Setting overall styles in DW CC fluid grid layout

Question

I have just watched this tutorial on Adobe TV about fluid grid layout in DW CC: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-dreamweaver-cc/create-fluid-responsive-web-pages-in-dreamw eaver/community#community
This is a great start, but I need to know more!
Where do I set the body text, background, background tile and drop shadows, plus the H1 to H4 and a link attributes? Is it in the <div class="gridContainer clearfix">  or do I do i somewhere else? I saw another video on fluid grid layouts that briefly mentioned using a separate css stylesheet for fonts as 'it was better' but no more detail was given.
Also where can I change the a link attributes in a div if I want different a link styles in that div to the rest of the website? I can't see an area in the properties panel where I can change a link behaviour.
Thanks so much.

Answer 1

Generally, when you are building a website, you want your styles in a separate style sheet (a CSS document). With respect to the tutorial, he details that he is creating a CSS document he calls "style.css" and saves it in the local root folder. I usually place my style sheets in a /css/ folder but, for the purpose of his demonstration, placing it in the root of the defined site in Dreamweaver is just fine.
Now, once he has saved his initial HTML file, Dreamweaver CSS tells him that his document needs two more documents that Dreamweaver will pull in from the Dreamweaver library. One is a JavaScript document, respond.min.js, that handles figuring out what to do on a cell phone, versus a tablet, versus a desktop and the other is "boilerplate.css" that handles fluid grids. If you look at the HTML document, you'll see links to these three files in the root of the defined site.
Now, you'll notice when he's creating the header (id="top") and doing the centering of the logo image, he tells you to select the corect stylesheet, namely "style,css."
Here's the essential problem with the way he's showing you how to do this. You're not actually working in the code. He's demonstrating all of these panels and entry areas for Adobe's Dreamweaver that actually hide the code from you. In fact, he encourages this by switching you from "Split" view to Design (only) view for centering the logo image.
I think this is disingenuous. Everyone here in this forum will tell you, "You need to learn HTML and CSS." And they're absolutely correct. Dreamweaver's fluid grid layout gizmo may not ever define body text, background, background tile, drop shadows or your "h" tags at all. Or, they may be defined, but you are never taken to the code that shows you those definitions.
Open the CSS document that is the basis of the tutorial, which is style.css. In that document, you should see a "body" definition like this:
body {
          background-color: #FFFFFF;
  color: #000;
          font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif;
          margin: 0px 0px 30px 0px;
In English, this means your background color is white and your text color is black. You're using Lucida Sans Unicode or Lucida Grande as your typeface, defaulting to sans-serif if those are not available. You have a 30-pixel bottom margin, no margins for either top or sides.
If you need to create a background color or tile, you would change the background-color attribute or, if you are tiling a background, you would place the following in the body definition in CSS:
background-image: url("images/tile.jpg");
This assumes you have a file in your /images/ folder in the root of your defined site called tile.jpg. Since you did not include a background-repeat command, your tile will repeat x and y.
And if you don't want a tiled background in your body and do want it in a different div, you simply look for the name of the div in your CSS and put it there.
As to your heading styles, you may find them all ready defined in your CSS document. You may redefine them or create new header styles.
This should get you started. The key is to open the CSS document, "style.css" and see what's there.
-Mark