[waxdoc]

Hard to guess what problem is, but always gather your files together in a folder and SITE>New Site -- define that site root folder and save all your files to that site root folder. Think you should have an index.html page in root folder. I would create and validate sample page before saving as a template ___.dwt file. You then save that template file to the site root folder you defined in the very beginning. Dreamweaver saves that .DWT file in a Template folder it creates.

See screen shot above.

One of the many nice features of Dreanweaver is that, when you type lesser-than symbol and slash </ , it completes any open tag that needs closing. This not only saves a bit of extra typing, it shows you what tag needs closing.

It's best to work in code pane of SPLIT view or in CODE view. And, obviously, you can write your own code.