Dreamweaver and CSS Madness

[shiva777]

Just finished a long copy (24+ pages in MS Word) web site with tons of CSS and fonts size/color/positioning changes every which way every other line. It took about 5 times longer than I initially planned for.

A large part of the problem is the way Dreamweaver handles the CSS. Oftentimes I'll find that I make a change somewhere up on the page and it has a ripple down effect screwing up the CSS below it oftentimes quite dramatically. It is very frustrating and usually ends with me going through the whole friggin thing again fixing all of the sudden problems.

I'm in no hurry to start handcoding....is there any better wysiwyg editor that can handle extremely busy css pages properly?

Thanks for any advice
~shiva

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Unless I am misunderstanding you I don't think that DW is your problem. If you make changes to CSS you can expect them to affect the whole page, that's what they are meant to do. This happens with DW and any other editor you choose. Perhaps you need to develop a greater understanding of CSS?

[justgowithit]

long copy (24+ pages in MS Word) web site

I'm guessing that you've copied and pasted stylized text from MS Word directly into the design view of DW. If that's the case, then yes, you're going to have a tough time organizing your code and keeping things straight.

If I'm guessing correctly what you should do is "clean" your text by pasting text into a text read first and then into the design view of DW. Apply any styles via css yourself after the text has been pasted. Of course, the ideal option is to paste text into the code view of DW and create your css to arrive upon the desired styles.

I'm in no hurry to start handcoding

yeah, but that's why you you don't have control of your styles.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

If that's the case DW8 has a "Paste Special" menu, which allows you to paste with or without formatting. Just right click on the page then select paste special.