An Introduction to Dreamweaver 4

With the introduction of its new Layout View, Dreamweaver is finally usable for those who prefer pure design, placing tables and cells anywhere on the page. But that's only one of many useful additions. Version 4 also includes great tools for HTML coding, team collaboration, and multimedia enhancements.

Perhaps the worst part about the new Dreamweaver is that it seems to add even more windows to an already packed interface. Sure, any tool with this many features is going to get crowded, but it's hard to stop the various windows from overlapping. Macromedia should bundle Dreamweaver with a coupon for a large screen monitor. We tested it on a 17-inch screen, but a 19- or 21-inch would have been more comfortable. And using Dreamweaver on a 14- or 15-inch screen would probably be a nightmare.

<Rodney_Dangerfield_voice>Jeesh, there are so many windows here, you're going to feel like you. re in a greenhouse. </Rodney_Dangerfield_voice>

Among the most welcome tools are those that let users tinker with the HTML directly. This isn't new for Dreamweaver, but it's now easier than ever. Open a page and from the top left of its window you can choose from three views: code only, code and layout, or layout only. Select the mixed view and the active window splits so that the HTML code is on the top and the graphic layout on the bottom.

These two views can be switched so that the layout view is on top. There. s no way, though, to put them side-by-side. Maybe with version 5. For those used to viewing HTML with the Code Inspector, a tabbed window that typically resides on the top right of the screen, It. s still available. Select it from the Window pull-down menu.

Another new feature, Code Reference, seems especially useful to Webmasters who have taken over a corporate intranet from someone else, and who may not understand all the codes used. The Code Reference window lives at the lower right-side of the screen. You can use it two ways: either select tags from the window's pull-down menu to get a description, or place your cursor on a tag in your page's code, then hit the question mark button--which looks like "<?>"--in the page's toolbar. Either way, you'll get an explanation adapted from the Definitive DHTML Reference Book, published by the esteemed O. Reilly Publications.

A few other minor changes make hand-coding easier. While certain tags were color coded in the previous version of Dreamweaver, users now have control over what tags are assigned what colors. Also, tags are automatically color coded while they're typed out.