Filed under: Reviews, Beta Beat
TUAW Review: Dreamweaver CS4 beta
Adobe Dreamweaver, for better or for worse, is probably the most mature integrated development environment for website building for the Mac. Professionals might be supplied with Dreamweaver through their company's site-license; beginners might get Dreamweaver on the recommendation of a friend. Hard-core coders have their favorite text editors and IDEs. This review is not for them. To be clear, I use Coda and TextMate almost exclusively for web development. This review is for people who use Dreamweaver primarily as a WYSIWYG HTML editor (as much as that makes me cringe). But that's what Dreamweaver does best.
The public beta of Dreamweaver CS4 dropped on Tuesday, and I'm going to show you what's new and different about Dreamweaver CS4, and if it's worth the upgrade.
Weavin' your dreams, after the jump.
First of all, Dreamweaver CS4 is enormous. 509MB of sweet, sweet application. Dreamweaver CS3 was a mere 366MB. Coda is just a wisp of a thing at 52MB. TextMate is practically anorexic at 30MB. For what CS4 provides over CS3, I can't really say that the extra 200MB are doing much. Hopefully that's just test code and cruft that will come out before the final version is released.
Looking at the interface, it's not significantly different than the last version of Dreamweaver (true, it's just as customizable as the last one, too). Palettes are organized similarly, with one major difference. The Insert palette now lives down with the rest of the palettes, instead of as a toolbar above the workspace.
One nifty addition is a small tab-like toolbar above the workspace that shows documents (like stylesheets and scripts) linked in the current document. No need to thrash through your document structure to find a buried CSS file: it's listed right next to your open document at the top.
Before I switched to Coda, I used Dreamweaver (in its various iterations, including CS3) since Dreamweaver 3, I think (note to readers: I am old). I'm very familiar with how it works. As I grew in my career, I moved away from the WYSIWYG development process, and started coding by hand. Dreamweaver was a fair-to-middling text editor, and the code view's maturity as part of the Dreamweaver product definitely shows in CS4.
Still, certain features like Coda's terminal integration and visual CSS editor would be a welcome addition to Dreamweaver.
Another addition is the Code Navigator, a contextual menu that shows you the CSS properties of the item you clicked. No more switching to Firebug to find out what styles are assigned to a particular object. A helpful (Firebug-like) addition to this pop-up might be to show which styles are overridden by others.
For me, the most anticipated feature is Live View, a preview environment (much like Coda's) that renders the web page as if it was in Safari, Camino, OmniWeb (thanks commenters!) or the raft of other browsers that use the WebKit engine. The disappointment is this: the Design view (that is, the WYSIWYG environment) doesn't use WebKit, but the same rendering engine as the last version of Dreamweaver. As a result, Live View is given a strange "separate but equal" preview status. I think it would be great to make WebKit the rendering engine for all of Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG output, furthering the push toward design for standards compliance.
Even so, testing is at least easier, obviating the need to switch from IDE to browser and back again.
Overall, Dreamweaver is a mature HTML development environment. The changes to the environment shouldn't have to be radical to be useful. In fact, Adobe is helping the development community push more towards standards compliance, which is great for everyone: developers and visitors alike.
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Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Court Kizer said 5:31PM on 5-29-2008
Robert:
If you serious about your web development tool, contact me. I've spent many, many years working on UI for applications, and one of them was radical departure for web development stack. I've also written many blueprint, css reset, basic libraries to include that could be used for GUI page layout and form setup. The way I see it, there would be a sort of definition file/templates that could be changed or different group loaded. That way if someone changed the method for a 3 column fixed width layout or wanted to use UL for form controls vs. divs it would be easy to edit a set of files or templates that control this. This would also allow for updated methods to be sent, as well as uses to toss in fixes to a template for their purposes when building layout.
I'd love to get involved with something like this. As far as not having intel macs, not sure if I understand you. You don't have access to intel macs? I worked at vmware for a while ;-) If you have something that you really have going on and intel macs or ui/beautification and wireframes for your application are holding you back let me know, I have plenty of intel macs.
