/* gradient filters for IE6-9 */
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#C33333', endColorstr='#111111',GradientType=0 );
/**rounded borders**/
-moz-border-radius: 25px;
-webkit-border-radius:25px;
border-radius: 25px;
}
/**top menu style on mouse over - in good browsers**/
#navbar li:hover > a {
color: #FFF;
background: #333;
background: -moz-linear-gradient(#333, #EAEAEA);
background: -webkit-gradient(linear,left bottom,left top,color-stop(0, #EAEAEA),color-stop(1, #333));
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(#333, #EAEAEA);
background: -o-linear-gradient(#333, #EAEAEA);
background: -ms-linear-gradient(#333, #EAEAEA);
background: linear-gradient(#333, #EAEAEA);
/* gradient filters for IE6-9 */
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#333333', endColorstr='#EAEAEA',GradientType=0 )
}
/**sub-menu**/
#navbar li ul {
display: none;
text-align:center;
margin:0;
padding:0 1em;
background:none;
}
/**sub-menu, help for IE6**/
#navbar li:hover ul,
#navbar li.hover ul {
display: block;
position: absolute;
padding: 0;
}
#navbar li:hover li,
#navbar li.hover li {
float: left;}
/**drop-menu style**/
#navbar li:hover li a,
#navbar li.hover li a {
color: #0D207D;
width: auto; /* adjust width as needed or use auto */
background: none;
filter:none;
}
/**drop-menu style on mouse over**/
#navbar li li a:hover {
color: #990000;
text-decoration:underline;
}
/* Clear floated elements at the end*/
#navbar:after {
visibility: hidden;
display: block;
font-size: 0;
content: " ";
clear: both;
height: 0;
}
/**end Horizontal drop-menus**/
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul id="navbar">
<li><a class="first" href="#">ABOUT US ▼</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Videos</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Newsletter</a></li></ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#">PRODUCTS ▼</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Broken Glass</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Mosaic Tiles</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Adhesives</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Grout</a></li></ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#">ACCESSORIES ▼</a><ul>
<li><a href="#">Gloves</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Rubber Mallets</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Sponges</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Safety Glasses</a></li></ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#">CONTACT</a></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
Nancy O.
Alt-Web Design & Publishing
Web | Graphics | Print | Media Specialists
External CSS files should not contain <style> and </style> tags.
Embedded styles require <style> tags.
http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_howto.asp
Nancy O.
Alt-Web Design & Publishing
Web | Graphics | Print | Media Specialists
Nancy... I removed the <style> tags... And everything still appear properly. (Thanks!).
I purchased a couple of books on CSS/CSS3 but until they arrive I was wondering if you could explain to me how to center the menu in the navbar menu demo we've been working with so it would appear centered (Horizontally - Left to Right)? It may seem trivial (I know) but to someone new to CSS it's not so simple.
Any block tag with an explicit width, and "auto" left/right margins will center within its container. If no width is given (either in CSS or in HTML), or if the width is 100%, then the block tag will fill the width of its container, and obviously cannot be centered. Your <ul> tag is given 100% width, so you would have the same problem.
@Prodigy9,
Try this:
/* BEGIN HORIZONTAL DROP-MENU */
#navbar{
position:relative;
width: 48em; /**adjust as req'd**/
margin: 0 auto; /**centered**/
padding:0;
text-align:center;
border: 1px dotted green; /**for demo purposes**/
}
#navbar li {
list-style: none;
font-size: 12px;
float:left;
text-align:center;
margin-left: 4em; /**space between top level items**/
}
/**for sub-menu items only**/
#navbar li li {
margin-left:-12px;
}
Nancy O.
Alt-Web Design & Publishing
Web | Graphics | Print | Media Specialists
Nancy... This seems to work. I actually tried something similar and came up with similar results. I did add an additional top level menu item (for testing) and had to increase the "Width: 48em" to width: 58 em to make the additional menu item fit. But it still looks good. I'm sure once I become more familiar with CSS I will be able to update these things myself.
One last question... Where do you set the color of the menu items? I tried changing the color items for the "buttons" from Dark Red to something but wasn't able to change them.
Thanks for your help/guidance so far it's greatly appreciated.
-Jamie
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