[thelist] Dreamweaver and hand-coding

[BJ]

"- Which Dreamweaver functions do you find most useful?
-Where can I find these functions? (short answers, please)

- Which Dreamweaver functions should we avoid?
- Do you have any tips and tricks for beginning hand-coders who want
to use Dreamweaver?"


Dreamweaver's interface has a lot of shortcut buttons for adding images 
and tags (across the top of the doc window, and just above it.)  They 
add both the open and close tags and place the cursor in the middle 
ready for you to add content.  Title box is great. These save lots of 
time coding, especially when adding images, links, etc.  The property 
manager is also good for adding links and some other stuff, like lists.  
Highlight the code, then just type the url into the property manager 
"link" bar and hit enter.  Add a list by the click of a button.

There are also keyboard shortcuts.  control-shift-p for paragraph code 
comes immediately to mind.

The library function is great for making code snippets that you'll 
reuse.  Create the snippet, then insert it by placing the cursor there, 
and double clicking the snippet name on the lefthand menu.  Even if it's 
a whole block of code, it's automatically added for you.  I use this a 
WHOLE lot.

Validation is great, and the "clean up xhtml" thing that'll 
automatically reformat html 4.0 to be xhtml 1.0 trans, great when you're 
redesigning someone else's out of date code.

I use the template feature on every site for the pages that have a 
standard layout.  That way I can update the elements that are common to 
every page from within the template file, and it will automatically 
update the 60 or so pages that are tied to that template.

It's nice having that mini file manager on the left, I use that to open 
files, and it keeps things straight for me.

I use the text/css styles/manage styles dropdown all the time.  Though 
the basic stylesheet is done by hand, the editing and tweaking is done 
through this dropdown, usually while viewing splitscreen so I can see 
the changes happening-- it works for me, saves me time.  Though there is 
a caveat-- the dw wysiwyg rendering engine chokes on complicated css 
layouts, especially those that use floats in css.  Just because it looks 
awful in the dw wysiwyg window doesn't mean it doesn't work.  But 
previewing in firefox (my default) is easy- save, then F12.  Other 
browsers available through the dropdowns.

I use the rightclick menus on the filename tabs across the top of the 
work window.

I love using DW to edit CSS because it's all color coded, and if the 
color "aren't right" I know I screwed something up and approximately 
where-- usually something that would be otherwise harder to pinpoint, 
like a colon for a semicolon.

If you wish to make standards compliant sites I'd avoid the bloated DW 
"behaviors" like rollovers and such.  They're better handled in css.  
And most of the snippets that come as a package in the code library 
aren't xhtml/css, but earlier, so I don't use them, I add my own.

I never use the font thing in the property manager, since it writes old 
font tags.

I could probably come up with more, but this is turning into a tome 
rather than a short email *grin*.  Personally I can't imagine doing this 
without Dreamweaver.  Its advantages far outweigh its limitations.

bj