Dreamweaver Hints and Tips

Recently-Used Links

In the Properties panel, there is a pop-up menu attached to the Link field, to its right, which has a list of the URLs you have most recently used for links. If you want to use the same URL again, selecting it from this pop-up menu will save you typing.

Undo

The Undo command in Dreamweaver doesn't always work as you might expect. In particular, when you are changing the value of a property in the CSS panel, Undo won't change what you have typed. In fact, if you keep trying to undo, very strange things may happen, such as the property's name appearing in the value field. You must terminate the input, by pressing return, and then undo the entire operation. Similar unexpected behaviour occurs if you try to undo while typing into input fields in the Properties panel.

It seems to be the case that, in Dreamweaver, entering text is considered to be a single indivisible operation, and you can't undo part of it. In other words, don't try to undo while the cursor is in a text field.

The Spry Framework

It's most convenient to use Dreamweaver's Spry objects if you want to use the facilities of the Spry framework, but you don't have to. You don't even have to use Dreamweaver to use Spry. The framework is just a library, which you can download. It is fully documented, so you can incorporate it into your own JavaScripts.

Font Lists

There is no point listing a very common font that is available on most systems anywhere except just before the end of a font list, followed only by a generic font. If it is listed earlier, it is unlikely that any font that occurs later in the list will be used on any system. For instance, suppose you believe (with most type experts) that Arial is an inferior version of Helvetica. There would be no point putting Helvetica after Arial, because although every Mac system has Helvetica, they also have Arial, so the only people who would see the page in Helvetica would be those type purists who had disabled Arial. Always put the less commonly available fonts first.