How To Create A Dreamweaver Extension!

[nzliving]

This is not really a question more of an answer to a question that was proposed
to me by one of my customers. So I thought it might help others to put on here
what I told him, about how to build and where to go to get help creating your
own dreamweaver extension. <!-- Start of conversation //--> I'm not sure
what you programming background is...? However what I can tell you in terms of
creating your own extension is that your extension is basically just gong to be
a child process of Dreamweaver. I.e. If the Dreamweaver Application is
terminated then so is your extension. This in a nutshell should give you an
idea as to the scope of your program and what it actually can and can't do.
Dreamweaver itself is basically made up of javascript routines, with C OR C++
objects and classes controlling the low level platform system I/O stuff. Your
extension / program is going to be made up of several javascript routines with
1 compulsory routine called 'objectTag()'. This routine is required by
Dreamweaver to function properly or even for your extension to function at all.
The objectTag() routine to me is basically just the rendering engine of the
program. It is the final routine that is called after you've got all input
from the user / processed that input and want to write something out to the I/O
stream. As the developer you can get access to virtually all of the same
javascript routines that Dreamweaver itself uses to control the Dreamweaver
Application and call them at leisure to do your bidding. You also have access
to some low level I/O classes which I'm not sure whether you may need to call
in order to copy files to and from folders (e.g. the copying and moving of the
flag image files to the users image folder). I believe there maybe a
javascript routine that you can just call and to get it to do that for you?
Not 100% sure without ripping open some known Dreamweaver routines that I know
that does that... When I first started out creating Validate Form I found
the below 4 resources and links invaluable: 1)
[url]http://www.dwfaq.com/Tutorials/Extensions/simple_object4.asp[/url] <-- This site here
will walk you through creating your first extension. The principal is always
the same no matter how big or small your extension. 2) Dreamweaver MX 2004 >
Help > Extensions > API Reference 3)
[url]http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/categories.cfm?catid=190[/url] OR
google : Dreamweaver Exchange Forums for answering those 'I just couldn't get
anywhere with the documentation! questions...' The above forum I found
awesome because many people where willing to help me out with any issues that
arose during development. A lot of the guys on there are either in business
developing extensions themselves or have a lot of knowledge about Dreamweaver,
there's one particular guy I forget the name of, who's just one of those know
it all fellas, who almost instantly answers your question straight away... It's
like he lives on the damn forum or something? 4) C:\Program
Files\Macromedia\Dreamweaver MX 2004\Configuration\Objects\Common <-- In this
directory you can open up any one of the HTML files (which is basically the
dialog box for the extension in most cases, for example if you open Anchor.html
and in Dreamweaver MX 2004 click Insert > Named Anchor, you see that the dialog
box generated matches the Anchor.html file, these are one in the same file or
process) and decipher which javascript routines are actually being called. The
..js file is the work horse behind it all. If you go line by line through the
code both HTML and .js file you will find that most of the extensions that
Macromedia offer the customer and pitfully simple! I guess they just wanted us
developers to reassure the rest of the world that they have a good product in
Dreamweaver? Please feel free to ask me anything with regards to the
extension as I am only to happy to help. Thanks! Robert
[url]www.validateform.com[/url] <!-- End of Conversation //--> If any other developers
out there reading this want to add to this 'how to message' than by all means
please do! As I'm sure you know what it's like and how daunting it can be to
create a dreamweaver extension from scratch, especially when somebody's got a
worthwhile idea for an extension. Happy Programming Rob!

[danilocelic *TMM*]

nzliving wrote:

> objects and classes controlling the low level platform system I/O stuff. Your
> extension / program is going to be made up of several javascript routines with
> 1 compulsory routine called 'objectTag()'. This routine is required by
> Dreamweaver to function properly or even for your extension to function at all.

This part is not accurate. The only type of extension that would use the
objectTag() function is an Object, and even then, you do not have to use
that funciton, you can also use an insertObject() function.

> Application and call them at leisure to do your bidding. You also have access
> to some low level I/O classes which I'm not sure whether you may need to call
> in order to copy files to and from folders (e.g. the copying and moving of the
> flag image files to the users image folder). I believe there maybe a
> javascript routine that you can just call and to get it to do that for you?

To copy files from one place to another you can use DWfile.copy(fromURL,
toURL) you do have to make sure that the destination folder exists,
otherwise DW will not perfrom the copy. For copying an entire folder,
you can use code similar to the following:
[url]http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=237&blogger=12[/url]

Note: The above method does not use a recursive method of pulling out
the files and folders, that is becuase I noted some performance issues
on sites with many nested folders and large number's of files when
trying out a recursive type of file copy. That issue could have been
resolved as I've had it for several versions of DW.




Here's my generic getting started post:
MX04:
Help > Extensions > Extending Dreamweaver
and
Help > Extensions > API Reference
and
Help > Extensions > Creating and Submitting

livedocs as well:
[url]http://livedocs.macromedia.com/dreamweaver/mx2004/index.html[/url]

Dreamweaver 4 SDK:
[url]http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?view=sn121&extid[/url]...

Dreamweaver MX 2004 SDK (includes MXI format for DWMX 2004):
[url]http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?view=sn121&extid[/url]...

MXI File Format for DWMX 2004:
[url]http://download.macromedia.com/pub/dw_exchange/mxi_file_format.pdf[/url]

MXI File format for DWMX and earlier:
[url]http://download.macromedia.com/pub/dw_exchange/mxi_file_format.pdf[/url]

Books (dedicated):
Building Dreamweaver 4 and Dreamweaver UltraDev 4 Extension
Tom Muck and Ray West
[url]http://basic-ultradev.com/building_extensions/index.asp[/url]

Dreamweaver MX Extensions
Laura Gutman
[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735711828/qid=10686781[/url]...

Covers extending:
Dreamweaver MX The Complete Reference
Ray West and Tom Muck
[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072195142/basicultradev-20[/url]

Dreamweaver MX 2004 The Complete Reference
Ray West and Tom Muck
[url]http://dwteam.com/tcr/[/url]

Beyond Dreamweaver
Joseph Lowrey
[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0789727404/qid=10686785[/url]...

Plus, always good to see what others have done. Visit the Exchange and
look at as many as you can:
[url]http://www.macromedia.com/exchange/[/url]

Lists of DW extension developer sites:
[url]http://www.dwfaq.com/Resources/Extensions/default.asp[/url]
[url]http://www.felixone.it/extensions/mext.asp[/url]

And also the site I write for: [url]http://www.communitymx.com/[/url] I have a few
extension related articles there (commercial site).


--
Danilo Celic
| Extending Knowledge, Daily [url]http://CommunityMX.com/[/url]