How Property Inspector Files Work - MACROMEDIA DREAMWEAVER MX 2004-EXTENDING DREAMWEAVER Manual

The following comment is appropriate for an inspector that is designed to inspect the
<!-- tag:HAPPY, priority:8,selection:exact,hline,vline, ¬
serverModel:ASP -->
In some cases, you might want to specify that your extension use only Dreamweaver extension
rendering (and not the previous rendering engine) by inserting the following line immediately
before the Tag comment, as shown in the following example:
<!--DOCTYPE HTML SYSTEM "-//Macromedia//DWEtension layout-engine 5.0//pi"-->
The section of a Property inspector file contains an HTML form. Instead of displaying the
BODY
form contents in a dialog box, however, Dreamweaver uses the form to define the input areas and
layout of the inspector.

How Property inspector files work

At start up, Dreamweaver reads the first line of each HTM and HTML file in the Configuration/
Inspectors folder, searching for the comment string that defines the type, priority, and selection
type of a Property inspector. Files that do not have this comment as their first line are ignored.
When the user makes a selection in Dreamweaver or moves the insertion point to a different
location, the following events occur:
Dreamweaver searches for any inspectors that have a
1
If there are any
2
currently selected tag to check whether there are inspectors for any tags that surround the
selection. If—and only if—there are no
inspectors that have a selection type of
For the first tag that has one or more inspectors, Dreamweaver calls each inspector's
3
canInspectSelection()
longer considers the inspector a candidate for inspecting the selection.
If more than one potential inspector remains after calling the
4
function, Dreamweaver sorts the remaining inspectors by priority.
If more than one potential inspector shares the same priority, Dreamweaver selects an inspector
5
alphabetically by name.
The selected inspector appears in the Property inspector floating panel. If the Property inspector
6
file defines the
right corner of the inspector.
Dreamweaver calls the
7
selection and populate the inspector's fields.
Event handlers attached to the fields in the Property inspector interface execute as the user
8
encounters them. (For example, you might have an
setAttribute()
218 Chapter 12: Property Inspectors
inspectors, Dreamweaver searches up the document tree from the
within
function. If this function returns the value
function, a small question mark (?) icon appears in the upper-
displayHelp()
inspectSelection()
function to set an attribute to the value that the user enters.)
within
inspectors, Dreamweaver searches for any
within
.
exact
function to gather information about the current
event that calls the
onBlur
selection type.
, Dreamweaver no
false
canInspectSelection()
tag:
HAPPY