Absolute positioning conversion in Dreamweaver?

[jburatti]

Ok, so I've read on many different forums that using AP Divs is unwise and in some cases deemed unethical when designing a site, but I still have more questions about them...
I am fairly new to dreamweaver and just designing a simple personal page. I have used programs like Yahoo site builder and Iweb before and it's so easy because you just drag and drop elements in the position you want and thats it! Thats not really the case in Dreamweaver, however unless you use AP divs.
My question would be, is there a way I can design my site using AP divs, dragging and dropping my elements, images, "text boxes", etc. into the position I wanted, then "converting" those AP's into relitave or other positioning methods more standarly used after I have everything positioned the way I want? By converting, I'm not looking for a magical button that does the trick, however if there is a hidden one somewhere please let me know, but myabe some manual conversions , and how would I do it, if even possible?

[aj_nsc]

Absolute positioning, like most things, is a very useful tool and has a definite time and place for use. However, they can be very very dangerous when people use them improperly - laying out a page would be a good example of that.

I design with photoshop (I guess you can use dreamweaver, too). And once you have all your images laid out in the exact place you want them, take a screenshot and save that image so you have a reference. Then open up Notepad (or Notepad++) and start writing your HTML and CSS to get your page the way you want.

There's no "easy" way to convert absolute positioning to anything else other than to learn the nuances of CSS and different browsers and code and test and test and test.

[extendstudio]

You can have a look as well at <a href="http://www.extendstudio.com/product/tableless-css-layouts-for-dreamweaver.html">Flexi CSS Layouts</a> - a Dreamweaver Extension that help you create Css layouts in Dreaweaver without coding.

It's not exactly dragging images, but it's as close as it gets.