Setting the code rewriting preference options

This dialog box allows you to specify preferences for how and whether Dreamweaver modifies your code while opening documents, when copying and pasting form elements, and when entering attribute values and URLs using Dreamweaver tools such as the Property inspector. These preferences have no effect when you edit code in Code view.

If you disable the rewriting options, Dreamweaver displays invalid-markup items in the Document window for HTML tags that it would have rewritten.

To specify code rewriting preferences:

• Specify any of the following options:

  Fix Invalidly Nested and Unclosed Tags rewrites overlapping tags. For example, <b><i>text</b></i> is rewritten as <b><i>text</i></b>. This option also inserts closing quotation marks and closing brackets if they are missing.

  Rename Form Items When Pasting ensures you don’t have duplicate names for form objects. This option is enabled by default.

  NOTE

  Unlike the other options in this preferences dialog box, this option does not apply when you open a document, only when you copy and paste a form element.

  Remove Extra Closing Tags deletes closing tags that have no corresponding opening tag.

  Warn When Fixing or Removing Tags displays a summary of technically invalid HTML that Dreamweaver attempted to correct. The summary notes the location of the problem (using line and column numbers) so that you can find the correction and ensure that it’s rendering as intended.

  Never Rewrite Code: In Files with Extensions allows you to prevent Dreamweaver from rewriting code in files with the specified filename extensions. This option is particularly useful for files that contain third-party tags.

  Encode <, >, &, and " in Attribute Values Using & ensures that attribute values that you enter or edit using Dreamweaver tools such as the Property inspector contain only legal characters. This option is enabled by default.

  NOTE

  This option and the following options do not apply to URLs that you type in Code view. Also, they do not cause existing code already in a file to change.

  Do Not Encode Special Characters prevents Dreamweaver from changing URLs to use only legal characters.

  Encode Special Characters in URL Using &# ensures that when you enter or edit URLs using Dreamweaver tools such as the Property inspector, those URLs contain only legal characters. This option is enabled by default.

  Encode Special Characters in URL Using % operates the same way as the preceding option, but uses a different method of encoding special characters. This encoding method (using the percent sign) may be more compatible with older browsers, but doesn’t work as well with characters from some languages.