Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual

Chapter 19. Automating Dreamweaver

One of Dreamweaver’s greatest selling points is that it makes you more productive. You’ve experienced this firsthand if you ever labored over tatbles in an HTML text editor. What once took many keystrokes now takes one click of the Insert bar’s Table object.

If you’re looking for even more ways to cut time off your day, Dreamweaver doesn’t disappoint. In addition to its Snippets, Library, and Template features (see Chapters 17 and 18), the program offers two tools that let you automate common and timeconsuming tasks: the History panel and the Find/Replace command.

The History Panel Revisited

As you work on a Web page, Dreamweaver keeps track of everything you do. You can see a list of your actions—your history—in the History panel. Each document has a separate history, which Dreamweaver discards when you close the document or quit the program.

You can use the History panel to quickly undo or redo multiple actions (Section 2.5.2), but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. You can also use it to replay and record a series of actions you wish to repeat. If you’ve ever used macros in Microsoft Word or actions in Adobe Photoshop, you’ll probably get the hang of this feature quickly.

To open the History panel, choose Window→History, or press Shift-F10 (see Figure 19-1).

Replay Your Steps

To replay a step in the History panel, click the step’s name to highlight it. You can also select multiple steps by using one of these methods:

• To select a group of consecutive ...