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Dreamweaver Is Dying; Long Live Drupal!
Barence writes "Here's an interesting blog post by a designer who reckons Dreamweaver is dying. It's not Dreamweaver's fault, though. Nor is the problem Adobe and its development team — the last Dreamweaver CS4 version was the most impressive release in years. Moreover, although Microsoft Expression Web poses a far more credible threat than FrontPage could muster, Dreamweaver remains the best HTML/CSS page-based editor available. The real problem for Dreamweaver and for its users is that the nature of the web is changing dramatically."
I highly doubt this, I check NetCraft daily, and I've seen NO confirmation of Dreamweaver dying!
Congratulations on getting first post. A copy of Microsoft Windows Live Expression Web Express Edition is in the mail.
I've never tried it, when I do web design I do it with Gimp, Vim and Firebug. And I think that combo works great!
How do Dreamweaver compare to Vim? Is it advanced enough to not fool users to use css styled text for strong expressions?
Drupal et al make life a whole lot easier when it comes to updating a website and adding content. But what about the design?
Unless you want to stick to the default Drupal (or insert CMS here) themes, you'll probably want to design your own CMS template so people get a unique feel for your website. You'll still need to fall back on your classic static web-design skills using programs like Dreamweaver (or notepad).
Dreamweaver isn't dying, it's just falling into a more specialized category now. If you just used Dreamweaver as a way to update content, then you were really failing to use the program to it's full potential.
It's true, most people who make sites in Drupal, Wordpress, etc. clearly didn't spend more than 10 minutes on the design.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
So besides the obvious open-sourceness, what distinguishes Dreamweaver from Eclipse PDT for PHP? If dreamweaver goes, why not Eclipse? While it is unlikely but not impossible that some SAAS package will replace the need for custom software, but who will develop the SAAS software? Hmmmmmmm.....
Does Netcraft confirm it?
Even Microsoft already did what had to be done for that. Integrate the tools with the content management system, duh!
Sharepoint Designer is pretty much Expression Web made to modify Sharepoint's dynamically generated pages. Point Sharepoint Designer to a Sharepoint site where you have required permissions, and have fun. All the power of a content management system, all the power of design and web development tool, all at the same place.
Adobe and Dreamweaver are in an even better position for this. They could work with the open source community, and various vendors (like Alfresco), and make Dreamweaver work the same way Sharepoint Designer works, but across a variety of content management system. The idea of something like Drupal and Alfresco with Dreamweaver having the same kind of integration as MOSS and Sharepoint Designer is quite exciting, in my opinion, and has far more potential.
Don't forget Drupal modules. Themes and modules don't magically appear from the void, somebody writes them, and this requires an editor.
Am I doing this right? The whole comparing 2 different things?
Veryu misleading title. The story isn't about Dreamweaver but the dying of static HTML editing tools of any kind, contrasting them to the changing web. The web is becoming more dynamic. Some HTML editing tools are very static. Therein lies the problem for the old tools.
That's the drag queen singer/performance artist who's working on a reality show, right?
And here I thought Drupal was a cross-dresser from the early '90s. Boy, I was *way* off.
Well, developer has utmost freedom to redesign theme from scratch or mod currently available ones, here are some websites done in drupal, check it out:
more here and here.
I completely agree however, drupal != dreamweaver.
o_O
The parent is correct, this is a static vs. dynamic web transition. I suppose "DREAMWEAVER is DEAD" is catchier.
Now, if we can just get ahead of the game on plugging those CMS security holes.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Dreamweaver will always have a place next to microsoft word for helping moms everywhere create hideous, 1990's-era web pages.
Posted anonymously because I have one of those moms, and I'd hate to break her heart. She things her pages are awesome.
It's true, and Dreamweaver's autocomplete is fantastic.
I don't think there is much place for the GUI in template design, but the text editor in Dreamweaver is worth the money if you are a designer at a lower skill level.
Considering one would need the other apps in the suite, keeping Dreamweaver will be a perk.
Adobe should focus on making it a full fledged AMP (and others really) testing environment and it would be potent.
Easy local testing, their sitemanager to sync with remote, fantastic text editor, and maybe even some integration for template previewing (maybe they do?). I personally only use it to help be remember the names of various CSS properties and what they can be set too, but there is definitely potential to make designers more comfortable with interfacing with the server, as they have tied to do from the start (and I hate).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I've seen some of the HTML these tools (Frontweaver, Dreampage, HotMetal, etc) produce, and I Do Not Want It.
