Way To Change HIGHLIGHTING In Code View

[pliles]

When I do edit in the code view, the text associated with my selection changes and gets a  greenish background.  I am "old", 72, and I'd sure

like to change it to another color.... Something I can see  ha ha

I tried to go through preferences several times but alas, nothing I did changed the highlighting?

What did I miss?

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

See this post from 3 days ago. 

Solution: White on Mint Green Code Color.

Nancy

[pliles]

Thank you Nancy...  It worked very well and I can now see the highlights!   You have probably reduced the wrinkles around my eyes by 50%!

Really appreciate you assistance.

I am sorry I created a "hornets nest"  🙂

[Geek091]

This retarded highlighting "feature" was the last straw for me and one of the reasons I installed DW 2017 last night, and uninstalled it not even 24 hours later. I mean, seriously, I have to edit a stylesheet just to make the freaking code visible to the naked eye? Which  moron at Adobe thought up that idea? And did anyone consider the possibility of offering the long-time standard color schemes as one of the available options, or would that go against some company policy requiring that Adobe annoy its long-time users as much as possible?

I spent the better part of today farting around with DW 2017 trying to disable crap like the highlighting that OP mentioned, marveling at how a company that specializes in creativity software managed to come up with such an utterly ugly UI, cursing at the auto-indent feature in the code window (I can indent my own code, thank you), and generally trying to re-learn how to use a program that I've been using for almost 20 years. I didn't get a blasted minute of revenue work done. I finally gave up and went back to CS6.

Does anyone at Adobe actually use this software for revenue work? Does anyone realize that moving things around that have been in the same place since DW was first introduced so we have to go searching for them costs developers money? Does anyone at Adobe care?

When I downloaded my first trial copy of DW back in the late 1990s, I couldn't wait to buy it. (Yeah, we bought it and owned it back then, before it became subscription ransomware.) If I downloaded 2017 as a trial having never used DW before, it would have lasted about three minutes before I uninstalled it -- and that's assuming that I even managed to get past the vomitous default UI. I can't believe Adobe actually designed something that unspeakably ugly.

When I have to sit down for a whole workday to try to figure out how to use the same software that I've been using productively for 20 years, I may as well just fire up Notepad like we did in the old days. At least I would have gotten some revenue work done. And Notepad is free.

I tell you what: As I said in another thread, the day Fireworks stops working is the day I say goodbye to Adobe altogether. I can find better replacements for literally everything that Adobe makes -- many of them FOSS -- except Fireworks. The rest of your software just keeps getting worse and worse with every new version.

Richard

[BenPleysier]

Hi Richard,

Nice rant although I would not have used some of the expressions like calling anyone a moron. I don't think that anyone in the Dreamweaver Development team is stupid. In fact I tend to go the other way.

If a product has been neglected in the past without even a flinch from the users, it does not say much for those users. There is now a dynamic Team behind the development of Dreamweaver. They have made a lot of improvements and yes, they have made some errors. Some of these errors are of an emotional nature like code colouring, others are more intrusive. The good part is that these errors are being worked on as we speak. Improved versions have already appeared while future updates are in the pipeline. This highlights one of the benefits of a Creative Cloud system, the updates are available in real time.

To cut a long story short, if you have a problem with Dreamweaver CC 2017, please report the problem by going to Help > Submit Bug/Feature Request. Nancy's solution is a good start to a better enjoyment of the product.

To finish off, this is a user-to-user forum and I am one of those users without an affiliation to Adobe.

[Geek091]

deleted

[BenPleysier]

Thank you for deleting your inappropriate content.

[Geek091]

The fact that it was strongly-worded doesn't make it inappropriate. I deleted it as a pragmatic move in an increasingly wimpified world wherein political correctness rules, and calling someone names is considered tantamount to terrorism. I still think that DW 2017 is a steaming pile of shit, and I still think it "reflects very poorly" on the dev team, to put it more tactfully. Is that appropriate enough to meet your standards, my dear colleague?

My personal suspicion is that Adobe's extortionate subscription model has lulled the company into a false belief that users will tolerate any bullshit that the company hurls at them simply because they have no choice in the matter. In this sense, Adobe is the bully, and long-standing users are the ones being bullied. Unfortunately for Adobe, the assumption that their customers actually need their software is not universally true. For some of us, it's a mere convenience; and when the company makes it an inconvenience, it ceases to have value to us.

I started building Web sites using nothing but Notepad, command-line FTP, and an old copy of CorelDRAW. For me, Dreamweaver is and always has been nothing more than a way to increase my productivity by automating tedious, time-consuming, and repetitive tasks. I still spend my days in the developer view and hand-code my sites. I doubt that I'm the only user who uses it that way. DW is just a time-saving convenience (albeit a very good one in pre-2017 incarnations), not a necessity.

