Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual

Chapter 10. Under the Hood: HTML

While Dreamweaver started life primarily as a visual Web page editor, it also hosts powerful code-editing tools that let you work on your pages’ HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code directly. In fact, in recognition of the ever-multiplying types of files used to create Web sites, Dreamweaver lets you edit all text-based files, including XML, Java, ActionScript, and just plain text files. The 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 frequent hand-coding tasks. Dreamweaver may be the only Web page creation program even hard-core code junkies ever need. In fact, many of the new features in Dreamweaver CS4 are aimed specifically at helping those who work in Code view for editing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Roundtrip HTML

Unlike many other visual HTML editors, Dreamweaver has always graciously accepted HTML written by hand (and even by other programs). In fact, Dreamweaver has always made it easy to jump between itself and text-editing programs like the much loved, but retired, HomeSite (for Windows) and BBEdit (for the Mac).

This ability, which Adobe calls Roundtrip HTML, lets Web developers write code the way they want, without worrying that Dreamweaver will change it. For example, suppose you have a particular way of formatting your handwritten code. ...