I use Emacs and w3schools, and my HTML is clean, scalable, efficient, reasonably accessible, and very maintainable, and honestly I don't spend that much time on it. HTML is, fundamentally, very easy, once you know what you're doing.
In terms of keeping all the pages on a site updated with side-wide changes, I mostly use a combination of keyboard macros, custom elisp, Perl, regular expressions, chewing gum, and bailing wire. But it works, and it works the way I *want* it to work.
As far as Drupal, though, I thought that was a CMS. Do people really try to use it as an HTML editor? Ugh.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Big surprise, its easier to manage a large site with a CMS rather than using global find and replace. Sites have been modular for years, does no one remember server side includes? It has nothing to do with Dreamweaver the application, which is a fine editor. Besides there are plenty of sites that don't need dynamic content, RSS feeds, comments and blogs, sometimes you just need to put out clear and concise information on a well designed page. Why wouldn't you use Dreamweaver for that?
From the blog post:
The bottom line is that the old model of the central webmaster hand-spinning every page of every website and, worse, manually adding the navigation necessary to help users find it, just isnâ(TM)t scalable or viable. The only feasible course for the future is for content to be posted by the content contributor, whether thatâ(TM)s the site owner or site visitors, and for the best possible navigation to be constructed around that content on the fly.
This particular paragraph leads me to think the author has never actually used Dreamweaver - he certainly doesn't even understand the fundamental concept of "templates". I mean, who is manually adding navigation to a large site on a page by page basis?
Thing is, there are a lot of circumstances where "Web 2.0", in the limited sense the author seems to understand (that is, end-users providing added content), doesn't do much for you. There are only a few places on your typical corporate or government web site, for example, where this would make sense. Certainly there are specific applications where this would be handy; but they're fairly narrow and can be handled well by adding some wiki software alongside the "mainstream" website.
Now the tools of Web 2.0 - e.g. dynamic, javascript-driven pages with sql backends - are a different matter. But really Dreamweaver-style templating works just fine with those, IMHO, to the degree one is going to use any tool to make those pages anyway (meaning there's a significant amount of hand-coding happening with the page-specific content).
Personally speaking, I've found Dreamweaver templates (that I've put together) very handy when combined with Contribute. Really the templating is mostly what I use it for; both for allowing other staff to easily maintain content and letting me easily push section-wide and/or site-wide changes to our several-thousand-page web site (templates can be nested, which is quite handy). I know I'm only using a fairly restricted subset of what all Dreamweaver can do; but it does that pretty darn well. Certainly other software can also do this - but I haven't seen anything that works quite as well in all regards.
#DeleteChrome
Yeah, this entire thing just sounds like FUD. Granted CMS's are the way to go for content updates but but unless you're a mom and pop shop you don't want to stick with a template... and that means hiring a designer... and that means using design tools.
CMS is just a fancy way of saying, "Keep the secretaries out of the friggin' HTML because they always screw it up." Handing Dreamweaver over to someone with no experience was always a joke.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
The real problem is dreamweaver code sucks compared to anything a decent programmer can just type out in notepad. The question becomes, would you rather use an open source CMS, code your own theme and get good code. Or would rather blow $400 on a piece of software that's going to spew out something totally unusable. Investing a little bit of time learning how to do css goes a long way.
A Magic the Gathering Article and Forum Aggregator
the best html/css editor is any editor with syntax highlighting used in combination with brain.
As far as intially designing mockups of what you want the site to look like, that's what Photoshop is for ;) Been doing this for years and I couldn't agree more.
harmonious design
Yes, it's true we web-designers can (and generally) do use simple code editors to write our pages, templates and CSS stylesheets; the fact is that there is an ever-growing population of people who want to make their own website, not just pre-compiled garbage templates that Drupal users install- but real personal templates made by the site owners themselves... in order to do that they need a good editor that HELPS them- Dreamweaver does that.
Also, seriously, WTF does Drupal have to do with it? Sure, I'm not knocking Drupal I've used it on some projects, but it has nothing to do with the REAL tools required to do a job (mainly a brain, fingers, and motivation).
I am open source, and Linux baby!
Lets not forget that Dreamweaver does more than WYSIWYG sites, it has a pretty decent code editor in it with built in libraries for JS, .NET, ColdFusion, HTML, JSP, PHP, ActionScript, Java, and others. I've actually used it quite extensively for straight code as it does a decent job of highlighting tags and the project organization is pretty nice too.
