10 Important Tips and Tricks about using DreamWeaver

List of the top 10 most important tips on how to use Dreamweaver.

Until recently i thought that DreamWeaver didn’t have all the features i need, and then i found out it did. So now i can finally write down a list of the awesome features DreamWeaver has that will make your life easier.

 
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  Code Minimization

    When developing big website’s in DW and you know a certain chunk of code won’t change, and it takes up too much space you can use the hard to find feature of Code Minimization. Select the chunk of code you want to minimize and then click the little [-] next to the code line number. Vuala that chunk of code won’t bother you until you expand it.

 

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  Code Formatting

    Until not so recently I condemned DW for being the only IDE that does not have code formatting, little did i know it did, and it had great code formatting. Turns out you just had to realize that they did not put the code formatting option under EDIT (which is where it’s at in every other ide) but rather they placed it under COMMANDS. Don’t ask me why. But all you need to do is go to COMMANDS -> APPLY SOURCE FORMATTING and bara boom you got clean shweet code.

 

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  Code Navigator

    Ever wonder where in the website are you, and what is the styling of the surrounding elements, wonder no more, code navigator comes up when you Alt+Click on inside your code. Tells you all you need to know about your surroundings!

 

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  Code Snippets

    Code Snippets are a little heaven on earth, having to rewrite or google all those important little fractions of code that make us the developers we are today can get SOOO frustrating. Trust me i google the If Less IE7 then apply completely different styles to my stuff. Anyways DW does this for you, not only can you add all your great goodies, but it comes with a nefty library on its own.

 

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  Convert Inline CSS to Rule

    This little button lets you select an inline style, and automatically add it to your css stylesheet. I know that is quite rad!

 

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  Manage Sites (great ftp client)

    In need of a ftp client, besides it falling short of the ability to upload your photos to the server just by dragging or dropping (or any other way for that matter) it’s really nice to edit files click Ctrl+S and be able to preview the file online on the server. If there is a way to upload files please do share in the comments.

 

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  Insert Menu

    King of like the snippets, the insert menu has a bunch of great pre generated code sets. For example the meta keywords, or the form radio button set it allows you to get things in the website fast without having to leave the ide and search for the proper naming and code.

 

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  Access to embedded files

    In the new DW you will find that any Stylesheet or JavaScript file that you have referenced is accessible. So now you don’t have to open 10 tabs at a time, just the right one and you’re done!

 

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  Find Replace

    Sometimes you get stuck having to replace the a bunch of li’s and add a class=“test” well instead of doing it 15 times you can simply use the find/replace tool!

 

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  Live View

    How great is it that now you can ACTUALLY view the website rendered (almost correctly). Click anywhere and see where in the code that is, also it shows you the actual change right away! Sweeeet!

Happy Coding!!!