Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Demystified

Dreamweaver MX 2004 is unique in the world of commercial software because of the degree to which it can be tweaked, customized, and extended. Not only can you change defaults, tweak preferences, and rearrange panel groups, but you can actually change the program's functionality by creating new panels, commands, menu entries, and more. And it's all because of extensions.

This chapter examines how extensions work within the Dreamweaver architecture and how you can start customizing your Dreamweaver programwithout needing any programming knowledgeby changing settings in Dreamweaver configuration files. This chapter also introduces the Extension Manager and the Macromedia Exchange for Dreamweaver, which you can use to download and install some of the hundreds of free and commercial extensions that have been created by other developers for your use.