Objects Panel

The Objects panel offers quick access to the primary objects, such as images and tables, that you typically place within your HTML document. To insert text, simply click in the Document window and start typing. Dreamweaver inserts <p> tags whenever you press the Enter key or Return key.

The Objects panel has seven different categories—Characters, Common, Forms, Frames, Head, Invisibles, and Special—each providing links to tools and objects specific to that category. The Objects panel, shown in its Common category mode in Figure 1-4, is accessed via Window Objects, Ctrl+F2 (Windows), or Cmd+F2 (Macintosh). You can switch categories by using the panel category selector menu indicated in Figure 1-4. The Objects panel can be customized as discussed in Chapter 19.

The Objects panel’s Common category

Figure 1-4. The Objects panel’s Common category

Clicking an icon in the Objects panel places the chosen object at the current cursor location (or you can drag the icon to the desired location in the Document window). Some objects require additional information to be entered via a dialog box before the object can be inserted. To insert an empty placeholder object (and bypass the dialog box), disable the Edit Preferences General Show Dialog When Inserting Objects option, or hold down the Ctrl key (Windows) or Option key (Macintosh) while inserting the object. Properties of existing objects can be modified using the Property inspector.

Tip

Use Ctrl-drag (Windows) or Opt-drag (Macintosh) to quickly duplicate an element on the page.

Table 1-1 lists the options available in each category of the Objects panel. See Chapter 19 for details on adding custom objects to the Objects panel. The Objects panel can also be configured to show icon labels using Edit Preferences General Objects Panel Icons and Text.

Table 1-1. Objects panel categories

Category

Inserts these objects

Notes

Characters

Line break

Nonbreaking space

Copyright

Registered trademark

Trademark

Pound

Yen

Euro

Left double quotes (” )

Right double quotes (“)

Em dash (—)

Other characters

<br>

&nbsp;

&copy;

&reg;

&#153;

&pound;

&yen;

&euro;

&#147;

&#148;

&#151;

Other ASCII characters, such as single quotes (see Figure 2-22)

Common

Image

Rollover Image

Table

Tabular Data

Draw Layer

Navigation Bar

Horizontal Rule

Email Link

Date

Server-Side Include

Fireworks HTML

Flash

Flash Button

Flash Text

Shockwave

Generator

See Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and Chapter 5

Forms

Form

Text Field

Button

Checkbox

Radio Button

List/Menu

File Field

Image Field

Hidden Field

Jump Menu

See Chapter 2 and Chapter 3

Frames

Left Frame

Right Frame

Top Frame

Bottom Frame

Left, Top-Left Corner, and Top Frames

Left and Nested Top Frame

Top and Nested Left Frame

Split Frame Center

See Chapter 4

Head

Meta

Keywords

Description

Refresh

Base

Link

See Chapter 2

Invisibles

Named Anchor

Script

Comment

See Chapter 2

Special

Applet

Plugin

ActiveX

See Chapter 5

Many of the objects inserted via the Objects panel can also be inserted using the keyboard shortcuts listed in Table 1-2.

Table 1-2. Object shortcut keys

Object

Windows

Macintosh

Line Break

Shift+Enter

Shift+Return

Nonbreaking Space

Ctrl+Shift+Space

Cmd+Shift+Space

Opt+Space (Design pane only)

Image

Ctrl+Alt+I

Cmd+Opt+I

Table

Ctrl+Alt+T

Cmd+Opt+T

Flash Movie

Ctrl+Alt+F

Cmd+Opt+F

Shockwave Director Movie

Ctrl+Alt+D

Cmd+Opt+D

Make a Link

Ctrl+L

Cmd+L

Named Anchor

Ctrl+Alt+A

Cmd+Opt+A

Any external file

Drag the file from Explorer or Site window to the Document window

Drag the file from Finder or Site window to the Document window

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