Modifying Preferences and Keyboard Shortcuts

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You can increase your productivity in Dreamweaver MX by setting program preferences and creating keyboard shortcuts. Preferences provide a way to determine default behavior for the way Dreamweaver opens, codes, and publishes your pages.

Keyboard Shortcuts are a great way to speed up page development. The default shortcut set used is the Macromedia Standard Set but, using the Keyboard Shortcut Editor (Figure 31-9), you can choose from a HomeSite (PC) or BBEdit (Macintosh) set, a Dreamweaver 3 set, or opt to create your own custom set, starting with one of the first three as a base set. You can modify most of the menu options, including menus on the Site Panel (PC), Code Editing, Document Editing, and the Site window.

Figure 31-9: The Keyboard Shortcut Editor

To use the Keyboard Shortcut Editor, follow these steps:

1. Choose Edit ® Keyboard Shortcuts. (Be patient, it may take a while to load the shortcuts.)

2. When the dialog box appears, choose from an existing set.

3. Duplicate the set by clicking the first of the four buttons to the right of the Current Set menu.

   Note 

   The default sets cannot be edited, and you will be prompted to make this custom set if you try to do so without first duplicating it.

4. Name the set and click OK; then wait for the custom set to load.

5. Select the location of the menu command you want to edit by choosing it from the Commands menu.

6. Expand the appropriate menu and select an existing menu option.

7. In the Press Key field, add your new key combination.

   Note 

   For the PC, the key combination must include the Control key; for the Macintosh, it must include the Command key.

8. To accept the new combination, click the Change button.

   Tip 

   To avoid endless attempts to find a combination that hasn't been used, print out the preferred keyboard set. Click the Export Set as HTML button (the third of the four buttons) and save the page as HTML. In a browser, open and print the page to list all the existing keyboard shortcuts.

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