Adobe Dreamweaver is a multi-purpose web development tool aimed at inexperienced and experienced users alike. It uses standards-compliant web technologies such as XHTML and CSS. Web content can be imported into the Dreamweaver at any time without the danger of the program modifying your code. In the same way, pages created in Dreamweaver can be exported from the Dreamweaver environment and used elsewhere.

The program does not rely on its own unque solutions which will only work in the Dreamweaver environment. Although Dreamweaver is not necessarily the best environment for creating all types of website, it is not an environment which one easily outgrows. It can be used both for creating basic, static content consisting of client side pages as well as more sophisticated dynamic content including server side pages. In other words, it is suitable for developing the content found on the vast majority of websites. So, let’s examine this content in more detail.

Most web sites are hosted on web servers run by specialist hosting companies. A large website may have a dedicated server or even servers, whereas most typical websites will be sharing space on a server with other sites. Visitors to a website are sometimes called clients.

Clients gain access to the content on web servers using a variety of different operating systems and different browsers. They normally find this content either by clicking on links from search engines and other locations or by simply typing a URL into the address bar of their browser.

The content that clients access on websites can be divided into two main categories: client-side and server-side. The term client-side refers to web content which is compatible with the user’s browser, material which the browser software can actually open, display or execute (in the case of scripts).

The main component of client-side content is HTML, or as it’s known in its current incarnation, XHTML; a stricter and more consistent version of the original HTML specification. HTML is a simple markup language which is used to describe the content of web pages for the benefit of the client’s browser. Then we also have CSS and JavaScript.

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is used for describing the layout and presentation of web content. JavaScript is an easy-to-learn scripting language which can be used to add interactivity to web pages. For example, when someone is filling out a form on a website and information entered into a field is inappropriate, JavaScript can be used to notify them that the content must be changed.

All modern web browsers are fully capable of understanding XHTML, CSS and JavaScript content. With the addition of extra software known as plug-ins, other technologies can be added to web pages. Two of the most popular are Flash and Adobe Acrobat PDF files. All of this content then is fully compatible with the client’s browser; hence the term client-side content.