Filed under: Software, Internet Tools
Adobe to drop GoLive, Freehand
The Mac Observer is reporting that Adobe announced at Adobe Live that the company is giving the axe to GoLive and Freehand for CS3, due out spring of 2007. Before the Adobe-Macromedia merger, GoLive was Adobe's Dreamweaver (and a far superior product, might I add), and Freehand was Macromedia's Illustrator (here's hoping Adobe means every word of their comment that "Dreamweaver will get a new interface"). I'm sure that since this decision was made some time ago, Adobe has had extra development hands to spend on If this announcement disappoints you, just remember something John Gruber said in his translation of Adobe's PR announcement and FAQs of the merger: "Competition is overrated - it only benefits customers".
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Rudi said 5:08PM on 5-31-2006
I disagree with regard to GoLive via-a-vis Dreamweaver. While GoLive was a more visually-oriented web design tool, it wasn't nearly as capable, flexible or powerful as Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver trumped GoLive in terms of code cleanliness (and strict adherance to W3C standards), ability to integrate with CMS protocols, and ability to really get into the meat-and-potatoes of coding if you so desired.
I agree that Adobe's interface in GoLive was a bit easier to use - especially if you came from a Photoshop background - but that's about it. Adobe didn't really keep GoLive up "with the Joneses," and this is the result. So goodbye, GoLive, you will be missed - long live Dreamweaver!
And as far as Freehand is concerned, Illustrator has been running circles around it since version 10. So that was an obvious casualty of the merger (though I was hoping for "Frustrator," myself).
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kevin said 5:30PM on 5-31-2006
what he said
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JG said 5:31PM on 5-31-2006
Speaking as someone who makes his livelihood as an illustrator, FreeHand is -vastly- superior to Adobe Illustrator (eg: Option-click-drag for bezier handles, multiple pages, 2 lines of text around a circle, linked color chips, etc., etc.). Here's hoping that when my FreeHand MX no longer runs in OS X, something will appear out of the open source community, because, my God, Illustrator is trash.
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arkowi said 5:58PM on 5-31-2006
"GoLive was Adobe's Dreamweaver (and a far superior product, might I add)."
you need to stick an "in my opinion" or something in there broseph.
In MY opinion GoLive is trash and Dreamweaver is the balls.
If it is so much better, why would Adobe drop it in favor of DreamWeaver?
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ChillyWilly said 6:09PM on 5-31-2006
I'm with Rudi and arkowi. Having dumped GoLive for Dreamweaver, GoLive was pure crap to deal with, didn't handle a lot of the newer standards (at the time) and was an overall clunky program.
At least that's my opinion, based on the web work I've done in the last 5 years under Dreamweaver and especially so in the last 8 months that I've embraced more of it's features.
I'm glad they are dumping GoLive and I hope to god they do not change the Dreamweaver interface. I've grown familar with the use of the product and would hate to have to relearn everything.
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Nathaniel said 6:16PM on 5-31-2006
A sad day, truly. Freehand had always been superior to Illustrator (though Adobe's interfaces were always much cleaner, as noted above about GoLive). Did AI ever win a product comparison in MacWorld, or did Freehand shut it out for over a decade? I stopped reading the mag a few years ago.
Maybe now that Adobe owns the product and patents, they can bring AI up to speed with some 20th century capabilities like dragging and dropping rather than constantly having to go to palettes to do anything with color. They did a decent job of incorporating PhotoStyler features into Photoshop after the Aldus buyout, but there were still fantastic features that just disappeared from the market with its death.
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EZGowen said 6:26PM on 5-31-2006
I'm surprised there is anyone out there who still prefers GoLive to Dreamweaver. If GoLive is truly "far superior" then why would Adobe be dropping it? I think customers will benefit when they can buy one suite of programs that people actually use.
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Brent said 7:04PM on 5-31-2006
That you would think GoLive is a better product than Dreamweaver is quite telling...
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FritzLaurel said 7:33PM on 5-31-2006
Dreamweaver originally came to the Mac platform with a Windows interface (as I remember). I never used it after that, and always preferred GoLive even with it's downsides and lack of standards support.
