Non breaking spaces everywhere!

Report · Jun 22, 2021

Working in live view in the main window (not code), any number of actions cause DW (latest CC version) to insert non-breaking spaces everywhere. If not for the program entering these, I never use them. Literally never.

Example: UL, hit enter to add a new list item...nbsp at the end. Many different things do it. Is there any way to get this to stop? DW still ignores attempts to delete non-breaking spaces in the design window (live view), instead deleting the first character next to it in either direction. This was allegedly fixed, but never released into a mainstream version, AFAIK.

Need this frustrating and basically pointless practice to stop, as it's doing my head in.

Report · Jun 22, 2021

Working in live view in the main window (not code)...

========

Sounds like your code contains critical errors that need to be resolved.

Go to Window > Results > Validation.
Check document by pressing the triangle.
Fix all reported errors in your code.

If you still need help, upload the problem page to your remote server and post the URL here.

Code reference:

- https://www.w3schools.com/html/
- https://www.w3schools.com/css/

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Jun 22, 2021

Any issue I have, even proven DW faults, that's the first response.

This happens on all pages. Here's one, in it's entirety:

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>

<body>
<ul>
  <li>testing</li>
  <li>more testing</li>
  <li>even more testing</li>
  <li>once more&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

At no point did I add that nbsp in the last item. DW places that in the code, and if you click away or use ESC to end editing, it remains.

Report · Jun 22, 2021

You no doubt hit the spacebar which is what produces the html entity for a space.

There is nothing unusual or mission critical about it.

Move on to other matters.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Jun 22, 2021

No doubt? Not possible I'm doing that.

I've just tested, and if I type a sentence, the spaces are normal. If I just hit the spacebar, especially more than once, it inserts non breaking entities. I don't recall it doing so in past versions, so this appears new, at least to me. It also igores my setting of disallowing consecutive spaces (happily adding nbsp over and over), which is also new. What point to that setting, if it ignores it?

Back to the issue:

Try for yourself, if you're so inclined. Plain html page, UL with an LI in it. In the live view window, hit enter, with the cursor to the right of the item to start a new LI. DW inserts nbsp in the new LI (visible in the code window). No keypress of mine other than enter. Use the escape key to quit live editing, nbsp remains. The last LI in the list will keep that non breaking space every time (splitting paragraphs with enter has the same behavior).

Be careful not to accidentally press the spacebar while testing.

FYI: "You no doubt hit the spacebar which is what produces the html entity for a space."

It isn't. It's an HTML entity for a non-breaking space, which is not the same.

Defined:

"A commonly used entity in HTML is the non-breaking space:  

A non-breaking space is a space that will not break into a new line.

Two words separated by a non-breaking space will stick together (not break into a new line). This is handy when breaking the words might be disruptive."

Report · Jun 22, 2021

Actually n b s p c ; is the correct html entity for a space between words.

If you can't live with it, switch to Design View or remove it with Find & Replace.

Either way, it has no impact on how your site performs in browsers.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Jun 22, 2021

No such html entity exists, and the same issue is in design view. I'd assume you didn't bother to test.

I don't get your open hostility here, Nancy. You are supposed to be representing Adobe, and every response tries to denigrate my question, ability or code. Trust me, if Adobe had an actual support channel, I'd much rather use that than this.

Feel free to stop responding.

Report · Jun 23, 2021

@wbear I did the test, and I got exactly the same issue than you.

effectively you're right there is a   added, and no spacebar hitted.

it's a nice bug... and considering the frequency of bug fixes in the bugbase......

I'm afraid we have to deal with it.

Report · Jun 23, 2021

Thank you for confirming. I should also mention the same issue exists if using enter to split a paragraph. Those are the two main ones I've seen most frequently.

Mentioning because it's related to this problem, the latest update also still has the bug where if you try to delete the nbsp in the live view window, it will instead delete the first character next to it instead, leaving that intact. Happens in both directions. Be appreciated if that were to make it's way into the public release at some point.

Report · Jun 23, 2021

I'm sorry you think I'm being hostile but nothing could be further from the truth.

