How can I copy and duplicate nested layers in DW8

[Sophie9]

Hi,
I'm trying to build my first site using Dreamweaver8 / Studio 8. I want to build the effect of a table 40 rows, 4 columns using layers instead of tables. I have done the first few rows from scratch and it was taking an age so I tried to use the copy / paste function and it doesn't work - I get a dotted rectangle but looking at the properties inspector and layers panel its not even a layer?
Can someone help me please I've been trying all day & searched all over the net to no avail, I even found a forum link (below) with the same problem and couldn't get the expert's solution to work.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Dreamweaver-1044/copy-layers-dreamweaver-8-1.htm

 

[traingamer]

If you are placing tabular data on a page, by all means simply use a table.

Do not use tables for page layout.

From the link that you specified, it seems likely that you did, indeed, create a layer. However, it sounds like it is simply an empty div, with no style or content. (Therefore it would take the appearance of an empty rectangle in DW.)

Greg
"Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." - Winston Churchill

 

[Sophie9]

Thanks for your reply, I think I really want to use layers because the 4th column contains a button to make a detailed item description visible (either by changing the z value of another child layer or making the hidden layer visible), my understanding is if I dont use layers like this then the whole page would need to be reloaded and the site will become much bigger and slower as each pf the 40+ rows in the site would have a button to make it's own detailed layer visible.
I tried copying and posting one of the "rows" I dont think the code pasted is an empty div, but on the page it comes out vertically rather than horizontally and doesnt appear in the layers panel at all.
Maybe the copy and paste function doesn't work for layers and (I tried copy paste in the code view and renamed the layers as well but that didn't work, the new layers did not appear in the design view or the layers panel) Perhaps there is another way to duplicate nested layers already created?
Here's the new code that appears after the paste function (copy/paste in the design view), I can see it's not the same as the code copied

<p>&nbsp;</p>
<div id="layer">
<div id="layer2"></div>
<div class="style6" id="layer3">London City</div>
<div id="layer4"><span class="style6">&pound;6000 </span></div>
<div class="style6" id="layer5">Mercedes 420se</div>
</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>

 

[Cheech]

You could use a button to just swap the visiblity of the layer containing the detailed info, that way it would easily fit into a table

Cheech

[Peace][Pipe]