Use the “View Source” button

Knowing how HTML/XHTML and CSS work at a code level allows you to make better use of WYSIWYG tools like Dreamweaver.

Before I started “hand-rolling” my pages, I used to be an avid Dreamweaver user. During this time, I used Dreamweaver’s style editor—which lacks a lot of features—to edit my stylesheets. As a result, I was missing out on a lot of functionality just because I didn’t know it existed. By examining the code and investigating how CSS stylesheets are actually built, I found very powerful applications of CSS that have made my sites—even the ones built with DW—much easier to manage.

For Web designers, the most powerful feature of the Web browser is the “View source” button; if you see something you like, you are free to examine the code to find out how it’s done. I’ve learned more about authoring for the Web using this simple technique than I have from any book or course.

January 14, 2003 | Archived in Design