If Adobe's DW dev team were indeed as bright and "dynamic" as you believe them to be, they would realize that when you make radical UI changes to software whose sole purpose is to make someone's professional life more productive, you actually defeat that very purpose, making the software worthless. To wit:

• It is not productive to have to waste time editing someone else's code to make your own work visible in the UI because of inexplicably bad and illogical default color-coding.
• It is not productive to have to spend hours searching for how to command the software to perform mundane, repetitive tasks because someone on the dev team had the bright idea of juggling things around.
• It is not  productive to change button locations and functions simply because someone had a whim, thus forcing users to override decades (in my case) of muscle memory to re-learn the locations, as well as having to undo mistakes caused by that selfsame muscle memory reaching out and clicking a button whose function has now changed.
• It is not productive to have to constantly override what used to be the best source formatter in the world, but which in the present incarnation lacks any semblance of rhyme or reason regarding even such simple formatting tasks such as source indentation.

In short, DW 2017 transformed a helpful, friendly, efficient assistant into an annoying, whiny, incompetent, problem employee. If Adobe didn't offer the option of continuing to use a previous version rather than "upgrading" to this unspeakably awful festering pile of manure, I would have uninstalled CC completely, canceled my subscription, reinstalled the last version of Fireworks for which I still have a license on a virtual WinXP or Win7 machine, and kissed Adobe goodbye for good. DW 2017 really, truly, honestly is that bad.

So in summary, Ben, unless your definition of "dynamic" includes putting out software that is so atrocious that it inspires long-time, loyal customers to permanently sever their association with the company, I must respectfully beg to meet your use of that term with regard to the DW dev team with a vigorously-raised eyebrow. I judge developers by the quality of their results, not the sincerity of their intentions. I'm a businessman, not a priest. The developers' good intentions mean nothing to me. The only thing that matters is whether the end result of their labor makes me more productive.

[BenPleysier]

I totally agree with the core of your message, and believe me, the old days do come back to me as well. Programs like gopher and Archie kept me busy until WorldWideWeb (Nexus) and the first web server appeared in the early 90's. I remember Mosaic (Netscape) and early versions of markup language. I also remember early versions of Dreamweaver by Macromedia and my anger when Adobe took ownership. I also used the InterAkt products until Adobe decide to trash it.

There have been times that I have wanted to dump the Adobe products, opting for SublimeText, and Aptana. Problem is, I always came back to Dreamweaver. Why? Because it suited my workflow. Yes there have been times that I used a couple of programs and a couple of versions of Dreamweaver to get my work done.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Many things have changed and with a bit of luck, Dreamweaver will change with it. With the latest version (CC2017) I have barely touched Brackets and PrePros. I do have a lot of work on my plate and decent tools are very important to me.

I am a little closer to the Development Team than most other users, which gives me a better insight to what is happening and going to happen with Dreamweaver. Unfortunately, the improvements take time and go arm-in-arm with errors. That is why it is so important to give feedback to the Team. Using unnecessary descriptions do not help, concise reporting of problems do. If a new version does not meet your requirements, under the CC system, you can always go back to an earlier version while you wait for the problems to be solved.

Having said that, in your rant, you have specified just one problem, namely the colour of the background of a highlighted bit of code. Nancy has offered a solution, but I get the impression that you ignored her solution.

We are here to help. We are not paid for our time and we (or should I say I) hate rants that include emotional statements. Come with facts and if we cannot help, we will pass it on to Adobe staff.

[osgood_]

BenPleysier wrote:

Having said that, in your rant, you have specified just one problem, namely the colour of the background of a highlighted bit of code. Nancy has offered a solution, but I get the impression that you ignored her solution.

We are here to help. We are not paid for our time and we (or should I say I) hate rants that include emotional statements. Come with facts and if we cannot help, we will pass it on to Adobe staff.

I dont think its being ignored the question was 'Why was it released like it. No one can honestly think white text on light green works so it brings into question the calibre of person within Adobe waiving this abortion through.

I don't suppoose the culprit would like to come into the forum and explain their reasons - you bet - they are either on the golf course or painting their finger nails, while employees like Preran cover their lame backside.

[BenPleysier]

Note the subject line

Way To Change HIGHLIGHTING In Code View​

and answered by Nancy

[osgood_]

Youre obviously being selective in what you read. Dig a little deeper and answers, as a matter of diplomacy from Adobe, should be provided to questions  posed. You say youre close to the development team but a distance away otherwise you would be able to provide such answers to simple questions rather than retorical posts.

