viewing php in dreamweaver

im new to this,
i have a question which was probably asked somewhere here.

im running dreamweaver 4.0 as an editor, id like to know if i can view php coded forums offline (without an internet connection)
in dreamweaver and be able to view it as if it was on my web server ?

if i can what would i need to download to my pc to do this.

currently when i try i only see text codeing.
so it tells me im missing some stuff.

id like to view it just as if it were a webpage but without a connection to the net.

thanks for any help in this..

Do you mean this?

Menu: view -> design

i mean for example.
in dreamweaver, if i insert an image file dreamweaver would show the codeing in code and design view.
but when you click view in browser(preview page) in internet explorer instead of seeing just code you see the page as it was intended with the image instead of the code.

just like if you use java script in code design view it shows the script code but in preview it runs the code just as if you were connected to the internet.but without the internet.

the above 2 examples is what i want to do say with an invision board or php forum, if i edit a page in dreamweaver id like to preview what the changes would look like but without haveing to connect to the internet and without haveing to upload all changed files to a server just to see if the edited script works and what it looks like.

sorry if this seems confuseing

I asume you have a local webserver with PHP installed, including a database system...

If so: Ctrl-S F12...

Otherwise I don't get the problem, sorry :$

ok,
if i go to my forum and open my index.php i get my login and index page etc everything works ok like a forum should.

when i download the files via ftp to my hdd, and edit say the index.php file useing my dreamweaver program,i want to preview the changes first before uploading them back to the server.
when i try to preview the index.php in my internet explorer all i see is this code for example---

error_reporting (E_ERROR | E_WARNING | E_PARSE); set_magic_quotes_runtime(0); class Debug { function startTimer() { global $starttime; $mtime = microtime (); $mtime = explode (' ', $mtime); $mtime = $mtime[1] + $mtime[0]; $starttime = $mtime; } function endTimer() { global $starttime; $mtime = microtime (); $mtime = explode (' ', $mtime); $mtime = $mtime

instead of the actual page you see at

http://freelynksbb.distanthost.com/forums/index.php

why when i try to view the changes on my harddrive in internet explorer, all i see is the code like the above code,and when i use the url to the page on my host i see the forum page, what am i missing on my harddrive that will let me preview the page the same way without connecting to the internet ?

the annomise post was mine and the system didnt show me loged in.

also dont click the [set_magic_quotes_runtime]
the url is ok

Install Zend studio eval, it will set up php and the apache web server for you. Then you can view php files as if they were on the web. you would not be able to do so from your dreamweaver though, you would have to enter the address http://localhost/file.php into the url of your browser

i also found an excellent program which works well for offline viewing of php files etc.
its called phpdev ver.4.23.
it serves the exact purpose i need.
thanks for the suggestions

the easiest way I have found to get a full local php development environment is to instal foxserv on your machine and put the website inside the server directory.

The reason javascript displays correctly when you edit and code it on your machine then view your work is because the browser interprets javascript (it's a client side thing) php is a server side module and thus you need to have a server running in order to show the result of your code.