mmesarch1: Getting "Design-Time" view to work
perfectly would be like trying to get the templates to render for some obscure, not-standard compliant, erroneous browser. Please keep in mind that Dreamweaver (as much as it would like to be) is
NOT an internet browser. It does not follow the same "rules" for rendering content in its design view.
That said, the UCOMM staff has worked diligently to make sure what Dreamweaver "displays" is relatively similar to what the browser will render. Admittedly, the differences have been more than apparent in this iteration and the last. For example:
- the "N" is in the wrong place
- the headings are the wrong font/position
- certain elements seem to float in the wrong place
- the navigation never renders just right
All of these issues are simply, mostly un-fixable the way Dreamweaver renders its own templates. UCOMM staff has tried to accommodate the most important part of the page, the #maincontent. To that end, styles should (since the last zip update) reflect what they should be (minus a font issue).
More background on the remaining issues:
- The entire body of the page has the wrong font:
This is again an issue with the new reset.css that is common practice to use. All supported browsers are able to parse the CSS and rendered as expected. Dreamweaver's Design time cannot. I deem this a bug of Dreamweaver. - The breadcrumbs/navigation have no styles:
The "Editable regions" of Dreamweaver are delineated with HTML comments. That means they work great for anyone, even if they don't have Dreamweaver to enforce their constrains. However, when Dreamweaver renders those comments in its Design view, it actually creates some kind of "invisible" element in the markup (<mmtinstance:editable>).
This means that CSS 2.1 styles that "cross the boundaries" of an editable and non-editable region will not render. Ex: - Code: Select all
#navigation > ul > li { padding: 10px; }
will not render in Dreamweaver because of the invisible child between #navigation and the first UL child. The navigation and breadcrumb CSS make extensive use of that kind of CSS selector, so they look like crap in Dreamweaver. I deem this another bug of Dreamweaver
UCOMM may continue to look at ways to improve the Design view experience, but until these Dreamweaver bugs are fixed by Adobe, we can only try to come up with buggy work-arounds that don't hurt the actual design. You, of course, are more than welcome to try and come up with your own "Design-time" stylesheets that will work best for you.
Please note: that Dreamweaver (at least in CS4+) has "Live View" that allows you to view your local copy inside Dreamweaver. That may also be a suitable solution.