Robert Stack said 11:40PM on 5-29-2008
Yes Court
I would love to get others involved in my work and be part of it. Even if it only to get some sleep. I did post some opportunities on my site. Currently my goal is to get a good set of my tools working first with Dreamweaver this summer. I presently have about 90% of them working in a DW extension. About the width, I never really focussed on fixed widths and heights for my tools because it conflicts with the logic of scaling and many future things like vector drawings(SVG and etc). And zoom is a big mess of a bigger mess. Instead I went Liquid, with a way to set a preferred fixed width and height(yes that includes height too) for a column, row, menu or just about any thing in the StackSite's layout tools. Just to make my point, try scaling Dreamweavers own http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/ with text scaling and see what happens to the page and menus. It's not to pretty, and not to accessibly for people who need to scale the text to read their site. I'm not picking on Adobe, this happens with a ton of fix sized sites. Anyway, I understand what your doing. If or if not we can put some of our work together is hard to stay, but I'm willing to talk. I just got in from going out tonight, but I'll pass U my skype number so we can talk. Presently my need for a Intel mac R for work on the dreamweaver extension, webkit, and rhino stuff. Most of that stuff is interoperable, but it would be better if I can sniff out the platform quirks and differences. Currently I don't have a full time job, so that's the main reason I fix and use tossed out computers from the garbage. And since my town forbids residents from taking computers from our town's recycling drop off center, I figure I ask here if anyone has a broken intel mac their tossing out. I actually seen some Intel macs dropoff there, but they will not allow me to take them. Pretty silly since I'm actually recycling the computers I grab. When I finish the extension I going to focus on fixing issues I have with servers by building tool for that too. We can talk about that too..
Robert Stack said 12:02AM on 5-30-2008
Oh I forgot Court, just contact me using my contact from here http://www.zoshe.com/contact/
matt.thundergeek said 5:51PM on 5-29-2008
Yeah, i'm gonna agree with those users on the lines of - who is it for?
Web Pro's - I pray not.
Consumers. Maybe there is a need for something a little more robust than iWeb, but way simpler than Dreamweaver to fill that void.
Web designers. If you need to make lots of sites as a designer... well then you're doing the job of a developer and calling it something else. Why wouldn't you either a) team up with a developer. b) Learn HTML + CSS and use textmate (or whatever your choice or text editor is) like everyone else.
There are not many good designers that can code a good website (ala Jonathan Snook).
Unfortunately having been in the business for long enough the fact of the matter is there are lots of clients paying plenty of good money (i've seen hundreds (of thousands (UK Pounds)) for websites that are designed by a flashy photoshop user and coded by some clueless dreamweaver 'web developer' who doesn't know how to do anything outside of clicking the buttons in dreamweaver.
And I doubt it's going to change. If you're a client, you don't know HTML (or even good design most of the time) so how are you going to know a mediocre dreamweaver user from a talented web developer?
Okay, that's my bemoaning over. My recommendation is you use the money you could spend on buying or upgrading to dreamweaver on good HTML + CSS books!
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Gianni said 10:43AM on 5-30-2008
I couldn't agree with you more!
Van said 6:06PM on 5-29-2008
> If the number-one goal of any professional web designer is to
> produce good code (by whatever means they choose), then I
> want to make sure that audience is well-served by the review,
> because that's how they'll be using the app.
If you worked for me and said that horse crap, I'd fire you on the spot. Collect your things and GTFO. LOL
The NUMBER ONE goal of any pro web designer is to create a strong ROI for their clients! PERIOD. End of story.
The priority is making sure the damn thing is EFFECTIVE; refining the code is an afterthought as long as everything runs in the major browsers as expected. Oh noes!!! The code is bloated!! The code is "bad".... Yeah, it really makes those 14.4 modems that everyone uses nowadays just crawl, huh?
Sure, for clients that get higher traffic, it can create (usually insignificant) savings in bandwidth if you refine the code down to size a bit, but the MAIN thing is... does the site connect them in the best possible way to their customers? Does it attract new customers? Does it look like cookie-cutter crap that every other coder (who thinks they are a designer) on Earth does that doesn't differentiate from anyone else or is the DESIGN as custom as the client is and express uniqueness? Is it dynamic? Does the thing make them MORE money?
Devs that "get this" trounce developers like you and steal away clients while you are left sitting there... mouth agape.
I've seen you coder types make the worst GUI and worst design you could possibly make for clients and then brag about "perfect code". Other better designers swoop right in with intelligent design that can actually dramatically increase the ROI and walk off into the sunset with the client.
I've worked with some of the best coders and designers in the industry and what I've seen time and time again is coders who don't respect design because they don't think outside of coding and realize there's a bigger business world out there that's the REAL point of the whole thing in the first place. They also simplify diesign (because they don't know anything about and have no real training in it) and think it's "easy".
