Missing font and alignment capabilities in properties box

Question

We finally got an upgrade to our Dreamweaver & Fireworks from the original macromedia. I'm so lost with the changes, I had to build a "need it now" new page in Fireworks. I saw where someone said DW wasn't a WYSIWYG program, but that was why I originally bought and loved it and hadn't realized it had changed purpose. I want to be able to select text on my page and change the color or size of just that text. Why was it necessary to remove that capability or make it a major multiple choice in CSS? Is there a way to do this in the properties inspector

Answer 1

Sorry you're feeling so lost with the modern web standards.  But frankly, a LOT has changed since DW MX days.  The changes in CS6 are not about punishing users.  They're all about keeping pace with best practices as defined by the W3C.  To get the most out of DW  you need a quick refresher course in CSS because that's where all the styles are happening now.
As a quick example, define a set of CSS styles:
CSS:
     p {
     text-align:left;
     font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif;
     font-size: 16px;}
/**re-usable classes**/
     .center {text-align:center}
     .red {color:red}
     .green {color:green}
HTML:
     <p>This text is the default paragraph style</p>
     <p class="center">This text is centered</p>
      <p class="center red">This text is centered and red</p>
      <p>This is default style <span class="green">this is green</span>
     <span class="red">this is red</span> and this is default style again.</p>
Apply classes to text from the HTML Properties Panel (see screenshot).  Choose one class or multiple classes.
Once you get all your CSS rules defined, it's a piece of cake to style your content in DW.
Nancy O.