Macromedia
Dreamweaver
I recently started
using Macromedia's Dreamweaver product for building Web pages and
I have been extremely impressed with it. It has such powerful features
which you would expect to see in a multimedia authoring tool rather
than an authoring tool for the Web. But the feature which I am most
impressed with is its expandibility. Not only is it expandable but
good documentation is provided in the form of the Behaviour Development
Kit and users are encouraged to experiment.
There is an
active news group dedicated to discussions about Dreamweaver which
can be accessed at macromedia.dreamweaver
either through your own news server or using the Macromedia news
server (forums.macromedia.com).
The two main
customisable features of Dreamweaver are the Objects
and the Behaviours. Below you will find
some objects and behaviours which you can download for your own
use.
One problem
that many users of Dreamweaver encounter is the lack of keyboard
shortcuts for simple formatting commands. I found this frustrating
myself however, I have started fighting back with the help of the
Windows Macro Recorder which comes with Windows for Workgroups (and
maybe other versions). I have provided a macro file which contains
some useful macros for use with Dreamweaver. To download the zipped
macro file click here. For instructions
on how to install and set up the Macro Recorder see the readme.txt
file which is also included in the zip.
Objects
Objects are
inserted by choosing them either from the Insert menu or from the
floating Objects window.
| Object |
Description |
Format |
| Replacement
Table Object |
This object
is an enhanced version of the table object provided with Dreamweaver.
I found it frustrating that each time I inserted a table I had
to manually enter the number of rows and columns. Even worse,
if I was inserting multiple tables the values were reset back
to their defaults each time. This version provides a simple
"spin-box" type control for changing numeric values
with the mouse. It also provides other attributes which can
be specified such as cellpadding, cellspacing and border. Finally
it provides the option to center the table using <center>,
using <div align="center"> or using a combination
of both. |
Zip
HTML
Readme
Icon
|
| Replacement
Image Object |
This object
is an enhanced version of the image object provided with Dreamweaver.
It provides additional attributes such as border, hspace, vspace,
align, width and height and the option of specifying an href
to make the image a link. Numeric values may be changed by the
mouse using spin boxes and values will be preserved between
uses of the dialog. |
Zip
HTML
Readme
Icon
|
Behaviours
All the behaviors
below are cross-browser compatible!
Please
note that the HTML link in the format section of each behavior
is a link to the source HTML behavior file which you can download
directly if your setup doesn't let you open ZIP archives. Use the
Zip link if possible.
| Behaviour |
Description |
Format |
|
Show Tool
Tip &
Hide Tool Tip
|
New
Makes a Window-style tool-tip appear near the cursor position.
Allows you to put whatever HTML you want in the tool-tip. Very
configurable! Includes two behaviors, one to show the tip
and another to hide it again. |
Zip
HTML
for "Show"
HTML
for "Hide"
Demo
Readme
|
| Replacement
Swap Image Action (v1.1+) |
Exactly
the same as the v1.1 Swap Image behaviour released by Macromedia
except only usable images are displayed in the list of images |
Zip
HTML
Readme
|
| Fly in
from Edge (concurrently) |
Makes an
object fly in from any side of the screen to its would-be original
position on the screen. Multiple objects may be in motion at
the same time. For a demo scroll to the top of this page
and reload the page. |
Zip
HTML
Readme
|
| Fly in
from Edge (sequentially) |
Makes an
object fly in from any side of the screen to its would-be original
position on the screen. Multiple objects assigned this behaviour
will wait until the previous object has finished moving before
starting their own movement. |
Under
(slow) development |
|