Great coders are a dime a dozen, yet it's incredibly difficult to find great designers that actually think through the entire process and have years of experience and the raw talent it takes to pull all the numerous factors together to make the site perform for the clients.
Thank god for arrogant guys like you, it makes it so much easier for the rest of us to continue to get new clients from ya.... Hilarious.
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Robert Palmer said 6:21PM on 5-29-2008
If I worked for you, and you used "LOL" in a sentence, I think I would quit.
Andrew K said 10:51PM on 5-29-2008
Is it just me, or did this review read more like a commercial for Coda than a review of Dreamweaver CS4?
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LuminousNerd said 10:07PM on 5-29-2008
If you're so clearly biased, then YOU SHOULDN'T REVIEW THE PRODUCT. This review is worthless.
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Van said 12:45AM on 5-30-2008
I agree with the others, this review was a waste of my time. Didn't even mention that DW now supports SMART OBJECTS (which is a very big deal - that can save tremendous time with productivity and give you SUPERIOR results to other designers work to boot) ... but, I have a feeling this hardcore "pro" developer probably doesn't even understand why this is so significant, right? Fortunately, I found a review at Macworld that's actually informative instead of talking about how fancy they are at hand coding (who cares?!). This arrogant guy really should review products he understands. DW obviously isn't one of them and worse, he seems to be one of those people who discounts what he doesn't understand. Don't get me wrong, DW has a long way to go with CSS to say the least, but a real review will bring up the more important issues. Smart Object support is a biggie for those who understand. Actually, some developers ought to thank this "reviewer"... with reviews like this floating around it might keep some of your competition from bothering to try it out.
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frogbat said 10:36AM on 5-30-2008
I agree with Van that at the end of the day it's whatever gets the job done the way the client wants it and on time. If you find coding tools etc your thing then stick to that. But don't dismiss the likes of dreamweaver because its ide is very well suited and adaptable.
regarding the review itself - robert was honest about where he came from and didn't outrightly dismiss it. Besides it's a mini review of a early beta and not a fully bloated review.
also there's no need to be so polarised. Good clean code is a good thing, but at times rough code with a great design is better than beautiful code with a rubbish design.
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J said 8:13AM on 6-03-2008
A great discussion and fascinating to see how the design people fear the developers and vice versa. Even if you don’t need each other now, you will soon. Designers: like it or not, code and left brain mega-complexity are the web and that’s the way it will always be. Websites are getting more interactive and complicated all the time, and clients’ expectations will continue to follow this trend.
In the late 90’s you could get away with exporting some Photoshop slices into Dreamweaver and hack up a quick website. Unfortunately, this is not going to work in a modern website. Modern websites are database driven and have the content separate from presentation. This is necessary to allow for easier maintenance, consistency of style, repurposing into different formats, etc. It won’t be long before even small businesses come to expect to have to enter in their data in one location and have it sync with their contacts, financial data, print materials, website, etc.
I'm a graphic designer who does everything from brochures, posters and catalogs to full e-commerce websites. I've been designing websites steadily since around 1997. I know HTML/CSS very well and work with PHP, ASP, SQL, etc. Dreamweaver was my tool of choice since it was version 2. Up until not long ago, I absolutely swore by it. That was before I discovered tools like Firebug for Firefox and open source cms's like Joomla. Dreamweaver is trying to keep afloat with the old ways, but if you take a look at these tools you’ll see that Dreamweaver is left in the dust.
At this point, Dreamweaver is good for no one, beginners and pros alike. For example, give a beginner Joomla and a decent template and they’ll have an entire website up in a fraction of the time it takes with DW. And one that Dreamweaver couldn’t even touch without a lot of hard programming.
Graphic designers need not fear (except for free trade agreements, which we all should be VERY scared about). Of course you are still needed, and you’re right... most developers can’t design their way out of a paper bag. But unless you start learning some good coding practices soon, you’ll soon be lucky to be asked to build a website by your 8 year old kid. But don’t get mad, network. Send that PSD off to someone who can put it to work. Or scratch your head to learn and try and juggle 3 different careers like me!
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smcochin said 1:32AM on 6-18-2008
Now it is very easy to create theme in dupal using our dreamweaver extension
Dreamweaver Drupal
Reply
smcochin said 12:19AM on 6-18-2008
Now it is very easy to create theme in dupal using our dreamweaver extension
Dreamweaver Drupal
Reply
smcochin said 12:21AM on 6-18-2008
http://dreamweaverdrupalthemeextension.blogspot.com
is the site