Basic Text and HTML Searches

Dreamweaver can search all the source code in a page or focus on text that appears in the document window.

  • Source code searches let you find and replace any code on a page, including words, letters, and symbols. This means anything you see in Code view, such as HTML, CSS, or server-side programming code used to create the dynamic database-driven sites described in Part Six of this book. Code searches are the only type of search Dreamweaver allows on non-web page files, such as external JavaScript files or external CSS files.

  • Text searches are more refined. They only look for text that appears within the <body> element of a page. That is, Dreamweaver ignores HTML tags, properties, and comments when it executes a text search—in short, it ignores anything that doesn’t appear as actual words in the document window. By using a text search when you want to change the word “table” to “elegant wood table,” for example, you won’t accidentally change the very useful HTML <table> tag into a browser-choking <elegant wood table> tag.

If you’ve used the Find and Replace feature in other programs, the following routine will be familiar.

Phase 1: Determine the Scope of Your Search

Using the “Find in” pull-down menu (see Figure 20-2), choose any of these options:

  • Selected Text. Searches only the highlighted section of the page you’re working on. This can be useful if you’re working in Code view and you want to search the code in just a certain section of the page, such as ...

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