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Have you ever wished your Web editor had that one extra feature or time saving capability? Of course you could always contact the software company requesting that important feature be added in their next release, but then you might have to wait months for the feature to be added. That is, if they even remember your plea among the thousands of requests that software companies receive. Realizing that there was no way of incorporating every user request into a new software release, programmers have addressed the problem in a very creative and powerful way. They have opened up their software to outside developers. Now any software user (with some programming skills) can add new features to a program. The concept has been a huge success in the 3D animation world. This is best exemplified by 3D Studio where outside programmers have added new functionality in almost every aspect of the program, from new modeling capabilities to raydiosity rendering engines. This software extensibility has spread into the Web editing world with Dreamweaver Extensions.

Dreamweaver Extensions are the Rage

Dreamweaver Extensions are an incredible innovation that gives users the power to add dozens of new capabilities without waiting months or a year for future software releases. Already over a hundred new extensions are available at the Dreamweaver Exchange. Although some are commercial extensions, most are available for free. Here are only a few of the categories within the exchange:

Browser compatibility - improve browser detection and redirection
E-Commerce - allow catalog creation and transactional processing
Style and Format - add more custom style and formatting of content
DHTML - more DHTML objects and behaviors
RICH Media - more support for third party audio, video and animation plug-ins
Tables - improved table creating, editing and formatting
Fireworks - better integration of Dreamweaver and Fireworks

To download extensions you must have the 'Extension Manager' installed (current ver. 1.1) and you must be a member of Macromedia.com. Membership is free. Once the 'Extension Manager' is installed adding extensions is easy.

Go to: Commands > Manage Extensions ... the Extensions Manager appears.

Extensions Manager

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