dreamweaver..clean up html..

can it be done site wide?

[soapystar]

does anyone know....can the dreamweaver command tool..CLEAN UP HTML....can it be used site wide rather than having to load individual pages?...and if so..how?..cheers!

[hakre]

no you can't use this command on the site, only on the opened page. sorry.

[Syren_Song]

If you've got a specific problem that you know occurs on each page with the exact same coding that needs correcting, you can always use the Find-and-Replace feature.

Just make sure you backup your entire site first. The corrections made using Find-and-Replace can't be changed easily or quickly.

Good luck!

[hakre]

Syren, that's a good tip. There are multi search and replace tools available, too. Some of them also provide regular expression you can use not only to match ever the same part.

And these tools have got undo and redo. I think that's better then the build'in one in dreamweaver.

[lorax]

Just make sure you backup your entire site first. The corrections made using Find-and-Replace can't be changed easily or quickly.

I will be very happy if/when they 'fix' this. I've been burned by it a couple of times and I concur - make a copy before you try it.

[soapystar]

but if the code you want to fix is spread over more than one line..can it stil be used...the frontpage find and replace only works on single lines....is dreamweaver different?

[hakre]

yup, dreamweaver is different. you can add multiple lines, tell where to search (the text, the source etc.). it's quite useable. a little slow sometimes.

[soapystar]

wow....why didnt someone tell me this earlier?..ok...a quick backup and then im gonna indulge is some site repair!..Thanks!

[hakre]

soapystar i'm talking about version 3. don't know what mx does, but i think the same or better. maybe even mx has a routine to do on multiple files, yes i think so.

[Syren_Song]

DW4 works on multiple lines. I don't see why they would have changed it for MX. It's a very powerful function and it can be a big help in cleaning up messes and making large changes to your site - as long as you back up FIRST!

I really can't stress the backup enough. I know too many people that have lost a great deal of work and created lots or problems and extra work for themselves because they didn't backup their site before making sitewide changes using the find-and-replace function!

[Syren_Song]

One more thing. If your pages are all hand-coded, there can be some unpredictable results. Not all the pages may be changed due to minor typing differences. An extra space can keep the page from being corrected, and one extra <br> can mess up the way a table shows its contents.

You may want to try changing one folder at a time, just so you can keep an eye out for problems that you don't know exist yet.

[soapystar]

worked very nicley with mx!

[hakre]

does anyone knows a tool that normalizes html source? which makes double-spaces to simple spaces, quotes all attribute values etc.?

[korkus2000]

Have you tried HTML tidy?

[hakre]

i've heard of it but never tested. i'll check it out. thanks.