1. I can't reproduce what you describe in Design View. See screenshot.

2. If it matters, I'm on Win10 with latest updates and my local site folder is defined and resides on my primary hard drive, not cloud or networked drives.

3. This is a user-to-user forum. We are all product users just like you. I have no influcence over what Adobe does, sorry.

4. To give proper feedback to the product engineers, use Adobe UserVoice where they track and prioritize bugs if they can reproduce them.

https://dreamweaver.uservoice.com/

How to Use Adobe UserVoice:

https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/how-to-user-voice.html

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Jun 23, 2021

I'm sorry you think I'm being hostile but nothing could be further from the truth.

1. I can't reproduce what you describe in Design View. See screenshot.
By @Nancy OShea

The OP was talking about Live View... (read the initial first post, first words) not Design view as you describe in your sreen shot... 😉

Report · Jun 23, 2021

I repeat what I said above:

"if you can't live with it, switch to Design view."

I could be wrong but I think this how the new Live View editor works now. 🙂 I'm seeing the same trend in other code editors where empty spaces are replaced with entities.

Not to change the topic but have any of you examined the HTML code generated by forum replies and the abundant use of HTML entities in your posts? Maybe because non-breaking spaces prevent browsers from truncating whitespace. See screenshot.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Jun 23, 2021

Design view works really awful on complex bootstrap sites (you should try it). Things are really out of position and impossible to design unless previewing with a browser at the same time. DW is supposed to handle all this, and that's why I pay each month. Telling someone to use the unusable is not a solution.

In the code sample above (this page), that's a placeholder non breaking space in each P tag pair, meant to "hold the tag open" when it has no content (and not the issue being discussed, yet again) and used for vertical spacing. Not the right way, mind you, but all that can be expected from the editor. The rest of them is the result of a pretty crappy inline text editor creating crappy HTML. Non breaking spaces within a sentence does (like shown in places above) exactly what's on the label; it prevents the words from being separated if wrapping to a new line and so on. If you use a long string of nbsp to position something, you're doing it really, really wrong.

Honestly, your comments (Nancy) are not helping at all at this point. Thanks to the others in the thread, but I'm off to inadvertantly smash my forehead on the spacebar for a while and see if I can get my current web project done. 😉

Report · Jun 23, 2021

In fact I do use Bootstrap and have no problems switching between Code | Design & Live (Ctrl+Shift + F11).

Bug fixes may not be immediately forthcoming. In the meantime, feel free to revert to a previous version like DW 2019 that may better fit your workflow.

https://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-2019-direct-download-links.html

Goodbye & good luck with your project!

Nancy O'Shea— Product User, Community Expert & Moderator

Report · Jun 24, 2021

[Sarcasm & personal remarks removed by moderator.]

Report · Jun 24, 2021

My two bob's worth, I do not think that a nasty reply was neccessary. Nancy has helped a lot of people during the last decade. Perhaps her views do not align with yours, that is OK. For me, she is a hero.

As far as your mumblings regarding Dreamweaver, I did give you a way out in one of our previous discussions. Don't punish yourself and do what I did..

Wappler, the only real Dreamweaver alternative.

Report · Jun 24, 2021

Nasty? I was reacting to one too many times turning the other cheek.

Though there's always the chance I'm reading into the replies (though having been a forum moderator for a lot of years I've seen this sort of response from trolls; as in not blatant, but many subtle digs to elicit a reaction), being told I fat fingered the spacebar while pressing enter (rather than simply testing), or how I should use a much older version downloaded from a third party website because it would "fit my workflow better" and so on, that's fairly demeaning. Not once did she say she tried it and it does what I say, just all the other things that don't do it, like design mode.

Does that feel normal to you? Helpful? Heroic?

Not to me, and it doesn't feel accidental either. Frustrating enough having bugs, worse still having constant reluctance to come here and ask questions, because this keeps happening. Nancy is alone in the responses that appear to be digs, not one of the other folks with the title has ever left me feeling that way. Ever.

Moving on.

