Using Macromedia Dreamweaver 4

Other Dreamweaver Utilities

Preview in Browser

Preview in Browser lets you see the page you are working on as it would display in a browser. First, save your document. Then, go to the File menu, and choose Preview in Browser:

You can also click on the preview button in the top of the document window:

From the menu, select the browser you want to preview in, and a browser window will be brought up with the document you are working on in it.

If the browser you want to use is not there, select Edit Browser List, and in the pop-up window, click on the + sign to get a window that will let you specify the name and find the executable file for the program you want to use.

Then you can add that browser to the menu and use it to preview whenever you like.

When you have finished looking at the preview, close it-- you cannot click the refresh button to update the preview for changes you have made in the document; you will need to choose Preview in Browser again.

Date feature

To insert today's date in the document, click on the date button in the Object panel, or choose Date from the Insert menu.

Choose the day, date, and time format (use [No Day] and [No Time] to omit the day or time), then click OK, and the current date will be inserted:

Monday, March 19, 2001 12:59 PM

Find and Replace

The Find and Replace utility in Dreamweaver is very versatile. You can use it to find and/or replace text of your document, raw HTML, HTML tags, or text in relation to HTML tags

To use it, select Find and Replace from the Edit menu.

Select the type of search you wish to do, put in the text, HTML or tag to search for, and set it up to make the changes you require. Then use Find, Replace, and Replace all as you would normally.

Note that you can search and replace throughout the entire local site or folder by choosing those from the Find In drop down menu.

Cleanup HTML

If you are importing pages created with another editor, you may want to use Cleanup HTML to remove redundant tags and other wierdnesses. There is a generic Cleanup HTML and Cleanup Word HTML, both found in the Commands menu. Select one, verify the settings, then click OK. When the cleanup is finished, Dreamweaver will give you a summary of the changes it has made. Click OK to finish.

Check Spelling

Dreamweaver also includes a basic spellchecker. To activate the spellchecker, choose Check Spelling from the Text window, and use it normally.

Jennifer Heise, Last updated March 29, 2001