User Guide

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CHAPTER 18

Code

The Code functions let you perform operations on a document that appears in Code view. These

operations include adding new menu or function tags to a Code Hints menu, finding and

replacing string patterns, deleting the current selection from a document, printing all or selected

code, editing tags, or applying syntax formatting to selected code.

Code functions

Code Hints are menus that Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 opens when you type certain

character patterns in Code view. Code Hints provide a typing shortcut by offering a list of strings

that potentially complete the string you are typing. If the string you are typing appears in the

menu, you can scroll to it and press Enter or Return to complete your entry. For example, when

you type <, a pop-up menu shows a list of tag names. Instead of typing the rest of the tag name,

you can select the tag from the menu to include it in your text.

You can add Code Hints menus to Dreamweaver by defining them in the CodeHints.xml file. For

information on the CodeHints.xml file, see Extending Dreamweaver.

You can also add new Code Hints menus dynamically through JavaScript after Dreamweaver

loads the contents of the CodeHints.xml file. For example, JavaScript code populates the list of

session variables in the Bindings panel. You can use the same code to add a Code Hints menu, so

when a user types Session in Code view, Dreamweaver displays a menu of session variables.

The CodeHints.xml file and the JavaScript API expose a useful subset of the Code Hints engine,

but some Dreamweaver functionality is not accessible. For example, there is no JavaScript hook to

open a color picker, so Dreamweaver cannot express the Attribute Values menu using JavaScript.

You can only open a menu of text items from which you can insert text.

Code Coloring lets you specify code color styles and to modify existing code coloring schemes or

create new ones. You can specify code coloring styles and schemes by modifying the Colors.xml

and code coloring scheme files. For more information on these files, see Extending Dreamweaver.

The JavaScript API for Code Hints and Code Coloring consists of the following functions.

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