The Object palette contains buttons for inserting objects such as tables, layers, and images. To show or hide the Object palette, choose Window > Objects. To insert an object, click the corresponding Object palette button or drag the button's icon into the Document window. Hold down the Control (Windows) or Option (Macintosh) key while inserting an object to bypass the object-insertion dialog box and instead insert an empty placeholder object of the specified type. (For instance, to insert a placeholder for an image, without specifying an image file, hold down Control or Option and click the Image button.)
The Object palette contains six panels by default: Characters, Common, Forms, Frames, Head, and Invisibles. Use the pop-up menu at the top of the palette to switch between panels. You can modify any object in the palette or create your own objects; see Changing the Object palette.
The Object palette contains the following panels:
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The Common panel contains the most commonly used objects, such as Image, Table, and Layer. |
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The Characters panel contains special characters such as the copyright symbol, curved quotation marks, and trademark symbols. (Note that these symbols may not display correctly on browsers other than Netscape Navigator 3 and 4 and Internet Explorer 3 and 4.) |
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The Forms panel contains buttons for creating forms and form elements. |
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The Frames panel contains common frameset structures. |
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The Head panel contains buttons for adding various HEAD elements, such as META, KEYWORDS, and BASE tags. |
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The Invisibles panel contains buttons for creating objects that are not visible in the Document window, such as named anchors. Choose View > Invisible Elements to display icons that mark the locations of these objects. Click invisible-element icons in the Document window to select the objects and change their properties. See About invisible elements. |
Some of the General preference settings affect the Object palette. To modify these preferences, choose Edit > Preferences and then choose General.
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When you insert objects such as images, tables, scripts, and HEAD elements, a dialog box prompts you for additional information. You can suppress these dialog boxes by turning off the Show Dialog When Inserting Objects option. When you insert an object with this option off, the object is given default attribute values. Use the Property inspector to change object properties after inserting the object. |
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The Object Palette preference lets you display the contents of the Object palette as Text Only, Icons Only, or Text and Icons. |
The Common panel in the Object palette contains the most commonly used objects:
Image Places an image at the insertion point. A dialog box appears so that you can specify an image file. See Inserting an image.
Rollover Prompts you to specify two image files that are used to define a rollover. A rollover is an image that changes when the pointer moves across it. See Creating a rollover.
Table Places a table at the insertion point. See Tables overview.
Tabular Data Places a table at the insertion point, filled with table data from another file (such as a file exported from Microsoft Excel as a delimited text file). See Importing table data.
HR Places a horizontal rule at the insertion point. See Horizontal rules.
Navigation Bar Inserts a set of images to be used for navigating through a site. See Creating navigation bars.
Layer Creates a layer. Click the Layer button, then move the pointer to the Document window and drag to define the size and location of a layer. By default, Dreamweaver creates a layer defined by the DIV tag. Use the Property inspector to select a different tag, or change the default setting with Layer preferences. See Creating layers.
Line Break Places a line break (<br>) at the insertion point. You can also press Shift+Enter (Windows) or Shift+Return (Macintosh) to insert a line break.
E-Mail Link Places an e-mail link at the insertion point. See Creating an e-mail link.
Date Places the current date at the insertion point. A dialog box appears in which you can specify a format for the date and indicate whether Dreamweaver should update the date automatically every time you save the file. See Inserting dates.
Flash Places a Flash movie at the insertion point using the OBJECT and EMBED tags. A dialog box appears in which you can browse to a movie file. The CODEBASE, CLASS ID, and PLUGINSPAGE attributes have been preset with the proper values for Flash Player; use the Property inspector to specify other attributes for the movie. See Flash movie properties.
Shockwave Places a Shockwave movie at the insertion point using the OBJECT and EMBED tags. The CODEBASE, CLASS ID, and PLUGINSPAGE attributes have been preset with the proper values for Shockwave. A dialog box appears so that you can specify a source file for the movie, or you can use the Property inspector to specify a source file. See Shockwave properties.
Generator Places a Generator object at the insertion point. See Inserting Generator objects.
Fireworks HTML Places HTML and images produced by Fireworks at the insertion point. See Inserting Fireworks HTML.
Applet Places a Java applet at the insertion point. (The Java applet will appear only when you view the document in a browser.) A dialog box appears in which you can specify the file that contains the applet's code, or click Cancel to leave the source unspecified. Use the Property inspector to specify other properties for the Java applet. See Java applet properties.
ActiveX Places an ActiveX control at the insertion point. Use the Property inspector to specify a source file and other properties for the ActiveX control. See ActiveX properties.
Plugin Uses the EMBED tag to insert a file (at the insertion point) that requires a Netscape plugin for playback. A dialog box appears in which you can specify the source file. See Netscape Navigator plugin properties.
SSI Places a server-side include at the insertion point. A dialog box appears in which you can choose a source file for the include. See Using server-side includes.
The Characters panel in the Object palette contains some special characters:
Copyright Places a copyright symbol at the insertion point.
