Special Characters must be escaped : [<]

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 8, 2021
2 replies
549 views

Hello everyone !
I am completely new on Dreamweaver and it seems like I made something wrong with the application.
When I first started and opened a new file, I hadn't any problem to use "<" (in html). When I used it I got a list of the different tags I could use like the Doctype, paragraph and so on. But I tried to get some personalisation of the application and now, even if I create a new file and type "<" I do not have the tag list anymore and get immediatly the error I wrote on the title of my topic : "Special Characters must be escaped : [<]"
If someone now how or what to do to get back the intuitive list it would be a great thing for me.

I join a screenshot so that maybe someone will see what's going on here.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Hi @Fizzy5C5A,

Welcome to Dreamweaver!

If you find Code Linting too confusing at this point, turn it off from your DW Preferences. Linting is not essential to work with code.

For a quick start, go to File > New > New Document > HTML 5 and hit the Create button. Or use the Emmet shortcodes. Type an exclamation mark ! followed by the Tab key. Bada Bing! Instant HTML5 document.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
 <meta charset="UTF-8">
 <title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>
 
</body>
</html>

In addition to other Emmet short codes, DW has built-in Code Hints, Auto-code completion and Snippets to make shorter work of your coding tasks.

https://helpx.adobe.com/dreamweaver/how-to/dreamweaver-snippets.html

Post back if you have more questions.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

Jon Fritz

Community Expert

Get rid of the exclamation point and you should see the code hint list pop up after typing the opening angle bracket. The Code Hinting doesn't understand that you're trying to create a doctype declaration.

It's probably just an oversight by the dev guys.

The error is correct, since you don't have any valid (complete) tags in the source code. A random bracket will not validate by itself.

F

Fizzy5C5AAuthor

Participant

The problem is the same even when the doctype is declared even when I have the basics created automaticaly by the aplication.
Like I show you on my other screenshot below, the error is there and suggestions seems like not beeing the good ones when I type for example the "p" for a paragraph, it does'nt suggest me to select the paragraph tag I have to type it myself, and I am sure it was like that before I do some changes on the aplication, but I cannot know which changes I have done that would have created this error =S

Jon Fritz

Community Expert

The error is there because DW's Linting function is "Live" in the latest versions and you're not finished with the tag yet. You can ignore the error until afteryou complete the tag. If it sill shows after the tag is done, it would mean you have something else wrong in your code somewhere.

Code Hinting works to shorten the amount of typing necessary when you are working with longer tag names like <article> or <header>. As you type <article> you get a list of tags first based off of <a, then <ar, at which point you can arrow down once and hit Enter/Return to finish it.

It's really no help with the <p> tag because it's so short. In order to get DW to show it in a list, you would need to type <p, so the hinting doesn't help for that one (or similar tags like <a> or <i>).

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