Adobe GoLive (and some web design)
Tips, Techniques, and Resources

The best online resources for the intrepid Adobe GoLive user gathered into one page.

We GoLive users have to stick together! Yes, Dreamweaver owns the market, and no doubt there'll be a Dreamweaver Resources page added here at some point. But savvy designers know that Adobe GoLive has a slew of unique features that DW can't touch!

GoLive and Web Design Tips from Design Geek e-zine

GoLive Resources from Adobe's Web Site

Note: Many of the online tutorials and downloadable PDFs from Adobe's site listed below are actually excerpts from the book, Adobe GoLive CS2 Tips and Tricks: The 250 Best by Adam Pratt and Lynn Grillo. If you like these excerpts, I highly recommend you just buy the dang book! It's great! (You can see the cover in the Best Pubs sidebar at left.)

Free 30-day Trial of GoLive CS: I love how Adobe provides fully-enabled versions of their current software available for anyone to download and try out. You just gotta have a fast connection!
What's New in GoLive CS2: Drag and drop CSS-based layouts! Be still my heart! Still no dynamic content modules, alas. But there's tons of other new features. Read about them in Adobe's page promoting GoLive v8/CS2, due to start shipping in May 2005.
Mastering Adobe GoLive CS2 Basics (PDF, 4.4M): This whtepaper will walk you through the process of creating of a Golive CS2 site from the creation of your first page through the publishing of the site.
Creating Tables, Rollovers and Links in GoLive CS2: Tables, rollovers and links. . .oh my! Three fast paced video clips that address three popular items on the web.
Creating Drop Down Menus and Rollover Buttons (PDF, 288K): Two for the price of one. This handy little PDF will teach you how to create a navigation bar for your home page and a rollover button with the mouse over effect.
Build a better web page with Smart Objects (PDF): Use the Smart Objects feature to turbocharge your production in GoLive CS2. You'll need to register (registration is free) or log-in to the Adobe Studio to view this nifty little tutorial.
Create a Cascading Sytle Sheet (PDF, 919K): There is an easier way to change the appearence of a site with just a few clicks of the mouse. This PDF demonstrates how to create a CSS document from scratch in GoLive CS2.
Format Pages with CSS Objects (PDF, 569K): This labor saving feature allows GoLive CS2 users to format content within CSS Block Objects. This tutorial will show you how to drag and drop onto a page and customize the objec until your hearts' content.
Include Margins in CSS: Time saving tip right here! Now you can keep those text blocks from butting up against the other elements on the page! Take a look at this brief clip from Total Training to learn how to set the margin and specify padding options inside the CSS editor of GoLive CS2.
Manage Versions of Your Site with Version Cue CS2: We'd like to send this shout out to all of our GoLive CS2 converts who are desperately searching the internet for help with their workflow versioning issues! This paper will teach you how to create a new Version Cue-enabled site.
Create Custom Web Site Icons (Favicons) & Snippets in GoLive CS2: Learn how to create and place those small custom favicons that appear in the address bar & bookmarks of web browsers. Don't miss the Snippets tutorial at the bottom of the page. Those little *snippets* of information that you use repeatedly throughout your web site—like an address or email address—can be turned into a Snippet for ease of use!
Clean up Site with GoLive CS2: This tip might make you feel like you've just found a crisp $5 bill in the pocket of coat that you rarely wear. Find out how to quickly get rid of the clutter you've collected in the process of creating or updating your site with the Clean Up Site command.
GoLive Extensions: With these (mostly) free extensions, you just download them, drop them into your program folder, restart the program and voila! You have new features, functions, menu and palette items. You'll need to register/log-in to the Studio to get to the link.
GoLive Javascript Actions: As if the huge drop-down list of built-in Actions ("Behaviors" to you Dreamweaver users) weren't enough, here's about 100 more, most of them freeware. You'll need to register/log-in to the Studio to get to the link.

Best Ways to Get Help from Other GoLive Users

Adobe's Forums:
M ac GoLive | Windows GoLive: Adobe's best-kept secret is the incredible support users offer other users on their forums. Reading is painless (click "login as guest" button), posting/replying requires free registration.
OmniPilot's "GoLive Talk" Listserv: This independent e-mail list is a great place to post your questions and get answers in minutes. Lots of GoLive users from around the globe hang out here at all different skill levels. Adobe staff, writers and trainers also chime in once in a while. Traffic is about 50 messages/day, so set up a dedicated mailbox and rule in your email program to filter incoming listserv messages to it.

Best Adobe GoLive Online/Video Training

Total Training: GoLive CS2 | GoLive CS Essentials: Total Training offers 2 training movies on CD that are guaranteed to get you up and running. GoLive CS2's host, Lynn Grillo is the author of a few of our favorite GoLive books. Award winning print & web designer, Steve Holmes, hosts GoLive CS CD. Each CD includes project files so you can follow along with the presentor.
Virtual Training Company's GoLive CS Lessons: You can learn GoLive online in the privacy of your web browser as a series of dozens of short, optimized-for-the-web online Quicktime movies, or order all of them on a CD for $99 to get the highest quality Quicktime files. Either way, all sample files used in the lessons are included.; I like accessing VTC on a subscription basis. For $30 a month you can access all of their online lessons (more than 250 software programs/topics, over 70 of which are graphics related), and you can cancel at any time with no penalty.

Other Bookmark-Worthy GoLively sites

GoLive Essentials: A new portal for GoLive users, GoLiveEssentials.com contains links to tutorials, events, training resources and more.
100+ GoLive Tips and Tutorials: Adobe employees Lynn Grillo and Adam Pratt, authors of the GoLive CS Tips books recommended in the side bar, created a companion site for their earlier book about GoLive 6 (Teach Yourself GoLive 6 in 24 Hours). Even though I never bought "GoLive in 24," I bookmarked this particular page in their site because of the stupendous tips, many of which are still applicable to GoLive CS/CS2, some are applicable to any web author (example: Create HTML E-Mail for Mac/Windows).
GoLive Central: This wonderful site offers text and video tutorials on GoLive, JavaScript, actions and a number of other topics, and it has its own user forum. A fantastic resource that every GoLive user should bookmark at the top of their list!
GoLive Developers: The developer community for Adobe GoLive is as enthusiastic as the program's end users, and offer a number of way-cool add-ons for the program. The following links to developer home pages (and their freeware/commercial ware products) are in no particular order, and probably isn't complete, but it's a start:
MindPalette
OutActions
Actions Cafe (Walter Blady)
Rasmussens Design
CSS Boxes
BigBang Extensions (home of MenuMachine, most popular 3rd-party action)
Zend Studio
Oliver Michalak's Actions and Extensions
Dave "daverj" Jones Actions
GoLiveHost.com: Here's a web host that is so GoLive-savvy they named their company after the program. Yes, of course they host sites built with other programs, and are savvy in those as well, but it's just such a comfort knowing that they'll be able to help you with any GoLive-specific hosting issues. Best of all you can often find tech support a click away on iChat/AIM! How cool is that? Great packages for individuals and resellers alike.
Brian Sooy's Unofficial GoLive Dynamic Content Guide: Earlier versions of GoLive had a Dynamic Content module (functions, palette and menu items) that helped web designers create database-driven web sites. Brian's site helps these users convert those sites to VBScript and SQL with GoLive as the main authoring tool.

GoLive After Hours: You find the best stuff in those after hours joints! This no-frills site provides thoughtful tips, fixes and workarounds for Glove 6x. You'll find great tips for setting up a basic slide show, applyng temporary styles, and overcoming hyperactive popup-blocking software.