User Guide

102 Chapter 5: Customizing Code View

Scheme precedence

Dreamweaver uses the following algorithm to color text syntax in Code view:

1 Dreamweaver determines the initial syntax scheme based on the document type of the current

file. The file document type is matched against the

scheme.documentType attribute. If no

match is found, the scheme where scheme.documentType = "Text" is used.

2 Schemes can be nested if they specify blockStart…blockEnd pairs. All nestable schemes that

have the current file extension listed in one of the blockStart.doctypes attribute are enabled

for the current file and all others are disabled.

Note: All blockStart/blockEnd combinations should be unique.

Schemes can nest within another scheme only if the scheme.priority is equal to or greater

than the outer scheme. If the priority is equal, the scheme can nest only in the body state of the

outer scheme. For example, the

<html>...</html> block where tags are legal—not inside a tag, attribute, string, comment, and

so on.

Schemes with a higher priority than the outer scheme can nest almost anywhere within the

outer scheme. For example, in addition to nesting in the body state of the

block, the

<%...%> block can also nest inside a tag, attribute, string, comment, and so on.

The maximum nesting level is 4.

3 When matching blockStart strings, Dreamweaver always uses the longest match.

4 After reaching the blockEnd string for the current scheme, syntax coloring returns to the state

where the blockStart string is detected. For example, if a <%...%> block is found within an

HTML string, then coloring resumes with the HTML string color.