Automatic code modification in Dreamweaver

You can set options that instruct Dreamweaver to automatically clean up your hand-written code according to criteria that you specify. However, Dreamweaver never rewrites your code unless the code rewriting options are enabled or you perform an action that changes the code. For example, Dreamweaver does not alter your white space or change the case of attributes unless you use the Apply Source Formatting command.

A few of these code rewriting options are enabled by default. For information on how to disable them, or enable others, see Setting code rewriting preferences.

The Roundtrip HTML capabilities in Dreamweaver let you move your documents back and forth between a text-based HTML editor and Dreamweaver with little or no effect on the content and structure of the document’s original HTML source code. These capabilities include the following:

• Dreamweaver lets you start a third-party text editor to edit the current document. For more information, see Using an external HTML editor with Dreamweaver.
• By default, Dreamweaver does not make changes in code created or edited in other HTML editors, even if the code is invalid, unless you enable code-rewriting options.
• Dreamweaver does not change tags it doesn’t recognize--including XML tags--because it has no criteria by which to judge them. If an unrecognized tag overlaps another tag (for example, <MyNewTag><em>text</MyNewTag></em>), Dreamweaver marks it as an error but doesn’t rewrite the code.
• Optionally, you can set Dreamweaver to highlight invalid code in Code view (in yellow). When you select a highlighted section, the Property inspector displays information on how to correct the error.

Related topics

• Setting coding preferences
• About server behavior code