Customizing Dreamweaver > Customizing the interpretation of third-party tags > How custom tags appear in the Design view

How custom tags appear in the Design view

How custom tags appear in the Design view of the Document window depends on the values of the tag_type and render_contents attributes of the tagspec tag. (See Customizing the interpretation of third-party tags.) If the value of tag_type is "empty", the icon specified in the icon attribute appears. If the value of tag_type is "nonempty" but the value of render_contents is "false", the icon appears as it would for an empty tag. For example, an instance of the happy tag defined earlier might appear in the HTML like this:

<p>This is a paragraph that includes an instance of the <code>happy</code> 
tag (<happy>Joe</happy>).</p>

That paragraph might appear in the Design view like this:

Note that since render_contents is set to "false" in the tag specification, the contents of the happy tag (the word Joe) are not rendered; instead the start and end tags and their contents are displayed as a single icon.

For nonempty tags that have a render_contents value of "true", the icon does not appear in the Design view; instead, the contents between the opening and closing tags (such as the text between the tags in <mytag>This is the contents between the opening and closing tags</mytag>) appears. If View > Invisible Elements is enabled, the content is highlighted using the third-party tag color specified in Highlighting preferences. (Note that highlighting applies only to tags defined in tag database files.)

To change the highlighting color of third-party tags:

1	Choose Edit > Preferences and select the Highlighting category.
2	Click the Third-Party Tags color box to display the color picker.
3	Choose a color, then click OK to close the Preferences dialog box. For information about choosing a color, see Working with colors.