Normally Dreamweaver makes my life easier. It has lots of nice things, like snippets and synchronization and stuff.
Today is not normal.
Today I have discovered that Dreamweaver is rewriting my PHP code without my permission.
The pages in question are in PHP, but are supposed to (and do, when DW behaves) validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. They’re all based on a template that does not lock the information outside the HTML tags (in case I need to pop in a form mailer or some other gizmo). To get around PHP and declare my XML version properly, I’ve put the following at the top of my template:
“; ?>
This works as intended.
But.
Dreamweaver changes it.
If I open a page that was based on the template, or if I close and reopen the template file itself, I see this at the top instead of what I typed:
“; ?>”; ?>
Notice the extra junk at the end? That shows up as junk characters in my pages.
Why is this happening? I can’t think of any logical explanation as to why Dreamweaver would find it necessary to rewrite my code, other than to raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels.
This comes on top of my ongoing frustration; namely, that I can’t connect to my web server using DW’s Site functions. Why? My server is very secure, and does not allow FTP (even SFTP) connections, only SSH. Dreamweaver does not support secure connections. Windows users can do some trickery with PuTTY that will let them wrap Dreamweaver’s connection in SSH, but Mac users are left high and dry. This means that instead of getting to use the nice, happy synchronize button, I have to drag and drop each individual file through a clunky SSH client.
Oh, and Macromedia’s new site doesn’t work in Camino. They realized the error of their ways and fixed their home page and support areas, but the Exchange is still off-limits to Mac users who don’t want to use IE.
Can you feel the anger simmering here? ‘Cuz my blood pressure is usually pretty damn low, but today I’m seeing red. I’ll open another damn browser if I have no choice, and I’ll even use a really shitty SSH client to transfer my files, although I’ll get steamed about it and write nastygrams to all available contact addresses. But you DO NOT rewrite my code without permission.
Excuse me while I go put my fist through a wall.
Update: It turns out that the XML declaration is optional, so the walls are safe for now. Dreamweaver is still dumber ‘n dirt for changing my code. And have I mentioned its piss-poor rendering of CSS2 properties?