Registered Places a registered-trademark symbol at the insertion point.
Trademark Places a trademark symbol at the insertion point.
Pound Places a pound (currency) symbol at the insertion point.
Yen Places a yen (currency) symbol at the insertion point.
Euro Places a euro (currency) symbol at the insertion point.
Em-Dash Places an em dash at the insertion point.
Left Quote Places an opening, curved double quotation mark at the insertion point.
Right Quote Places a closing, curved double quotation mark at the insertion point.
Other Provides a set of special characters, such as é and ç, for you to choose from. When you select one and click OK, it's placed at the insertion point.
The Forms panel in the Object palette contains buttons for creating forms and form elements. See Forms overview.
Place the insertion point within a form boundary before inserting a form element; form elements outside of forms do not appear in a browser. If you attempt to insert a form element outside of a form, a dialog box asks whether to add a form tag around the form element; click Yes to create a new form containing the element, or No to insert the element without a form.
Form Places a form at the insertion point. Forms are simply containers for form elements; the form boundaries are not visible in the Document window unless View > Invisible Elements is on. See Invisible Elements preferences.
Text Field Places a text field at the insertion point. Set the name, size, and initial value in the Property inspector. See Text field properties.
Button Places a button with a default NAME and VALUE of "Submit" at the insertion point. Place the insertion point within a form boundary before inserting a button; buttons outside forms do not appear in browsers. Use the Property inspector to set the name, label, and action. See Button properties.
Checkbox Places a checkbox at the insertion point. Set the name, value when checked, and initial state in the Property inspector. See Checkbox properties.
Radio Places a radio button at the insertion point. Set the name, value when checked, and initial state in the Property inspector. See Radio button properties.
List Menu Places a list or pop-up menu at the insertion point. Set the name, type, and list values in the Property inspector. See List/Menu properties.
File Field Places a file field at the insertion point. Set the name, size, and initial value in the Property inspector. See File field properties.
Image Field Places an image field at the insertion point. Set the name, size, alternative text, and source file in the Property inspector. See Image field properties.
Hidden Field Inserts a hidden field at the insertion point. Set the name and value in the Property inspector. See Hidden field properties.
Jump Menu Places a pop-up menu of URLs at the insertion point. Set the list values in the dialog box that appears. See Creating jump menus.
The Frames panel in the Object palette contains buttons for creating common frameset layouts. See Frames overview.
Left Creates a frameset and adds a narrow empty frame to the left of the current frame.
Right Creates a frameset and adds a narrow empty frame to the right of the current frame.
Top Creates a frameset and adds a narrow empty frame above the current frame.
Bottom Creates a frameset and adds a narrow empty frame below the current frame.
Left & Top Creates a frameset and adds a narrow empty frame to the left of the current frame, a narrow empty frame above the current frame, and a small empty frame in the upper left corner of the frameset.
Left Top Creates a frameset and adds a narrow empty frame above the current frame, and another one to the left of both frames.
Top Left Creates a frameset and adds a narrow empty frame to the left of the current frame, and another one above both frames.
Split Creates a frameset and splits it in quarters, creating three new empty frames and placing the current frame in the lower right quadrant.
The Head panel contains objects for adding elements to the HEAD section of your documents.
Meta Inserts a META tag into the HEAD section of your document. A dialog box appears in which you can enter information for META attributes. See META properties.
Keywords Inserts a Keywords META tag into the HEAD section of your document. A dialog box appears in which you can enter keywords for the document. See Keywords properties.
Description Inserts a Description META tag into the HEAD section of your document. A dialog box appears in which you can enter text that describes the document. See Description properties.
Refresh Inserts a Refresh META tag into the HEAD section of your document. A dialog box appears in which you can enter the number of seconds to wait before refreshing, and whether to reload the current page or go to a new one. See Refresh properties.
Base Inserts a BASE tag into the HEAD section of your document. A dialog box appears in which you can enter a base URL for the document's links. See Base properties.
Link Inserts a LINK tag into the HEAD section of your document. A dialog box appears in which you can enter link information. Note that this is not a hyperlink; it is used most often to specify an external style sheet. See Link properties.
The Invisibles panel contains buttons for creating objects that are not visible in the Document window.
Choose View > Invisible Elements to display icons that mark the locations of these objects. Click the icons to select the objects and change their properties. See About invisible elements. (Invisible Elements preferences let you select which specific elements are visible in the Document window when View > Invisible Elements is on. See Invisible Elements preferences.)
Anchor Places a named anchor (<a name="">) at the insertion point. A dialog box appears; enter a name for the anchor. See Linking to a named anchor.
Comment Places a comment in the HTML at the insertion point. A dialog box appears; enter text for the comment. See Inserting comments.
Script Places a script at the insertion point. A dialog box appears; choose the language and enter text for the script. See Inserting scripts.
NBSP Places a nonbreaking space ( ) at the insertion point. (A nonbreaking space prevents a line break from occurring between two words.)