Dreamweaver Is Dying
As Richter said in Total Recall: "About damn time."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
no one wants to pay $200+ for it.
I have opened up Dreamweaver a few times but prefer doing things by hand in Notepad++. There are plenty of free and open bulletproof css templates for getting the basic layout of any site started and from there diving into your own code helps you better understand what you are doing. I am sure Dreamweaver has its own crowd but between a good CMS and hand coding I have never felt behind the curve.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
I'm just saying dude, that nobody died and made you Emperor of the Internet so you know, we're all perfectly able to mess around and build our own websites even without your permission. And even without knowing everything there is to know about CSS and HTML. Farkknocker.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
Come on, Dreamweaver, you've never given up on anything in your life! There still may be some time... Everything's going to be OK. Say it with me: "I believe we can reach the morning light".
Bow-ties are cool.
Dreamweaver was never a good *design* tool, and I don't know how it ever got sold as one -- maybe the same way we got that horrible name "web designer" for client-side HTML coders.
It's potentially legitimate to call it a WYSIWYG page layout tool for HTML, but that's about the limit. You can't create arbitrary visual compositions with it, you're stuck with whatever metaphors Macrodobe lays on top of the limited tools HTML/CSS have to offer. You certainly can't create drawings of any kind.
If you want to do actual design, it's best to work in something with full vector and/or raster graphics capabilities like Illustrator or Photoshop (or better yet, Fireworks).
And herein lies the problem. Dreamweaver sortof sits in this odd intersection of niches that worked 10 years ago but doesn't work so well now. It isn't a great design tool. It is a decent WYSIWYG HTML layout tool, but it has increasing in-browser and in-CMS competition here. It's also a decent code editor, and I suspect this will be its last bastion of loyal users... but even there, I think it's going to have to fight to stay alive.
But I hope the idea that it's a *design* tool dies a swift death, and soon.
Tweet, tweet.
Has Netcraft confirmed it?
The last Dreamweaver I used was 4 so I am sure not up to speed on it. However I do work with Quanta, Bluefish, Gimp, Inkscape and all the other graphical tools available under Linux, and guess what? I hav'nt felt a need to go back to any big name products since I switched over.
Long live open source
I use both of them, along with Photoshop to design some websites, you still have to get the templates set up if you want a unique style in Drupal...it's like saying that Wordpress is going to kill Dreamweaver. This web designer needs to be smacked.
Architects no longer needed due to rise in demand for modular homes.
Ridiculous, right? My point exactly.
yes, an editor, such as notepad, or maybe textmate, but Dreamweaver attempts to do the WYSIWYG which is geared towards those people who don't really know how to code. Those people are better off with something like drupal where they can't accidentally go in and muck everything up, so they aren't using dreamweaver. Those of us who do know how to code however wouldn't waste their time learning how to use dreamweaver because we don't need it and it makes our code look like garbage. So yea, i think i agree. Dreamweaver should die.
Drupal et al make life a whole lot easier when it comes to updating a website and adding content. But what about the design?
Just install a Drupal module that generates new designs.
What?
It's true, and Dreamweaver's autocomplete is fantastic.
Serious question - what is autocomplete actually *for*? I've used a few editors with code-completion features, and I've never really seen the point. All it seems to do is make the computer chug and whirr while it tries to guess what I'm typing, and fails, until eventually it gives up and lets me move onto the next command.
Are the editors of Slashdot so ignorant to the existence of content management systems to let this article through? One persons exuberance towards a particular content management system does not make a news worthy article. The author speaks of Drupal like he's discovering sliced bread. Plone as a CMS has been around for years, as have others.
While a lot of personal sites clearly don't put any effort into design, professional sites do and you won't do that in Drupal.
I've used DreamWaver from version 4 when they two versions up to CS3. Admittedly I've used each version less than the previous. I only used CS3 a few times because it's on my work PC. The biggest downside for me is that Dreamweaver doesn't run on Linux without using Wine and I rather not deal with DW under Wine. Plus DW does still feel a bit more designer oriented and I'm doing more serious development.
I personally have some issues with DreamWeaver. It's very good but for the cost it's not worth it compared to the competition for proper development. However I think web designers, mac users and other "trendy" people still love it.
Maybe you should update to a 21st century computer, having the power to display a list of few items without swapping memory? ;)
Sure CMS is becoming the main thing but anytime a client wants a nice custom site you can create the theme for the CMS in Dreamweaver. In other words it's role is shifting.
... so I can neglect to send flowers.
