How to view oscommerce/oscmax in dreamweaver

I've seen more than a few questions on how the oscommerce/oscmax template you build can be viewed in Dreamweaver's Design View or some similar HTML editor.

The short, simple answer is that it can't.

Here's why: oscommerce, oscmax, other shopping carts, or any database-driven solution for that matter - are dynamic in nature. Whether written in PHP or not, it's just a bunch of arguments that will execute based on what the visitor has done. In the case of PHP, the code needs to be processed by a PHP-enabled server that will send the appropriate HTML code to your browser. Even if you have such capabilities running locally, you still won't be able to do this with Dreamweaver because it's static.

For example, some code like the one I've posted here determines the final thing to show in the browser - the final HTML code - based on whether a customer is logged in or not. The products page code instructs to show the details relevant to the product or category you've clicked on. The server queries your database based on these conditions and sends the data to your browser. You can't do this with Dreameaver.

So you might be able to see some graphics and colors that are not dynamically generated. But with most pages, you'll see some blank tables in the good case and absolutely nothing in the worst case. Still, if you know HTML you shouldn't have trouble working in code view, and then test through your browser.