Dreamweaver versus Other HTML Editors

There are many different HTML Editors and more programming-oriented Integrated Development Environments (IDE's) that allow you to quickly create HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other Web-related codes and scripts. Considering the cost of Dreamweaver, which is still the most expensive program in its class, it may be worth checking out a less expensive option if you don't require all the features Dreamweaver provides.

This Wikipedia article: Comparison of HTML Editors provides tables comparing prices and major features of these editors.

Also, useful to consider, are the efficiency features of these other editors. Before you invest in an HTML editor, you may want to ensure that it can

• spell check your text content
• automatically format your HTML code into a more readable, industry standard arrangement
• find and replace code or content throughout your website

You'll find that, at least with Dreamweaver, the efficiency features listed above are included, and, by themselves, can save you a great deal of time, making Dreamweaver a more reasonable monetary investment.

Dreamweaver's Find and Replace

Dreamweaver's Find and Replace feature is extremely powerful and can be used site-wide. In other words, you can find an element on a page and replace it with another and have it work for all pages on your site at once as long as what you are looking for exists on those pages.

Find and Replace will work with both Text content on the page and Source Code. For example, if you want to add a new script tag to every page on the site, go to Edit > Find and Replace..., then

1. Choose Entire Site
2. Choose Source Code
3. In the find box, type the close of the head tag:
   </head>
4. In the replace box, type the new tag(s) followed by the close of the head tag: (This is an example for a script tag)
   <script type="text/javascript" src="whatever.js"></script>
   </head>
5. Replace All

This will add that script to every head tag in your entire site.

Another use would be to update content, such as the copyright date on every page of the site. You could find the old year and replace it with the new year.

Find and Replace can be used with any code on any part of any page, so long as what you are finding exists on the page. The head and body tags will always exist in the code, so you can always find and replace something into those.

You'll find this to be a powerful and invaluable feature when working with large sites.