For too long, too many self-described "web designers" have relied on Dreamweaver and its ilk to do their jobs for them. These people are not "web designers", they are graphic designers who think web documents are a blank canvas to be painted on, such as when they open a new file in Photoshop or Illustrator. The web is not a 3-panel brochure.
This delusion is fostered by their uninformed clients and bosses who only consider what looks good and how fast (cheap) it is produced. Little explicit attention is paid to usability, readability, or accessibility.
Good riddance, I say. The day these monkeys no longer have a crutch can not come soon enough.
Can't you use Dreamweaver to make Drupal templates?
Dreamweaver attempts to do the WYSIWYG which is geared towards those people who don't really know how to code.
DW has its place due to site management and debugging tools, and it doesn't force the wysiwyg. When I use it, it's usually with the mixed text/graphical view, because it is faster to zero in on certain parts of the code graphically by clicking there, then switching to the code pane.
Essentially, it's much faster to scan a picture than text, even if your markup is tidy, and it is nice to see the less-frequent available parameters for CSS in a pane rather than pull all of them from memory. DW's code has improved quite a bit over the years, too, it isn't the ugly mess it once was.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Dreamweaver was great if you want to code ColdFusion, Flash, and Flex. For a full IDE it beats Visual Studio in many features. Eclipse and other free "IDE" don't come close in terms of responsiveness and user friendliness. The problem is CF/Flex is a small percentage of the web compared to PHP, ASP.NET, Java, and a host of new platforms and frameworks (Django, ROR, etc.). Now with the advent of open source CMS and wiki systems, even for .NET, plus free plug-ins for Eclipse to code just about anything, along with shrinking IT budget, WHY would anyone pay the equivalent for full VS for it? The Server + IDE has been Adobe's bread and butter for years, that's why it's critical for Adobe to keep pushing for AIR/Flash. The only way to make DW popular again I can see is embrace open source languages and new frameworks, and lower the price.
Can anybody suggest a good, simple, and reliable CMS with a sane clean interface for those with simple needs? Something like CushyCMS, but which allows users to add new pages/content? Thanks!
One problem has persisted from desktop programming to web programming is that just because you can code doesn't mean you can make good design. Just as most Windows software are ugly as heck, I find most CMS all so cookie-cutter dreadful and difficult to enhance. What these new web programming frameworks all lack is some good designers on their team.
i use the book module in my Drupal installation and use Dreamweaver to create the content of what goes into the book (e.g., formatting and stuff). what i'd really appreciate is a way to code for Wikipedia using Dreamweaver as i am now creating a lot of content for an open source textbook i am creating using Mediawiki (same tool Wikipedia uses).
This is not news.
Modern Web-CMSes and feasable CSS made DW design capabilities and it's offline templating system completely superflous somewhere back in 2002 or 2003. In fact, I posted very much the same analysis on this issue about 5 or 6 years ago here on slashdot. Whatever is left of DW is here to stay for those doing the actuall screen/HTML design. The rext of us uses CSS frameworks and foundation templates and simply replaces the GFX and/or the colorcodes. I haven't used DW longer than 5 minutes since back in 2001.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I switched from doing everything in vi *to* Dreamweaver. I like having function lookup, automatic upload capability to the remote site, built in O'Reilly docs, etc.
That said, I'm working with Dreamweaver the same way I did with vi, all typing, no layout. In addition, as I do some ColdFusion work, having that grammar built in too helps a lot.
I haven't used Dreamweaver in a while, but it was a WYSIWYG editor with a code view. The code view was actually pretty useful and had a lot of features that made it much better to work with than Vim.
Of course I haven't used Vim in a while either. It really just depends on what your preferred text editor is. Anything with coloured syntax, code folding and built in FTP meets my needs.
Gimp on the other hand does not. I'd never hire a designer that didn't know how to use Photoshop.
A designer might need Dreamweaver
Anyone doing design (artwork rather than page layout) isn't going to use Dreamweaver. It's great as a WYSIWYG html editor. From a design standpoint, it doesn't do much else. No raster or vector creation (unless you've decided to try the Celik CSS polygon method).
The only people I know who still use it are coders who find the extra features it provides in terms of editing and site management useful. In this sense, the article is quite correct -- Drupal and Wordpress and other software are eating away at the market that used to see Dreamweaver as the option for editing webpages without knowing HTML. Now CMSs do that.
Given that Dreamweaver really isn't a design tool either, usefulness as an IDE is pretty much the last thing Dreamweaver really has going for it.