Report · Jun 24, 2021

Nasty? I was reacting to one too many times turning the other cheek.
Though there's always the chance I'm reading into the replies (though having been a forum moderator for a lot of years I've seen this sort of response from trolls; as in not blatant, but many subtle digs to elicit a reaction), being told I fat fingered the spacebar while pressing enter (rather than simply testing), or how I should use a much older version downloaded from a third party website because it would "fit my workflow better" and so on, that's fairly demeaning. Not once did she say she tried it and it does what I say, just all the other things that don't do it, like design mode.
Does that feel normal to you? Helpful? Heroic?
Not to me, and it doesn't feel accidental either. Frustrating enough having bugs, worse still having constant reluctance to come here and ask questions, because this keeps happening. Nancy is alone in the responses that appear to be digs, not one of the other folks with the title has ever left me feeling that way. Ever.
Moving on.

By @wbear

Whilst I don't agree with some of the replies as you seem to have a genuine agrievance given you could be paying a premium price for the product and would expect some kind of acknowledgment and more importantly a time scale to put it right I cant help wondering why you keep on using Dreamweaver?

It would help me to understand why Dreamweaver still exists. Are you just using it as part of a subscription to the CC? If that the case its basically a freebie progam and maybe why people still use it.

Its painful for me, who used Dreamweaver for years, to see its slow demise. I rather it be EoL instead of kept on what is life-support, going nowhere.

Report · Jun 24, 2021

I cant help wondering why you keep on using Dreamweaver?
It would help me to understand why Dreamweaver still exists. Are you just using it as part of a subscription to the CC? If that the case its basically a freebie progam and maybe why people still use it.

I started using Dreamweaver (1.2 was my first one) long before Adobe bought it. Macromedia owned it at the time, and did a great job. That and Fireworks combined was hard to beat. Mainly I kept up with it out of work habits. The sync feature without needing different software was terrific (not many FTP programs at the time did date based file sync well), and the ability to use a template was a plus.

I'm fully capable of working in text editors and making what I need, and could use a diff program to monitor changes, as well as a separate FTP (well, SFTP) program that has very good syncing...but that's 3 programs for the job that one does, albeit with occasional issues like this.

An inconvenience that often outweighs the inconvenience of several programs.

It's not free. I pay to get this, Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign, and use them all daily.

It is, however, getting to the point where the frustration is getting to me. It's not a trivial spend each month (though mostly I get more than enough value in what I create to warrant it), and there are other programs to replace all but DW easily. Learning curve, but as long as I avoid the tragic accidental spacebar presses, I'm ok.

Report · Jun 24, 2021

OK great, thanks for the explanation. I too used DW in its Macromedia days and continued to do so when Adobe bought it, along with Fireworks as it made producing web-graphics simple. Adobe killed Fireworks and I lost interest in DW when it lost its way and failed to understand what its users really wanted, a product providing a simple entry point to database driven solutions, the only program which catered for such a workflow at the time. Someone at Adobe lost the plot and started introducing all kinds of failed projects when they should have been concentrating building on what already existed and making it future proof. Eventually I gave up on DW as it failed to keep pace with current workflows and I certainly wasnt going to pay top dollar for a less than acceptable return when compared to other products.

The story ends well because I owe my success to DWs failure. If it had kept pace I would probably still be sealed into a small box accepting of what the program offered instead of exploring alternatives..........happy days. As for DW well it's days are numbered, I suspect its user base is now a fraction of what it used to be, there doesnt seem to be any appetite form within the establishment for turning it around.

Report · Jun 24, 2021

What direction did you wind up going in? Plain text editor, IDE, something else?
I've got a little of everything here, used mainly for the projects DW won't do easily, but haven't settled on one or another. Starting to think it's time, even if it means using something else for the file transfers (convenience be damned).

Report · Jun 24, 2021

What direction did you wind up going in? Plain text editor, IDE, something else?
I've got a little of everything here, used mainly for the projects DW won't do easily, but haven't settled on one or another. Starting to think it's time, even if it means using something else for the file transfers (convenience be damned).

