Dreamweaver CC: The Missing Manual

Chapter 7. HTML Under the Hood

Dreamweaver started life primarily as a visual web page editor, but over the years, its code-editing tools have evolved to rival those of the best text editors, including those that hard-core hand-coders use. Some people bypass Dreamweaver’s Design view entirely and use only its Code view, where they edit their HTML, CSS, and JavaScript directly. In fact, you can use Dreamweaver to edit any text-based file, including XML, Java, ActionScript, and just plain text itself.

Dreamweaver’s code editor includes professional features like customizable syntax highlighting, auto indenting, line numbering, and code hints; code collapse, so you can concentrate on just the code you want; and the Code view toolbar, which provides one-click access to frequently used hand-coding commands. Dreamweaver may be the only web-page creation program that hardcore code junkies ever need. In fact, Adobe aimed many of Dreamweaver CC’s improvements at those who use Code view to edit pages built with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the server-side programming language PHP.

Controlling How Dreamweaver Handles HTML

Unlike many other visual HTML editors, Dreamweaver has always graciously accepted HTML written by hand (and even by other programs). This openness lets you write code the way you want, without worrying that Dreamweaver will change it. For example, suppose you format your handwritten code a particular way. Maybe you insert an extra hard return after every <td> (cell) tag, or you ...