Macromedia dreamweaver 8-extending dreamweaver User Manual

Page of 504
46
Customizing Dreamweaver
Opening a document in Dreamweaver
When a user opens a file, Dreamweaver follows a series of steps to identify the document type 
based on the file’s extension.
If Dreamweaver successfully finds a unique document type, Dreamweaver uses that type and 
loads the associated server model (if any) for the document that the user is opening. If the user 
has selected to use Dreamweaver UltraDev 4 server behaviors, Dreamweaver loads the 
appropriate UltraDev 4 server model.
If the file extension maps to more than one document type, Dreamweaver performs the 
following actions: 
If a static document type is among the list of document types, it gets preference. 
If all the document types are dynamic, Dreamweaver creates an alphabetical list of the 
server models that are associated with these document types and then calls the 
canRecognizeDocument()
 function in each server model (see 
). Dreamweaver collects the return values and 
determines which server model returned the highest valued positive integer. The 
document type whose server model returns the highest integer is the document type that 
Dreamweaver assigns to the document being opened. If, however, more than one server 
model returns the same integer, Dreamweaver goes through the alphabetical list of those 
server models, picks the first in the list, and uses that document type. For example, if both 
ASP-JS and ASP-VB claim an ASP document and if their respective 
canRecognizeDocument()
 functions return equal values, Dreamweaver assigns the 
document to ASP-JS (because, alphabetically, ASP-JS is first).
If Dreamweaver cannot map the file extension to a document type, Dreamweaver opens the 
document as a text file.
Customizing workspace layouts
Dreamweaver lets you customize the workspace layout, including which panels are in the 
specified layout, as well as other attributes such as the positions and sizes of the panels, their 
collapsed or expanded states, the position and size of the application window, and the position 
and size of the Document window.
The workspace layout is specified in XML files stored in the Configuration/Workspace 
layouts folder. The following sections describe the syntax of the XML tags. Optional 
attributes are marked in the attribute lists with curly braces (
{}
); all attributes not marked 
with curly braces are required.