By @wbear

The direction I took was less dependency on programs which were 'click and drag' basics and more hours spend understanding in depth javascript, php, html, css plus other javascript frameworks like vue.js.

I really don't use just the one editor, I tend to flip-flop between about four or five - Netbeans, VS code, Sublime Text, Coda, Codelobster, Php Storm, I might even go back to TextMate from time to time. It's annoying that the big 3 (VS Code, Sublime, Atom) more or less killed the market place as far as editors go.

All of my work is now hand-coded (no front-end frameworks) as I believe this gives the greatest amount of precision and flexibility, plus you get to learn a hell of a lot!

Report · Jun 24, 2021

For me getting this worked up over a nbsp; I think is a bit silly and there was never any need for a level of responses to Nancy who was literally trying to help out was called for, she did not make DW.

You done the bug reports, that is all you can do but I doubt you will get fixes any time soon with that. If you love DW continue to use it and like any software if there is a bug or issue you just have to work around it until it is addressed.
If you have had enough of DW in terms of a modern development workflow it is outdated and there are plenty of alternatives and many consider better to develop and build websites and web applications on you can switch too - Many of which are even free!

Report · Jun 25, 2021

For me getting this worked up over a nbsp; I think is a bit silly and there was never any need for a level of responses to Nancy who was literally trying to help out was called for, she did not make DW.

Never said she did, but as for me "getting worked up", it the addition of code I didn't put there that's the issue, and it's not one nbsp, the program adds them all over the place. I don't write bad code, and I don't allow the program I use to insert what it wants instead of proper code. I've "corrected" DW code over the years before publishing, but this is too much. It's made worse by the additional bug making it impossible to delete them in live view (it will delete characters to either side and protect the nbsp) forcing me to swap to code view, find and remove manually. Alternately I need to search and remove them all at once before publishing, and on every page I work on.

As for Nancy being called out for trying to help? Her assumptions about it *always* being bad code on every issue helps no one (if not for it occasionally being the cause). The claims I accidentally hit the spacebar and added it myself is equally unhelpful and a clear dig. Telling me to use a far older version of DW downloaded from some third party site felt, at best, a dismissal to "go find something less advanced to fit your skillset".

I don't expect everyone sees this the way I'm seeing it, and it's nice to stand up for someone you know against someone you don't, but I believe you're missing the subtleties in the responses.

>> there are plenty of alternatives and many consider better to develop and build websites and web applications on you can switch too

There are none that do all that DW does despite the frustration. I can code in an IDE or text editor, but have to do previews in a browser, set the site up in XAMPP for testing (php/mysql), and use a separate SFTP program to move finished files. I create a lot of sites, so that adds up to loads of time spent.

To the moderator that removed my comment above; fair point, that was a bit over the top. Frustration getting the better of me.

Report · Jun 29, 2021

Previews in Browser:

- Incorect there, a number of solutions can do this inside the application

- Is it good to view in app - Actually no because a good chunk of the browser checks you actually need to do with the variations of engine etc you need to view in browser. Many applications take that approach for a reason but many modern ones provide auto launch, fast update, plugins for chrome to aid instant update etc.

- Many modern apps have ftp sollutions built in or like VSC lots of different packages to suite needs for this.

Basically what DW does bundled is not new or unique and not been the case for a long time. If you do not know what the other applications out there do - that is cool, but if anyone has not tried them or looked into them deep enough I do not think anyone can comment that they do not do x, y , z when/if they actually do.

Nancy I think did jump the gun a little with her initial post, but you jumped on her imidiatly. You had the right things about you being correct, asking to do a test like you did etc but it was the tone, you could already feel your frustation and begining to take it out on someone that is not getting post counts up etc but trying to help. Trying to help you can not get it 100% every single time or miss understood something etc - all only Human. That is all but it is good that you acknowledge the frustrations.
In terms of what you pay for Adobe Cloud and where DW is things like this which I am pretty sure exist when I used it like over 20 years ago still being there - Heck yeah it is silly, but that is with Adobe and I think there are also plenty of other things wrong with it bigger than this issue 🙂