smart computer use?

It was for me, at least. Recently at our office, after upgrading one of our developers to Dreamweaver CS4, I noticed that a lot site code now had mysterious double spacing. What the heck?

This was mainly an annoyance, as it didn’t rewrite code other than just double spacing every single damn line of code.

I noticed that it was happening to all the sites that the new guy (with Dreamweaver CS4) was working on.

Why was Dreamweaver mysteriously double spacing all his code?

It turns out that Dreamweaver CS4 (and probably other versions) by default downloads all php/html/css/asp/etc. files in ASCII mode. For some reason, when doing this, Dreamweaver double spaces all the code. Why? I have no idea, it sucks and is annoying and stupid.

The problem can be resolved by changing Dreamweavers configuration to download those types of code files as Binary when using FTP.

How to change FTP transfer to binary

There is no “easy” way to do this in Dreamweaver, which I found to be odd. Every other FTP app I’ve ever used has the option to choose transfer type of Binary or ASCII up front during transfers or in the FTP account setup/management screens. Not Dreamweaver. You need to edit a text file to change the FTP transfer type to binary for certain file types.

To find the file, go into the folder where Dreamweaver was installed and search for this file:

• FTPExtensionMap.txt

The file was in the “Adobe Dreamweaver CS4\configuration\” folder on my computer.

In that file you will find a simple list of file types and FTP transfer types. Just change the files that are being double spaced to “Binary” as the transfer type, save the file, and you should be good to go. Problem solved!

I should mention that problems like this are why I now use Ultraedit.

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Not sure how many of you out there use Dreamweaver 8 or any higher version than version 8. With Dreamweaver 8 Macromedia added the “Background File Activity” window. This is actually a nice feature, as you can actually edit files and such while Dreamweaver is interacting with the server.

Beyond that, it seems like the background file activity window likes to pop up and think for unreasonable amounts of time when it probably really doesn’t need to.

I manage several sites using Dreamweaver 8. Throughout the day I switch between many sites to edit files directly on the server for web site maintenance or development. Frequently when I switch between sites, try to open a folder on the server, or try to open a file I get either an FTP error or the background file activity window pops up and runs its progress bar for around 30 seconds before the action takes place.

This gets annoying really fast. It happens in situations where the FTP action should only need maybe 2 seconds to run, tops.

An example of me dealing with the background file activity window:

• I’m connected to SiteA.com (example domain name).
• I navigate away from Dreamweaver for a few minutes to move some files around on my computer or do something else.
• I come back to Dreamweaver.
• I try to switch to SiteB.com in the site manager.
• The background file activity window pops up, says “File Activity Complete” for SiteA.com and runs the progress bar for about 30 seconds.
• After waiting for nothing, pretty much, the window finally gets to the end of it’s progress and then jumps to the other site. If I hit cancel on the background file activity window in this instance, it just closes and goes to the other site more quickly! So why did they (the Dreamweaver gnomes) even open the background file activity window in this instance? It must not have been any important reason, as cancellation didn’t affect anything negatively.
• At this point I have probably navigated away from Dreamweaver and am looking at battleyourtailoff.com or something else while I wait for it this window progress bar to run it’s course, forgetting what I was doing in the first place and getting my work flow interrupted.

I don’t know why Dreamweaver needs to think so hard about this stuff. Every other FTP application out there that I’ve used handles FTP so much more efficiently than Dreamweaver. In my head I picture the Dreamweaver gnomes running about inside the Dreamweaver Matrix world, flayling their arms about in confusion and panic each time an FTP action is processed. This can’t be too far from the reality of what is going on inside this application based on the actual usage results.

I have played around with FTP timeout settings, passive/non-passive connections and many other options within Dreamweaver to try to remedy this. I’ve also searched the web much regarding this issue and have never found a solution. I think that Dreamweaver just flat out has shoddy FTP capabilities. This is too bad, as the built in FTP in Dreamweaver is awfully convenient.

If anybody out there knows how to navigate around these weird FTP issues I’m all ears (kinda like Medusa, but male, with ears all over instead of snakes).

Also, UltraEdit is a nice alternative to Dreamweaver if you are a coder and are annoyed by Dreamweaver. As soon as I get my head around utilizing UltraEdit to an efficient degree I’ll be switching over to that editor completely. That will be a nice day.

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