[thelist] "Hand Coding" in DWMX2004

Russ russ at unrealisticexpectations.com
Thu Sep 2 19:37:26 CDT 2004


> Russ wrote:
> 
> >Check to make sure what version of DW you have.  Several versions ago
> >that wasn't uncommon, but now, years later, it is, indeed, a 
> rarity for
> >it to behave that way.
> 
> Dreamweaver MX v. 6.0, running on Windows 2000. I just fired 
> it up and wow,
> it didn't change my code -- at least, not during a 5-minute test.
> What it DID do that irritated me was:
> 
> 1. Demand that I define a "site" on my hard drive and give it complete
> information about how I FTP this content to the server, 
> including addresses
> and passwords, before it would even open a file. Felt like 
> being ordered to
> sign a prenuptial agreement before a blind date.

I'm a bit leary of the "demand" portion of that--same as with the
complete FTP information.  I've been using DW for years and I cannot
recall every having the information demanded. It's also not
necessary--just preferred--that you set up a site so that you can take
advantage of DW's features for such things as "global search and
replace", among many other things.

> 2. In WYSIWYG mode, it did a fairly poor job of showing me 
> what my page
> looks like in real browsers. Maybe this is why I don't bother 
> with it; what
> good is a WYSIWYG view that isn't WYSIWYG?

How do you expect any tool to accurately represent all browsers?  That's
like actually believing that Opera can accurately mimic other browsers.
The WYSIWYG view works really, really well when you're dealing with
dynamic code (most notably Cold Fusion, but I've had it work just fine
for me in PHP and .asp) and include files.  It also does a good job of
letting you easily determine an approximate location of where you're
working.

If you're expecting a WYSIWYG to help eliminate a phase of testing, I
think you've got the wrong expectations, however.




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