Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) has become as pivotal a technology in the building of websites as HTML. Originally, CSS was mainly used for defining the appearance of text (font, size, colour, etc.). However, with the improvement of browser compatibility with the CSS specification, CSS is now the recommended method of controlling all aspects of the presentation of HTML documents within the browser window.

Adobe Dreamweaver is a very widely used platform for developing web sites and web content and, although used by experienced developers, is also widely used by non-specialists for whom Dreamweaver's user-friendly visual interface takes the pain out of web site creation. The way in which Dreamweaver implements CSS is very important for the casual user, since it will influence the kind of sites they end up producing.

One of the most noticeable changes in this the latest version of Dreamweaver is that users are now positively encouraged to create web pages using CSS for page layout rather than tables. Each time a new web page or template is created, Dreamweaver offers you a choice of basing the page on one of about thirty preset CSS layouts with names like "3 Column Elastic" and "3 Column Fixed".

Instead of using tables to control positioning of web page content, CSS page layout makes extensive using of the DIV element an HTML construct which can contain just about anything, including other DIVs. The preset pages created by Dreamweaver CS3 contain a series of DIV element with the CSS code that controls their positioning. The placeholder text within the DIVs includes useful tips on customising the preset pages for your own use.

The CSS generated by Dreamweaver when creating these preset layouts is embedded within the page itself. Updating a site where every page has embedded CSS code would be extremely inefficient. A far better arrangement is to keep all of the CSS in a single file. Luckily, Dreamweaver has a nifty feature for moving CSS definitions from an HTML page to an external CSS file. You just highlight all of the CSS you wish to export, right click the selection and choose "Move CSS Rules" from the "CSS Styles" context menu.

Although this ability to move CSS around is really great, it's not something that beginners will necessarily think of doing. It points to the fact that Dreamweaver could still do with a few enhancements to its implementation of CSS.

It is also disappointing that Dreamweaver still automatically generates CSS styles called "style1", etc. each time the user applies a font or colour to selected text. Surely it would be easier to simply remove these basic attributes and just let the user either apply a style to the selection or, if no styles exist, create a new one. Perhaps this will be introduced in the next release of this excellent program.