Dreamweaver Basics > Setting preferences > General preferences

General preferences

The General preferences control the general appearance of Dreamweaver. To change these preferences, choose Edit > Preferences, and then click General. The General preferences are divided into two subcategories: File options and Editing options.

Show Only Site Window on Startup displays only the Site window and selected panels rather than a new document when Dreamweaver starts up.

Open Files in New Window (Windows only) makes it easier to open several documents at once. When this option is off and you choose File > Open, each file you open appears in the current window, replacing the current document. (This does not apply when opening files from the Site menu, double-clicking a file icon, and so on.) On the Macintosh, files always open in a new window.

Warn When Opening Read-Only Files alerts you when you open a read-only (locked) file. You are given the option to unlock/check out the file, view the file, or cancel.

Add Extension When Saving sets the default file extension for the Dreamweaver documents you save. For example, if you set this option to .htm, and you later save a document without supplying a file extension, Dreamweaver will automatically add the .htm extension. For information about file types and extensions displayed in the File > Open dialog box, see Changing the default file type.

Update Links When Moving Files determines what Dreamweaver does when you move, rename, or delete a document within your site. You can set this preference to always update links automatically, never update links, or prompt you to perform an update. See Managing links.

Show Dialog When Inserting Objects determines whether Dreamweaver prompts you to enter additional information when inserting images, tables, Shockwave movies, and certain other objects using the Objects panel or the Insert menu. If this option is off, the dialog box does not appear and you must use the Property inspector to specify the source file for images, the number of rows in a table, and so on. For rollover images and Fireworks HTML, a dialog box always appears when you insert the object, regardless of this option setting. (To temporarily override this setting, Control-click when creating and inserting objects.)

Faster Table Editing (Deferred Update) makes typing in tables faster by deferring some adjustment of column widths and row heights until you click outside the table. If this option is on, you can update the table while editing by pressing Control+Spacebar (Windows) or Command+Spacebar (Macintosh).

Rename Form Items When Pasting changes the name of a form item when you have copied and pasted it into your document. If you turn this preference off, the form item retains the name of the original.

Enable Double-Byte Inline Input enables you to enter double-byte text directly into the Document window if you are using a development environment or language kit that facilitates double-byte text (such as Japanese characters).When this option is deselected, a text input window appears for entering and converting double-byte text; the text appears in the Document window after it is accepted. See also Fonts/Encoding preferences.

Maximum Number of History Steps determines the number of steps the History panel retains and shows. (The default value should be sufficient for most users.) If you exceed the given number of steps in the History panel, the oldest steps are discarded. See About automating tasks.

Objects Panel lets you view the contents of the Objects panel as icons and text, icons only, or text only.

Spelling Dictionary lists the dictionaries available in the Configuration/Dictionaries folder inside the Dreamweaver application folder. If a dictionary contains multiple dialects or spelling conventions (for example, U.K. English and U.S. English), the dialects are listed separately in the Dictionary pop-up menu.