Figure 1
This usually pops up when you start Dreamweaver. Don't be alarmed if it doesn't pop up for you; it may already be selected to not show again. If you don't want to see this, click "Don't show again" at the bottom lefthand side.
The column on the left will list your recently viewed pages. You can click "Open..." and choose a page you want to edit, if you have one already made.
The middle column has a choice of blank pages. The easiest page to start building from is HTML. If you are unfamiliar with the other options, do not select them.
The column on the right has choices of Starter Pages and Page Designs, which are all premade, and all you'd need to do is basic editing. Starter pages are not useful for UMF Departmental pages, as there is already a template made. However, they may help you with personal websites or offshoots from the department page.
Figure 2 - Click to Enlarge
There are many designs to chose from. On the bottom-right of the image, it says: "Document Type (DTD)". This is how the code is formatted within the site itself. Leave it as the default.
XHTML is more organized than "regular" HTML. What's great about Dreamweaver is if you select a certain DTD, it will have guides to help you code in that DTD. If all else fails, you can go to a DTD validator website and check for mistakes.
Figure 3
The above image shows the three ways to view your site as you edit it. The "Code" view shows all the coding language. It's helpful if you need to make changes or see what's causing you problems. The "Split" view shows both the code and the page itself. This is good because if you click on a certain area of your page, it shows you the code associated with that part, so you can find things easily. The "Design" view shows just what the page looks like. There are some things that you can see on here that you won't see if you preview it in a browser, so make sure you preview this on a live server.
Now, open up a blank HTML page (with an HTML 4.01 Transitional DTD) in Dreamweaver. We're going to start off making a really simple website.