Layers in Dreamweaver

Kai

When im working with layers in dreamweaver mx they dont display in the preview code correctly. but when i view it in IE it works fine.
This is quite annoying and i sometimes switch to frontpage to finish off the layers visually. The page can look perfect in IE, yet when i view it in dreamweaver the layers are all over the place, some are hidden and some dont display at all.
Does anyone know of any settings im missing or am i just stuck with it. Other than that dreamweaver mx is great.

mneylon

There's a setting to display them all. I can't remember off the top of my head where you'll find it, but I know it's in there somewhere

zAbbo

View >> Visual Aids >> Layer Borders and Invisible Elements

I think

tomED

If hidden - when not supposed to be make you sure have the "vis" on the toolbar set to "visible".

Personally I don't mind them being different in dreamweaver. It gets you into the habit of constantly checking the site in the browser - you should make sure you try other browsers too, because they could be even worse!!! especially the dreaded nutscrape.....

zAbbo

well developing sites for mozilla normally enables it viewable in all browsers. Stops us turning into IE fanboys.

tomED

Originally posted by bazH
Stops us turning into IE fanboys.

LOL - class.

You will still run into problems by using just mozilla.

Mozilla can handle tables better than netscape 4.x and although you will probably see the layout as you would with nutscrape - you wont see the time it takes for nutscrape to render some pages with heavy table usage.

anyway - we could go on all day discussing which is better. I just mentioned that that's the way i like to work!

zAbbo

The only real problem with using non IE browsers is tables rendering correctly(which can be fixed with some practise - spacers etc.)

And Menus and DHTML, its almost sure to work in IE, again its mainly an allignment issue. I agree the netscape is very bloaty, but the latest one is based on mozilla 1.4 - which is nice

tomED

Originally posted by bazH
The only real problem with using non IE browsers is tables rendering correctly(which can be fixed with some practise - spacers etc.)

Em - its not the rendering correctly that I hate about nutscrape. Thats fine, as you said you can fix that with spacers etc.

Its when Nutscrape can't draw the tables - have you ever had a site with embedded tables for a complex design layout - where nutscrape basically freezes while it trys to draw the tables? Thats what I hate! And something that mozilla doesnt show up!

Kai

thanks for the replys guys but i dont think it does display them properly. The pages work fine in IE and Netscape its just dreamweaver thats messed up. Its not a major thing but it would be very handy if i could preview the code in dreamweaver rather than switching to IE for every small change when laying them out.

tomED

OUr point is that you shouldnt be relying on dreamweaver to show you what the layers will look like. This would be like bulding your site for just one type of browser.

You should get into a habit of checking it in different browsers. If you want to be good at it - thats the way you should work.

Kai

Originally posted by tomED
OUr point is that you shouldnt be relying on dreamweaver to show you what the layers will look like. This would be like bulding your site for just one type of browser.

You should get into a habit of checking it in different browsers. If you want to be good at it - thats the way you should work.

I never said i dont check it regularly in different browsers, my point was that if i change say a font size or colour in CSS, because that text is on a layer that dreamweaver doesnt show i then have to view it in IE just to ensure the change went thru.
Its not a major thing as i said i just wanted to see if anyone else had the same issue and if it was merely a setting i had wrong.

mneylon

DW can only display some CSS. If you want to play with CSS you will have to use a browser to check the display changes