[BenPleysier]

I did not say that I was close to the development team so please do not verbalise me. You should know better than most, that this is a user-to-user forum and that I have no allegiance to Adobe other than I use their products.

I am now closing this discussion as it has been answered and is now leading nowhere as usual.

[Geek091]

BenPleysier wrote:

. . . .

I am a little closer to the Development Team than most other users, which gives me a better insight to what is happening and going to happen with Dreamweaver. Unfortunately, the improvements take time and go arm-in-arm with errors. That is why it is so important to give feedback to the Team. Using unnecessary descriptions do not help, concise reporting of problems do. If a new version does not meet your requirements, under the CC system, you can always go back to an earlier version while you wait for the problems to be solved.

Having said that, in your rant, you have specified just one problem, namely the colour of the background of a highlighted bit of code. Nancy has offered a solution, but I get the impression that you ignored her solution.

We are here to help. We are not paid for our time and we (or should I say I) hate rants that include emotional statements. Come with facts and if we cannot help, we will pass it on to Adobe staff.

No, Ben, I mentioned four classes of problems, and I could have gone on were it not for the necessity of actually making a living. However, for your convenience, I will distill all of my complaints about DW 2017 into one, which I respectfully request that you pass on to the developers as offered:

How do I, as a long-time user, make DW 2017 look and work like what I'm accustomed to using so I don't have to waste otherwise-billable hours of time alternately searching, cussing, and hacking your software to make it work for me?

That sums it up. But here are two more specific criticisms (not questions) that you can pass on, if you like:

1. There's no need to delete existing functionality nor to delete (nor move) existing links, menus, buttons, and so forth in order to add new functionality. I doubt anyone would have objected to an additional main item in the toolbar nor to additional functions being added to the dropdowns that left the existing ones intact.

2. There also was no need to not include the "classic" interface theme and color-coding scheme, for lack of a better word, as a preset option in the themes selector. Telling paying end users that they have to do that themselves is downright abusive. That's what I pay Adobe for. I would immediately and unceremoniously fire any employee who told me to do something myself that he or she was being paid to do, and I hold companies to the same standard. Either make the software what I want it to be, or else face the axe. I pay the developers' salaries, not the other way around.

As an aside, I seriously can't wait until this current trend of "ugly" being an interface design statement runs its course.

[BenPleysier]

You do not get it. I am no messenger boy for Adobe, for you or anyone else and it is not my program. I am a user just like you. The only difference is that I am trying my darnedest to get a tool that will help me with my work and I guess that puts us at opposite ends. I am actively working on it, you are passively moaning about it. Good luck.

[osgood_]

RMaiello wrote:

Does anyone at Adobe actually use this software for revenue work? Does anyone realize that moving things around that have been in the same place since DW was first introduced so we have to go searching for them costs developers money? Does anyone at Adobe care?

Although I don't use DW I feel your frustration. I think some contributors in this forum, including myself, dont really understand the requirements of those who 'need' to use a bit of software 'productively' in the real world to get real websites produced, not some incidental experimental stuff.

RMaiello wrote:

I tell you what: As I said in another thread, the day Fireworks stops working is the day I say goodbye to Adobe altogether. I can find better replacements for literally everything that Adobe makes -- many of them FOSS -- except Fireworks. The rest of your software just keeps getting worse and worse with every new version.

I think Abobe XD is a kind of replacement for Fireworks, its a lot simpler than Photoshop or Illustrator which were never intended for web-development but has since morphed into programs trying to address everything - Adobes fear of losing customers if they dont throw a wide blanket over as much area as possible

Failing that you could try Sketch if you are on a Mac, thats a nice simple bit of software for website building.

Having said that I have very little use for both, other than perhaps redrawing a logo or optimising images,  as I now develop websites on the 'fly' since responsive took off. I cant really see the benefit of wireframing website designs with little if any user/client interaction.

Good luck with finding the 'perfect' editor. I have been going through a number myself over recent months and I can tell you Dreamweaaver is not alone, most are deficient somewhere, most have great assets that the others don't have - there is not a perfect solution.

At the moment I'm using Brackets but keep drifting back the DWCS4, yes CS4 because it was  a bare bones editor, lightning fast and it feels comforatable. Personally I dont really care much for the dark UI's doing the round these days and as I code by hand a simple but effect editor is really all I need but I feel I need to move on to something more up to date however they all seem to carry a lot more excess these days and complexities that I don't need or require. I guess that's progress.

[Geek091]

Thank you.