I hand-code everything anyway and only use something like GoLive as a color # reference and quick table builder.
I can't say GoLive is better than Dreamweaver because that first version with the crappy Windows interface (they even used custom Windows-like menu and control definitions!) totally turned me off to not only the product, but also the company. They had "Windows Lover" written all over them. And there's nothing I hate more than a Windows company trying to force feed Windows crap to Mac people. There's a reason there are platforms other than Windows.
All right, all right. Sorry for the little rant.
With the way eveyone's talking, it sounds like I might have to (am forced to) give Dreamweaver another shot...
Cheers,
FL
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Stuart said 8:33PM on 5-31-2006
Sigh. I suppose I'd better learn Illustrator and finally give up Freehand, then. Shame, really - I kinda got used to Freehand!
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shp said 9:16PM on 5-31-2006
Please keep Freehand alive and trash Illustrator!
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Tony said 9:57PM on 5-31-2006
I am a Macromedia Certified Dreamweaver MX 2004 Developer and I obviously love Dreamweaver. No other tool like it can handle asp/php/cfm with such ease.
GoLive Sucked. RIP.
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Chris said 11:44PM on 5-31-2006
Adobe made a great decision:
Dreamweaver vs. GoLive - Adobe knew Dreamweaver was better from the beginning. A basic, "if you can't beat 'em, eat 'em" treatment.
Freehand vs. Illustrator - Whoever thinks Adobe is going to completely give up 15 years of development of Illustrator is crazy. Though I'm sure we'll see plenty of Freehand features incorporated into Illustrator CS3.
As for GoLive - don't let the door hit you in the butt. I can't believe I wasted 6 months trying to learn that crap thinking it might just be better than Dreamweaver...
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christine said 12:26AM on 6-01-2006
good! now get crackin on the Photoshop update for intel macs!!!!!!
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hs said 12:34AM on 6-01-2006
GoLive has treated me great, I know a lot of people love Dreamweaver, but those people have to realise that making standard webpages (Like many of us do), GUI matters, and GoLive has been nice for me coming from InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop.
I'll take yur word on code and stuff though, I'm not a moron that's in love with my webapp, I just use it, and now Adobe tells me to use something else.
They did say that the GUI will be redone though, so they probably know that people like GoLive in that respect, which kinda tells me they're doing a best of both worlds here. So fanbois of Dreamweaver, don't be so lazy or blind that you don' welcome change in your app just becuase you've gotten used to something bad. If I can take the namechange and loosing my app, you guys should be able to deal with a new gui. :)
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Remco said 4:21AM on 6-01-2006
Also read this please: Adobe denies dropping support and development of Freehand and Golive:
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/05/31/adobe/index.php
And all Freehand fans, please sign the Freehand support page:
http://www.enrichdesign.com/freehand.html
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YenLai said 5:37AM on 6-01-2006
"GoLive was Adobe's Dreamweaver (and a far superior product, might I add)"
To echo everyone else's statement, this is abundantly false.
You may LIKE the GUI more,
You may THINK it is prettier,
It may be EASIER to draw little picture boxes and add images to a web page,
But it is not a superior product to Dreamweaver.
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Bill Yermal said 9:14AM on 6-01-2006
I just read this rumor was denied...
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=14810
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Allan Smithee said 3:37PM on 6-01-2006
As a former GoLive user who very wisely came to his senses and started using Dreamweaver, I am VERY curious to understand the actual reasons why David Chartier thinks GL is "superior" to Dreamweaver.
A more outrageous and ignorant opinion I cannot think of (other than WinXP is superior to OS X)
David, care to elaborate on your opinion?
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Andrew said 7:18PM on 6-01-2006
The real butth*le of this whole thing is that now there isn't any real competition. Why did Adobe need to purchase Macromedia? For Flash? Competition always forces innovation. Now what are we going to get from Adobe? Whatever they want, that's what.
It was cool having the two companies trying to out-do each other. We (the consumers) ended up with sweet products that we could choose from.
BTW - GoLive was the crotch of web developement software. Everybody knows that and that's why it got canned.
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