The Dreamweaver is the mother of all web-based activities on the internet. For most of the people, Dreamweaver is just a tool to create websites, but only the professionals know that Dreamweaver is the powerhouse.

Dreamweaver has many features and options which make it the most favorite tool of the web developers. Undoubtedly this software has the most well-known IDE (Integrated Development Environment) which no any other web development software has in the present market. Either the development, collaborating and coding tools, the Dreamweaver provides a decent range to the web developers to play with. That is why for the beginner web developers, it is important to know how they can maximize the use of the Dreamweaver.

All of the aspects which differentiate the expert web developers and ordinary web developers are hidden under layers of regrettable intuitive menus which is why new web developers are finding hard to improve their skills. However, in this article, I am going to show you those hidden and powerful functions of Dreamweaver which has very important to know to meet the demands of today’s market. This article will assist you to access those functions quickly and will provide you with the top ten helpful hacks which will improve the quality of your work and improve your coding significantly.

1. Dynamic View and Live View:

Everyone knows that the Dreamweaver offers the static view or our open files. However, the question remains unanswered on the dynamic views of an application such as WordPress. In order to set the dynamic view, we need to tell the Dreamweaver about the settings to use for the dynamic views. To set this, go to the HTTP Request Settings by clicking on view > Live View > options menu and then enter the GET or POST which is required to view your application correctly.

After that, switch the Live View in the Dreamweaver which will replace the Design View panel into the live, pixel-perfect rendered WebKit of your page. Then complete it with the live Javascript, DOM manipulations, database queries, server side code, and rendered CSS, instead of the placeholder icon from the Design View interface.

2. Bootstrap for stepping up the navigation:

Navigation is the one page component in the responsive website that should have the adaptive capability to meet the needs of smaller screens for which Bootstrap can help a lot. The Bootstrap allows you to easily set up your navigation bar and switch from the horizontal strip to the vertical panel. The reason behind is that the Dreamweaver supports all the Bootstrap’s navigation flexibility and it is an easy to use the feature when it comes to developing an effective, responsive website.

To give you the quick look of it, following is the quick demo of how to use Bootstrap in your development.

Stepping up the navigation with Bootstrap starts with the Dreamweaver’s new document dialogue. Simply click the Bootstrap Framework button in the new document dialogue and also check the pre-build layout option checkbox to use the fully featured navigation options like;

• Standard, unordered and semantically correct list of links.
• An area for logo placement to place the brand image.
• Ready to activate the submit button and search field.
• Presets for drop-down menus for sub-navigation items and complete it with the dividers.
• Left and right sections that can be aligned when needed.
• Built-in responsiveness.

If you find it hard, there is another option. Dreamweaver allows you to make the customized navigation bar. If you prefer the dark palette, just add the .navbar-inverse class to your <nav> tag. You can even play with it too. If you want to show your navigation always above the page, then type .navbar-fixe-top. If you want to show it below, type .navbar-fixed-bottom. All of these Bootstrap classes are standard, and the Dreamweaver code-hinting also supports these coding, so you don’t have to keep the entire coding in mind. You just have to type .navbar in the element display, and you will get the popup list in which you can choose your desired option.

3. Freezing the JavaScript:

The Ajax has a very dynamic nature. This is why many time when we need to interact with the page with unavailable or not rendered items on the first-page load. Those items could get injected into the page after some time of load which is why it doesn’t show on the first load. For example, when you might want to change the styling of the tool tip that implemented entirely on the JavaScript, you used to search your way methodically through your scripts to find which item was created where. Instead of searching through the scripts, try the following.

Put your Dreamweaver in the Live View and render your page. Then press the F6 to freeze the JavaScript anytime which will allow you to dissect and target any code of any dynamic item in the page. This will not only help you in targeting the exact code of the dynamic item but also will make your development quick by reducing the time in searching of any code within the dynamic website.

4. Highlighting the code:

A script of coding could be very confusing if you are not used to seeing complex coding every day and night. This is where the highlighting of the codes help you create separations in the entire script. Instead of moving your eyes with the bleeding edge, Dreamweaver has a feature which highlights the coding that helps you to read it. For this, open the Dreamweaver preferences and turn on the technology previews section. Then click the enable code highlighting option and let the Dreamweaver do its thing. However, you might need to update your Dreamweaver version because this feature is only available in the latest version.

