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Panel Groups

The Dreamweaver panel groups, displayed vertically on the right side of the Dreamweaver window, group together the related information and commands you'll use to design your pages and build and publish your web site. The commands available in the panel groups are far more extensive than the ones you'll find on the Insert bar, which contains the most common Dreamweaver commands.

Each panel group contains one or more panels, similar to categories on the Insert bar. To expand a panel group and view its available panels, click the arrow in the upper left corner of the group.

To access a particular panel, simply click its tab.

Finally, each panel includes an Options menu in the upper right corner, which contains additional options for that panel.

Design Panel Group

The Design panel group has two panels: CSS Styles and Layers. Use CSS Styles to maintain the styles in your document, and to create and attach style sheets. The Layers panel displays all the layers in the current document, which you can show or hide, lock or unlock, rearrange, and rename.

Code Panel Group

The Code panel group helps you work with the code in your page, including HTML, JavaScript, and ASP. The Snippets panel lets you save code snippets, which you can reuse later, while the Reference panel includes a comprehensive HTML reference library.

Application Panel Group

The Application panel group is used to include dynamic content in your web sites. Here, you can specify a data source, define recordsets, and add advanced server behaviors.

Tag Inspector

The Tag Inspector displays all the attributes of your page elements. Here, you can modify any attribute of a selected HTML tag by typing directly into the attribute's corresponding box, or by selecting it from a menu that pops up when you click inside the box.

In addition, the Behaviors panel lets you add client-side behaviors to your page using JavaScript inserted by Dreamweaver. Unlike the behaviors in the Application panel, client-side behaviors do not require a server technology in order to run. Examples of the behaviors you can add include: Check Browser, Go To URL, and Swap Image (used to create rollover effects).

The Relevant CSS tab is similar to the Tag Inspector; you can use it to change the properties of the style applied to the current selection.

Files Panel Group

The Files panel group has two panels: Files and Assets. The Files panel is used to manage your web site files, and to upload and download files to and from your web server. You can also use this panel to define new web sites and to quickly switch between your various sites.

Note:

In previous versions of Dreamweaver, this was called the Site panel.

The Assets panel is used to manage the reusable elements of your web pages, including object libraries and templates.

Throughout this tutorial, you'll learn more about the uses of the various panel groups in Dreamweaver, with the exception of the Application panel group, which is used in more complex web site development.