Client review of web pages

If you don't want to upload a site to the web, copy your root folder (and all site files within it!) to a CD.

That way, the pages can be looked at in a browser and won't be vulnerable to being changed readily. If your pages work well locally, that is, in Dreamweaver, then the site will be accessible simply by double-clicking on the index.html file on the CD.

It is okay be leery of uploading pages and sites to the web, but the best solution is to have a "sandbox" area on your own webspace (and to HAVE your own webspace!). That way, you don't have to physically create a CD and deliver it.

For instance, I routinely have copies of sites on which I am working resting on my webspace. As they sit in their own root folders, they are accessible for those to whom you give the URL. You need not have them linked to your own site; in fact, it's probably better if they are NOT linked to your own site, unless you want all and sundry to be looking at works in progress.

When you have more than one site in your webspace, make sure that each is self-contained in its own root folder. The only index.html file that you want to show up by default when someone "goes to" your domain is the home page for the site. 

To wit: 

• My webspace (defaults to my home page, index.html, when my domain URL is called): 
  http://www.gravenimagedesign.net/
• Located within my webspace root might be other sites:
  http://www.gravenimagedesign.net/PHA/ (which would load the index.html page for my PHA 'sandbox' site)
  http://www.gravenimagedesign.net/PAE/ (which would load the index.html page for a PAE 'sandbox' site, if there were one)
• File structure would be as follows:
  home page and files of gravenimagedesign.net (webspace as a whole =  root folder)
  PHA/index.html all PHA files live in the PHA folder, which is ITS root folder
  The URL for this site would be: http://www.gravenimagedesign.net/PHA/{not necessary to add the pagefile name, unless you are not showing an index page}
  PAE/index.html   all PAE files live in the PAE folder, which is ITS root folder {again, not necessary to add the pagefile name to the URL, unless you are not showing an index page}
  The URL for this site would be: http://www.gravenimagedesign.net/PAE/

Color Blindness

When you design for the web, you must consider legibility a high priority.

Contrast between text and color blocks/background images is paramount to creating an easily-read page.

Consider your color-blind viewers, and check out your pages at http://colorfilter.wickline.org Bring this page up on your browser and look at your pages one by one (you enter the URL at the page) through special filters designed to mimic the page as seen by a person who is colorblind. Several different colorblind conditions are mimicked; you can click between them while viewing a rendering of your page.

This resource may help you steer clear of pages that are difficult to read.

Questions, we have questions!~

1. It is perfectly all right to put a spry menu inside an APdiv. You will find that divs are incredibly useful structurally and to isolate individual elements of your page.
2. Not only is an APdiv the same thing as what we used to call a "layer," it is principally just a div with that added attraction of being more defined: width, height, position. It remains fully editable.
3. Placing images inside divs and APdivs is also fine.
4. You may easily place flash buttons and text if you have created them in Flash. Dreamweaver no longer (in CS4) gives you an easy way to originate them.
5. To change a rollover color on a spry menu, you will change the a:hover state in the spry css file that is coordinated with your spry menu.
6. Rollover images may be applied to an existing image on the page by using the swap image behavior.
7. To offer a space for a client to preview/review a website without "going live," the easiest way is for you to have a "sandbox" area on the server that you yourself use. For instance, in my www.gravenimagedesign.net server space, I have a folder called PHA, where my entire PHA working site lives. It is accessed by both my client and by me at www.gravenimagedesign.net/PHA.
   Although I have made that sub-site accessible through my own website, it need not be publicized on your home website. But if the client is given the URL, the site is available to be reviewed 'live,' even if it is not live on their server at their domain name.
      You are correct; you would not want to email them html files, or the whole constellation of files in your site. By putting them on the web, you are ensuring that they function correctly, and as they will when they are finally uploaded to your client's server space.