Section B.4. Insert Menu

B.4. Insert Menu

The Insert menu adds selected page elements to the document at the insertion point's position. The commands listed here correspond to the buttons on the Objects panel:

• Tag . Opens the Tag Chooser window, which provides access to all the tagsnot only HTML, but any tag Dreamweaver has stored in its Tag Library (see entry under the Edit menu on Section B.2). You can insert any tag and set any of its properties from this window. However, Dreamweaver doesn't make sure you're inserting the tag correctly, so you should understand HTML (or the tag language you're using) before trying this option.

• Image . Inserts an image file, such as a JPEG or GIF, into the document. The Select Image Source window appears and lets you navigate to the file you want on your hard drive. You can choose to make the URL for the file relative to either the document or the Site Root.

• Image Object . Lets you insert placeholder graphics, rollover images, navigation bars, or HTML from Fireworks. These options are discussed in Chapter 5.

• Media . Inserts other types of media files, including Flash, Shockwave, Generator Applets, Plug-ins, and Active X. In most cases, the standard Select File window appears, which you can use to navigate to the desired file. This menu also lets you insert Flash text, Flash buttons, and the Image Viewer Flash element described on Section 12.1.2.9.

• Table . Inserts a new table into the document. The Insert Table dialog box appears and lets you format the table by specifying the number of rows and columns ; the table width; measurements for cell padding, cell spacing, and the table border; and whether or not and where to include table headers.

• Table Objects . Provides methods to insert tabular data (see the Import entry under the File menu on Section B.2) and add other table- related tags such as the <th>table headertag into the page. The tag options listed under this menu item assume you understand HTML and just insert the tags, without making sure you're doing it correctly.

• Layout Object . Lets you insert layers , divs, table layout cells , and table layout tablesin other words, different objects for designing and laying out a page as described in Chapters 7 and 8.

• Form . Inserts Form Objectsthe <form> tag, text fields, buttons, checkboxes, or listsinto the document. (If you have not already inserted the <form> tag, Dreamweaver prompts you to do so.)

• Hyperlink . Inserts a link. The Insert Hyperlink dialog box lets you specify the text that should appear inside the link, the file to link to, as well as many other link options such as target and tab index.

• Email Link . Creates a new email link at the insertion point. The Insert Email Link dialog box appears; specify both the email address and the link's text (such as "Click to email me").

• Named anchor . Inserts a named anchor for adding links within a page. See Section 4.4.

• Date . Inserts the current date into the document. The Insert Date dialog box lets you format the appearance of the day of the week, the date, and the time. You can also elect to have the date automatically updated each time the document's saved.

• Server-Side Include . Opens a Find File window, from which you select a file that's dynamically added to the content of your page. Works only with special server setup, such as the dynamic server-driven pages discussed in Part Six of this book.

• Comment . Inserts an HTML comment into your page. This comment isn't viewable in Web browsers, but in Dreamweaver's design view appears as a little gold shield. Use these to leave notes for yourself and others about specific information about a page. For example, a comment indicating where an ad should be placed can help someone updating the page know what to do.

• HTML . Menu including lots of specific HTML tags, such as a horizontal rule, frames , text objects (many of which are also available under the Text menu), script objects for JavaScript, and head tags that go in the head portion of a Web pageincluding meta tags such as keywords and descriptions used by some search engines.

• Template Objects . When working on a template file, this menu option lets you insert many of Dreamweaver's template features such as optional, editable, and repeating regions .

• Recent Snippets . Lists the most recently inserted snippets. Selecting a snippet from the list inserts it into the document. Snippets are discussed in Chapter 16.

• XSLT Objects (only visible when working on an XSL file) . Inserts various objects for converting XML data into a Web browserreadable format. This feature is discussed in Chapter 24.

• Customize Favorites . Lets you add your favorite objects from the Insert panel into a special "favorites" tag, so your most common objects, images, divs, rollovers, tables, can be just one click away. See Section 4.4.2 for more information.

• Get More Objects . Opens the Macromedia Exchange for Dreamweaver Web site in your browser. There you can search for and download new extensions and objects to add new features to your copy of Dreamweaver. Use the Commands Manage Extensions command to add downloaded extensions to Dreamweaver.