There are several ways to extend Dreamweaver using HTML, XML, JavaScript and C. You can write your own objects, behavior actions, commands, property inspectors, and data translators. You can also make custom tags visible in Dreamweaver by adding them to the tag database and defining an icon for them. To accomplish these tasks, you must be proficient in JavaScript and thoroughly understand HTML elements. You need not have prior knowledge of XML, and proficiency with C is required only if you need some functionality that is not available in the Dreamweaver JavaScript API.
This chapter describes the Document Object Model that Dreamweaver supports, the Dreamweaver JavaScript API (the custom JavaScript functions that are built into Dreamweaver and that can be used in any object, behavior action, command, property inspector, or data translation file), the APIs that are specific to each type of file, and the steps necessary to create a basic object, behavior action, command, property inspector, and data translator.
Because the content of this chapter is likely to be of interest to a subset of Dreamweaver users—and because of the additional time it takes to document this feature—the bulk of this chapter is available for download from the Dreamweaver Developers Center.