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Participating Frequently
October 8, 2014
Answered

Is there any way to display the Design View in fluid grid pages?

  • October 8, 2014
  • 24 replies
  • 54491 views

After upgrading to the newest version of DW CC 2014, I noticed that the Design View is disabled in Fluid Grid pages. You can only use the Live View to edit those pages. The Design/Live button displays on non-fluid pages.

I'm wondering if there is a work-around to allow Design View editing on fluid pages. It is a major hassle to try to edit some things in the Live View. It would nice to have a choice.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer rjerz

@Ron

Ron, thanks for your idea.  I just tried this to my fluid grid css file, and it worked!  The odd thing (at least in my mind) is that the code (shown below) is commented out.  So, even though my web pages ignore this commented out code, Dreamweaver does not... it uses it to control how the Dreamweaver program operates. Well, I guess that this can happen.  This code acts like a "directive" to the Dreamweaver program.

One noticeable change is that in Live view I no longer see the grey strips showing the fluid grid columns, but I can live with this.

This is my novice way of looking at the situation.  But now I am happy.

Here's my exact code (that I deleted) from my css file.  Maybe others can try this and see if it fixes the problem.

/*

  Dreamweaver Fluid Grid Properties

  ----------------------------------

  dw-num-cols-mobile: 4;

  dw-num-cols-tablet: 8;

  dw-num-cols-desktop: 12;

  dw-gutter-percentage: 15;

  Inspiration from "Responsive Web Design" by Ethan Marcotte

  http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design

  and Golden Grid System by Joni Korpi

  http://goldengridsystem.com/

*/

24 replies

Participating Frequently
October 13, 2014

In looking through all the comments in this thread it seems that no one is 'annoyed', unlike me, that whereas previously I could switch from design to live with a single 'click', now I have to make 2 clicks - firstly to activate the arrow-head selector then secondly to actually make the selection. My arithmetic makes that a 100% increase in effort.

Given the acreage that I now have on my 'document' toolbar (and why move the upload/download button all the way to the right anyway) combining the previously independent buttons makes even less sense.

Also I think the earlier observation (by vernon) that removing the grid comments is relevant as it seems doing so also de-activate all the editing short menu of a right-click - at least that appears to be happening to me this afternoon as I get the arrow-head but no menu (Other options not affected). So it is now not possible to duplicate a file only to create a copy by opening it and saving under a new name (but which will not work for any graphics files I believe). A copy is not universally recognised as a duplicate is it? Creating a duplicate makes it safer to meddle with code etc as one can always get back to a steady state even after numerous changes that may not have had the desired effect.

Inspiring
October 13, 2014

@Beezold

I am annoyed  that design view is gone for fluid grid. What annoys me is that I see hints that it will also be discontinued generally and no confirmation officially that this is the case and even worse no denial either.

I use DW because of its capabilities and design view is a major part of that and it would be a disater if I lost that. I use Bootstap from DWXzone for responsive sites but again I work in design view and would like to keep it that way.

Maybe some one from the Adobe team would like to detail exactly the companies position on this and state clearly if the eventual scheme of things is to remove design view completely or commit to it being retained?

Maybe after all this fluid grid design view removal in 2014.1 is an error but it would be good for Adobe to step up to the plate and explain this officially for us all.

Nancy OShea
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 14, 2014

Nobody who is under NDA can comment about Adobe's  "future plans" until Adobe makes an official announcement.

I can say from many year's experience on these forums that long-time users of DW are not satisfied with the current Design View model.  It worked well when Macromedia designed it back when table-based layouts were common place.  But Design View has suffered greatly over the years with advancements in CSS & HTML5.  It just hasn't been able to keep pace with the ever-changing W3C standards. 

If Live View were improved sufficiently to render well, perform well, and edit well, would that be such a bad thing?

Just my 2 cents,

Nancy O.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
GA_
Participating Frequently
October 11, 2014

I'm glad someone else has noticed this!!!

But is it Live / Display View missing from Responsive Layouts. I thought it was... then I created a NEW Responsive Layout and it magically worked. There it was - Live / Display on one happy dropdown.

Example:

1) Create a new Responsive Layout. We’ll call it demo.php, fluid.css and the usual accompanying DW files.

2) Enter demo.php and progress is normal. Everything works. You can choose to view both Live and Display and edit accordingly.

3) Close down DW.

4) Open DW and open demo.php

5) There is NO LONGER a Display View option and Live View does not EDIT. (at least it doesn't for me)

6) I can ONLY edit work in CODE view.

Thus, on brand new files, all is fine. The moment DW is closed and the files becomes “old” it can no longer be seen or edited properly.

How can Adobe spend millions promoting it's Responsive Software and then disallow its use? CRAZY. I feel this is a programming error, not a purposeful act.

Participating Frequently
October 11, 2014

In a previous post, on Oct 9th, I stated that I simply deleted the hidden "Dreamweaver Fluid Grid Properties" from the CSS file. The Responsive pages now seem to work fine, and the Design/Live button works, as does spell-check.

This seems like the easiest work-around for existing DW responsive pages.

rjerzCorrect answer
Participating Frequently
October 12, 2014

@Ron

Ron, thanks for your idea.  I just tried this to my fluid grid css file, and it worked!  The odd thing (at least in my mind) is that the code (shown below) is commented out.  So, even though my web pages ignore this commented out code, Dreamweaver does not... it uses it to control how the Dreamweaver program operates. Well, I guess that this can happen.  This code acts like a "directive" to the Dreamweaver program.

One noticeable change is that in Live view I no longer see the grey strips showing the fluid grid columns, but I can live with this.

This is my novice way of looking at the situation.  But now I am happy.

Here's my exact code (that I deleted) from my css file.  Maybe others can try this and see if it fixes the problem.

/*

  Dreamweaver Fluid Grid Properties

  ----------------------------------

  dw-num-cols-mobile: 4;

  dw-num-cols-tablet: 8;

  dw-num-cols-desktop: 12;

  dw-gutter-percentage: 15;

  Inspiration from "Responsive Web Design" by Ethan Marcotte

  http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design

  and Golden Grid System by Joni Korpi

  http://goldengridsystem.com/

*/

Participant
October 9, 2014

If they are doing away with Design View, at least make it easy to click in an area, copy and paste, then format the content. I just reverted to DW CC until 2014.2 is out.

Nancy OShea
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 8, 2014

Evidently, there's no option to change this.  Apparently this was an intentional move to promote more people to use Live View for editing.  See the New Features below.

helpx.adobe.com/dreamweaver/using/whats-new.html



Nancy O.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
Participating Frequently
October 8, 2014

Thanks for the feedback.

If it was intentional a s way to promote some new feature, it was a pretty lame thing to do. No one wants features forced on them.

One good example of problems with Live View editing is that unordered lists must be hand coded.

Thus far, my work-around is to either use CS6 or to use a second non-fluid style sheet to allow major editing.

Participant
November 25, 2014

Possible work-around:

I deleted:

Dreamweaver Fluid Grid Properties
----------------------------------
dw-num-cols-mobile:4;
dw-num-cols-tablet:8;
dw-num-cols-desktop:12;
dw-gutter-percentage:25;

from my CSS file.. The Design/Live toggle now appears and works, as does Spell Check. Also, the page still seems responsive and fluid.


Amazing. Works like a treat - even writes the code better.

Adobe - WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?