Once you enable the highlighting option, just double-click on any tag, and it will highlight all the instances of the tag on the current page. However, the parameters should be defined. This tool is great for quickly identifying and going to the similar elements. Once you have highlighted any element, use the keyboard shortcuts f3 on the PC, CMD-G on the Mac) to jump from one highlighted element to the next element. Also, the shift modifier can go backwards to the previous section. Moreover, code highlighting also works with the HTML tags attributes and values so you can easily spot the specific classes.

5. Automatic JavaScript Completion:

Dreamweaver is a great platform where intelligent and complete HTML and CSS codes. Though, some people believes that JavaScript is not complete. In the case of jQuery or Prototype, in the Dreamweaver, you should know that there are API extensions that provide Javascript completion codes. These codes pace up the development process because by using these codes there is no need to type entire scripts and come pretty handy for fast coders.

The Dreamweaver is the only web development software which allows you to use such type of jQuery and Prototype completion codes that helps every web developer to speed up their task and produce the best possible product with minimum efforts.

6. Access the Related Files Easily:

CSS and JavaScript are the names of independent files which you see when you open the HTML and PHP files. While opening the PHP file, you can see it at the top of the window. Because these all options are placed in the front, you can easily switch to these files and can make changes which can be saved without even opening them. On clicking any file in the related files bar, which will show you its source in Code View and the parent page in Design View.

Moreover, you can also use any code navigator tool to quickly access the CSS source code that will affect your current solution. This quick access to the CSS source code reduce the time of coding and allow the web developer to focus on the different aspects of their development process.

7. Beautify the codes on the fly:

Unorganized and messy lines of codes show that the developer of this coding was not the professional and skilled enough to write the codes in order. This is also something which counts a lot while the search engine optimization of the website. However, organizing your codes and beautifying them is not as difficult as people believe. With the correct knowledge of the Dreamweaver options and you can organize your codes on the fly. Just use the “Apply source formatting” option and reform it exactly to your preferences. To make your coding clean and tidy, click the “Format source code” at the bottom of the coding toolbar and then go to “edit > toolbars > coding” and then select the “code format settings” to set your preferred setting.

Another way to make your script organize is to access the formatting option from Commands > Apply Source Formatting or apply it only on a block of coding by selecting the Apply Source Formatting to Selection option.

8. Lint-Free Coding:

No matter how much Adobe equip the Dreamweaver with powerful tools and features, the more you work on the websites, the more work you have to do on the coding side. This thing can increase your skills, but it will also open up the doors of endless errors because too much writing of coding is not an easy job to do. The Dreamweaver knows it, and that is why in the latest version of Dreamweaver which is Creative Cloud (CC) there is a feature called Linting support. Linting is a basic, programming syntax checking tool which is available for CSS, HTML and JavaScript. Through this, whenever Dreamweaver identifies any problem or error, it sends up a number of flares both general and specific.

To run the test, open a page full of codes in the Dreamweaver, and you will see a small green checkmark in a circle on the right side of the status bar. If there is only a small green checkmark encircled then everything is okay with your code. If there is a red cross mark encircled in red, then there are some issues with your coding, and you need to revise it to run your website properly. Moreover, by clicking the mark of the error, it can take you to the column and row where you did the mistake with the error description. The best thing about it is that there is no limit of this feature and you can use it till you doesn’t get the green mark.

9. Checking the browsers compatibility:

Browsing capability is one of the most basic things of every web development process. This is why the Dreamweaver made it easier for you so you can never miss these basic things before starting your web development. Open the document in the Dreamweaver for which you want to check the compatibility. From the menu bar in which the icons of code, split and design views options are placed, there is another option which is called “Check Page” button.

On clicking, it will open a drop down menu, select check browser compatibility in it and see the result of your compatibility in a separate window.

10. Code Minimization:

While coding for the big website, it often happens that a chunk of code starts irritating you on the screen. Very few people know that they can minimize this chunk of coding just by pressing one button from the keyboard. When you are certain that there is no need to do any changing in the chunk of coding then just select that block and click “-“ next to the code line number. That chunk will minimize and will not bother you until you expand it.