New Additions to Spry Widgets
Spry is Dreamweaver’s Ajax solution which uses JavaScript and CSS to add sophisticated interactivity to your web pages. Dreamweaver CS4 includes some useful additions to its existing range of Spry widgets. For example, the Spry Tooltip widget allows you to create a tooltip which will appear when the mouse is placed over the specified text or object. Since the tooltip is inside a DIV element, this offers tremendous flexibility as to the appearance of the tooltip. For example, it could include an image or a Flash movie.
There have also been some nice new additions to the Spry form validation widgets. The Spry Validation Password widget allows you to specify the minimum and maximum number of characters, numbers, uppercase and special characters which can be included in the password entered. The Spry Validation Confirm widget checks that the entries in two fields are identical and displays a customizable error is they are not. This makes it ideal for creating “Password/Confirm Password” or “Email/Confirm Email” functionality.
Photoshop Smart Objects
The Photoshop integration which was begun in Dreamweaver CS3 has been enhanced in CS4 to offer via the use of Adobe’s Smart Objects technology. A Photoshop file can be imported directly into Dreamweaver and will automatically come in as a smart object.
Photoshop images are can be inserted using the same techniques as inserting any other image file: Insert – Image; dragging from the Files panel; dragging from the Assets panel; or using the Insert toolbar. A Photoshop-style Optimise window automatically appears and you can choose the settings appropriate for that particular image usually GIF, JPEG or PNG.
Access to Related Files
HTML is a notoriously sparse environment which relies on files created with other technologies to add functionality to web pages. Typical examples of related files are server-side includes, CSS, JavaScript and XML. Dreamweaver now includes a feature called “Related Files” which enables you to edit the content of such files, without having to open them separately, and to instantly see the effect of your changes on the main file.
Photoshop images are can be inserted using the same techniques as inserting any other image file: Insert – Image; dragging from the Files panel; dragging from the Assets panel; or using the Insert toolbar. A Photoshop-style Optimise window automatically appears and you can choose the settings appropriate for that particular image usually GIF, JPEG or PNG.
Integration with Adobe Photoshop CS4
The fact that the image is a smart object means that if we resize it in Dreamweaver, it will automatically be re-optimised and a new version of the image will be generated with the new dimensions. (In previous versions, resizing an image would mean that the browser was responsible for resizing leading to poor image quality.
New ways to edit CSS
The Property Inspector can be used to change the attributes of any element you select on an HTML page. In previous versions of Dreamweaver, changing the attributes of highlighted text would cause the program to create CSS classes with names like “Style1”, “Style2”, etc. in the head area of the current page. This random creation of styles was often responsible for getting new web developers into bad habits.
In Dreamweaver CS4, the Property Inspector contains buttons which allow you to switch between HTML and CSS options. When working in the CSS options, you can now target a specific CSS rule before choosing an attribute or, if necessary, create a new rule.
Author is a developer and trainer with TrainingCompany.Com, an independent computer training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver Classes in London and throughout the UK.