Is Dreamweaver “upwards” compatible with manually created semantic html?

Question

A prospective client has a site with pages done in Dreamweaver(tm). I don't have Dreamweaver(tm), never use it, and have in the past have seen some spaghetti (html) code on pages created with it. As a result, I'm wondering: if I create clean sections of semantic html, will Dreamweaver continue to be able to edit it when the client wishes to modify the code that I have created by hand (assuming that I create clean and validating code). This is more of an experience based question than a research based question. I'm sure that Dreamweaver(tm)'s documentation would tell me that it's compatible with clean, semantic html, but it's hard to take that advice from the horse's mouth.

So, based on your experience, is Dreamweaver happy with clean semantic html created externally, or does the visual mode display badly when it's dealing with manually, externally-created semantic html?

Answer 1

Short answer: it is compatible.

It depends on how your clients want to modify the code. Dreamweaver is a good editing tool, and it supports and "understands" semantic (x)html/css. However, if your clients still use html for styling (such as table-based layouts etc.), then proper clean css-styling can be frustrating for them to deal with later. But it is another problem and it has nothing to do with the editor.

Answer 2

Editing HTML in the “code” mode of Dreamweaver leaves it alone. Not sure about the visual mode though.