Setting export parameters

It is very important that the HTML settings for the export dialog are correctly defined. The settings which I suggest for best results are clearly explained in the following section.

The screen shots show the settings and a list of parameters under the screen shot will explain all of the selected items. Fireworks is a very powerful program that allows for a range of settings in the export dialog. We cannot talk about all the settings in this class and will only explain the ones chosen.

HTML Setup

It is recommended to setup your Fireworks installation to use the default vales we will talk about in this section. To enter the default settings choose from the menu bar File > HTML Setup.

• HTML Style: select Dreamweaver
  Since we are learning how to integrate our work into Dreamweaver this is the correct setting.
• Extension: we recommend .html
  The .htm setting reflects the former constraint to specify only 3 letter extensions (DOS). .html makes it clearer that we are dealing with an HTML document.
• Include HTML Comments: does not need to be checked.
• Lowercase File Name: check
  We recommend lowercase file names as standard. For example UNIX servers have a case sensitive file system that distinguishes between "Page.html" and "page.html" while Windows does not.

• Space with: Nested Tables - No Spacers
  This setting will create HTML tables that contain other tables. The result is a modular construct of the reassembled graphics. You can remove and replace individual elements easier. It also eliminates any spacer graphics that would be required to give tables a certain layout.
• Empty Cells: Cell Color: transparent (checkerboard)
  We don't want a background color specified, just an empty table cell.
• Contents: Non-breaking Space
  The non-breaking space (  in HTML) needs to be in empty table cells. The reason for that is that Netscape browsers will not display a table cell unless it contains something. The non-breaking space is an easy and invisible character and serves that purpose.

The Document Specific settings are very important. They control the automatic file name generation for areas of a document that you do not name. If you leave areas of your canvas without a slice covering then the name of the exported graphics file will follow the specifications defined here.

This dialog also defines the extensions that will be added to the 'over' and 'down' states of the images.

• Slices: doc.name
  This is the standard setting. It will apply the document name as first part of an automatically created filename. Remember, this will only happen if there is an area in the document with a slice that has not been specifically named.
• doc.name + Hyphen
  We recommend to use the hyphen " - " because an underscore " _ " will not show up if a filename is a link. Here's an example:
  slice-01.gif is fine while slice_01.gif looks like two (2) words because the underscore is covered by the link marker.
• doc.name + Hyphen + row/column(r3_c2,r4_c7)
  This setting should be left like this in case you forget to name a slice. It will still create a valid filename.
• All other settings for Slices: should be None.
• Frames: Hyphen
  For the same reasons as given above use the hyphen.
• Frames: Hyphen + Abbreviated(o,d,od)
  Fireworks will automatically append "-o" for the images on the second frame, and "-d" for the images on the third frame. If there is a fourth frame (over-while-down) it will append "OD" at the end of the image name.

Fireworks also displays an example file name that shows how your setting will influence the creation of the filenames.

• Alternate Image Description: leave blank
  Used to give automatic ALT text to system created slices. There should be no unnamed slices - when you name your slices also provide an ALT text.
• Multiple Nav Bar HTML Pages: unchecked
  Would create a different page for each navigational item with that item in the down state. The images are shared but different HTML code will be generated.
• Include Areas without Slices: check
  This setting will also process the unsliced areas. It is, as I mentioned a couple of times before, recommended to cover the entire canvas with slices to be able to name them according to our naming scheme.

To make the settings permanent hit the "Set Defaults" button. All new created documents will conform to the general HTML export options we specified.