7.4 Working with Browsers

Dreamweaver can help you preview your HTML pages in different browsersand check browser compatibility. Here are some URLs from which you can download the major browsers:

• Internet Explorer (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie)

• Netscape Navigator (http://home.netscape.com/netscape)

• America Online (http://www.aol.com)

• Opera (http://www.opera.com)

• iCab (http://www.icab.com)

• Lynx (http://www.lynx.org)

7.4.1 Preview in Browser

Dreamweaver allows you to set up two web browsers with hot-key access. In most cases one browser will be a version of Internet Explorer and one will be a version of Netscape Navigator. To preview your document in your primary web browser, use File Preview in Browser browser1 (F12); to preview your document in your secondary browser use File Preview in Browser browser2, Ctrl+F12 (Windows), or Cmd+F12 (Macintosh). Set up browsers with which to preview your documents by selecting Edit Preferences Preview in Browser or File Preview in Browser Edit Browser List.

Your primary browser is also used to display Dreamweaver's Help files. If the keyboard shortcuts don't work on the Macintosh, turn off the Hot Function Key option in the Keyboard Control Panel.

To debug a document in the primary browser, use File Debug in Browser browser1, Alt+F12 (Windows), or Opt+F12 (Macintosh).

To debug a document in the secondary browser use File Debug in Browser browser2, Ctrl+Alt+F12 (Windows), or Cmd+Opt+F12 (Macintosh).

7.4.2 Browser Compatibility Checking

To check your document's browser compatibility, use File Check Target Browsers to open the Check Target Browsers dialog box shown in Figure 7-10.

Figure 7-10. The Check Target Browsers dialog box

In this dialog box, you can check for element and attribute compatibility for all web browsers from IE2 to IE5 and from NN2 to NN4. The DW4.01 updater includes compatibility checking for Netscape Navigator 6. Once you have selected the applicable browsers, Dreamweaver provides a report similar to the one shown in Figure 7-11. The browser compatibility check does not check whether scripts work in a particular browser. Table 12-1 and 12-3 address JavaScript compatibility.

Figure 7-11. The Target Browser Check report

7.4.2.1 Browser profiles

The browser profiles used by the Check Target Browser command are text files stored in the Dreamweaver 4/Configuration/BrowserProfiles folder. These text files can be edited in Dreamweaver or an external text editor. You can create new browser profiles or download additional browser profiles, such as for NN6, from the Macromedia Dreamweaver site. If you create your own browser profile, follow the format requirements described under "About browser-profile formatting" under Help Using Dreamweaver (F1).

This chapter aimed to give you the skills to manage an individual HTML document more efficiently. In the next chapter we'll explore Dreamweaver's template features, which are used to standardize multiple HTML pages.