Choose SiteReports.

The Reports window opens (see Figure 15-11).

From the Report On menu, select the files to analyze.

Dreamweaver can report on a single Web page, multiple pages, or even an entire site. Choose Current Document to check the Web page that's open at the moment. Entire Current Local Site checks every Web page in the local site folder, including folders inside it. This option is great when you want to check your entire site prior to uploading it to a Web server and making it "live" (more on that in Chapter 16).

Selected Files in Site checks only the files you choose in the Files panel. You need to open the Files panel and select files in the local file list for this to work. See the box in Section 14.1.5.1 for methods on selecting files in the Files panel. Choose this option when you've modified or added pages to a site, and are ready to move them to the Web server.

Dreamweaver's Site Reports feature makes quick work of finding common page errors. It's also one of Dreamweaver's many customizable features. You can download additional types of reports from the Macromedia Exchange Web site or even program your own. For more information on customizing Dreamweaver and using Macromedia Exchange, see Section 20.2.1.

Folder checks all Web pages in a selected folder. After you choose this option, an empty field and a folder icon appear. Click the folder icon; a dialog box gives you the opportunity to locate and select the folder you wish to check, including any folders inside it. You can also use this option when you wish to check pages that aren't actually part of the current site.

Select the types of reports you want Dreamweaver to generate.

The Reports window is divided into two types of reports. The first set, Workflow reports, mostly deal with features that facilitate working with others as part of a production team (see the following chapter). The last option in this group—Recently Modified—is new in Dreamweaver MX 2004. It generates a list of files that have either been created or modified within a certain number of days or within a range of dates (February 1 of last year to the present, say). When you run this type, Dreamweaver lists the files in the Site Reports panel and opens a Web page listing the files in your browser.

The second type, HTML reports, are useful for locating common errors, such as forgetting to title a Web page or forgetting to add an Alt property to an image.

Three of the HTML report options?span class="docEmphBold">Combinable Nested Font Tags, Redundant Nested Tags, and Removable Empty Tags—search for pages with common code mistakes. These are the same problems fixed by the Clean Up HTML command (Section 15.5).

The Accessibility report lets you see how usable your site is to people with disabilities. This sophisticated command checks to see how well your pages conform to Web accessibility guidelines mandated by the U.S. Government and recommended by the W3C (Section 15.7). This option produces detailed reports, so it's usually best to run it separately.

Turn on Missing Alt Text to search for pages with images that are missing an alternate text description (Section 5.2.2). If you select the Accessibility option, you can leave this turned off; the Accessibility analyzer already includes missing Alt text.

Finally, turn on Untitled Documents to identify pages that are either missing a title or still have Dreamweaver's default title ("Untitled Document").

Click Run.

Dreamweaver analyzes the pages you specified. It then produces a report that lists pages that match your report settings (see Figure 15-12). Each line in the Results window displays the name of the file, the line number where the error occurs, and a description of the error.

If you decide that the report is taking too long, you can always stop it by clicking the icon in the lower-right corner of the Results panel. It looks like a red stop sign with an X through it, and only appears while a report is running.

In the Results panel, double-click the file to open it (see Figure 15-13).

Dreamweaver opens the file and automatically highlights the offending code.

Fix the problem according to its type.

For a page containing Combinable Nested Font Tags, Redundant Nested Tags, or Removable Empty Tags errors, use the Clean Up HTML command as described in Section 15.5.

For pages missing a title, add one using the technique described in Section 1.2.1.

For Accessibility problems, read the detailed discussion starting in Section 15.7.

You can add Missing Alt properties using the Property inspector, as described in Section 5.2.2, but you may find it faster to use Dreamweaver's powerful Find and Replace command (Section 19.3).

Continue opening files from the Results window and fixing them until you've corrected each mistake.

The life cycle of a typical HTML error.

Top: After running a report, you might find a common HTML error, like an empty link tag. Select the page in the Results window and click the Open button.

Second from top: The page opens with the offending code selected in Split Code view. (Dreamweaver often highlights the problem HTML code so that you can identify the problem.) Since you can fix this particular error—and more—with the Clean Up HTML command, choose Commands Clean Up HTML.

Third: The Clean Up HTML/XHTML window opens. Even though you can just clean up the error you identified earlier, it won't hurt to clean up other problems that might appear in your code (and somewhere else in the site report Results window). Click OK to clean up the HTML.

Bottom: Dreamweaver reports back to you. Mission accomplished—code cleaned.

Unfortunately, Dreamweaver doesn't provide a quick, one-step method to fix any of these problems. Except when using the Find and Replace tip for adding missing Alt text, you must open and fix each page individually.