Tweet, tweet.
garbage_in->garbage_out
Heh heh. I haven't tried that one. I'll wait for the linux version. Thing I have to wonder though; if dreamweaver dies... does that mean that we get to see a related end to ignorant know nothing columnists?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
...it's a web tool for designers.
The best way to build a good website, IMHO as a freelance web developer, includes three roles and sets of tools:
1. Designer - Design tools such as Photoshop, illustrator etc (not my role!)
2. Front end developer - Photoshop (for slicing and dicing PSDs supplied by the designer), text editor (I'm using Geany at present) and lots of browsers.
3. Serverside developer - text editor/IDE, shell access.
Dreamweaver is good for people who fulfill role 1 but aren't accomplished in role two or three and want to build a website.
I have used Dreamweaver for years and it has served me well. I do like Expressions Web v2 also. (I am using a trial copy, and am awaiting a full licence through my Action Pack subscription after passing a simple online course/marketing propaganda session.) However, its getting hard to justify not using a CMS. Setting up one has become increasingly easy. Adding a new page does not require updating other pages. And I have found a tool that automates creating decent quality custom templates. Its called Artisteer. My only connection is that I bought it and use it, and I just thought some readers here would be interested.
Has anybody seen some of the garbage code that wysiwyg editors produce? It makes me want to cry after spending countless hours making my sites validate only to see some no talent ass clown start modifying pages in a wysiwyg with all kinds of invalid code. I will admit that Dreamweaver can also product this kind of code in it's design view but at least it has a decent code view.
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
Why is this news? The blogger offers basically no evidence and is obviously very biased. Sure the web is changing, but to say that all static websites will "be ripped out" and replaced is a bit much. He also just dismisses any changes that Adobe could make to keep Dreamweaver relevant by trivializing them as add-on.
Seriously, spare me the blogosphere and it's lack of journalistic standards and the fanboyism for spreading drivel like this.
The blogger makes an interesting point, but it's just personal opinion.
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
As alluded to in my post, it allows me to see a list of CSS properties (in a drop down that can easily be ignored), and then once I typed in the property, it gives a list of appropriate values.
It does not make things quicker, it helps me keep track of the correct properties and values, since I don't do it enough to it all perfect, and it is quicker than browsing a reference site to see, "what type of border styles are there?"
It does not interfere with the performance at all for me, and it does not obscure the text I am typing. And I can certainly click the dark green on the color wheel it pops up quicker than I can come up with my the hex values (though I bet dark green is a predefined color, I would know if I were typing this in dream weaver).
We don't all do this all day, yet some of us need to do it sometimes. And with a pretty good grasp of the concepts (better than a lot of designers I am willing to bet), the auto-complete helps fill in the details (that I have worse than most designers), and it does it quicker than using the web for a reference (which I do at home), or even the giant O'Reilly CSS reference book by my desk.
If you don't have access to DW Screem has a pretty decent start to it. When you type less than, it pops up a list of tags instantly, in DW this list shrinks as you type. That's not too useful, but when you hit space, it pops up a list of attributes, and only ones that apply to the tag you just types/picked. This makes it easy to see what you can do with a div, or a span. These are things that take a lot of time to just "know", so the fact that your editor does it can be helpful for beginners, or people who don't do it day in and day out.
DW does it far better than screem (it works with CSS for starters), and that is worth something.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
When was the last time Dreamweaver gave you standards compliant code (Actually, as a slashdot user, you probably never used Dreamweaver
You might be surprised. I definitely prefer Vim myself, but at my last full-time job, most of the other coders used Dreamweaver and periodically, I'd fire it up... either because I found myself doing something where it was kindof nice to be able to interact with the page visually, or just to understand what the other guys liked about it as a tool and how they used it.
To my surprise, at least with Dreamweaver 8, the code was pretty standards compliant. You could set which doctype you wanted for your (X)HTML, CSS support was decent, and could set it to warn you if you did something that violated the standard. Heck, I think you could actually even set it up to validate arbitrary XML documents.
There were some other nice features. It's sortof nice having an integrated FTP client to save you a trip to another app, the sitewide search and replace function was certainly a little friendlier/convenient than some of the unixy ways, "clean up word html"...
I don't miss it all that much myself, but honestly, I can see why some coders see it as a good tool to work in. Maybe that'll be enough to save it as a product.
Tweet, tweet.
1. Designer - Design tools such as Photoshop, illustrator etc (not my role!)
2. Front end developer - Photoshop (for slicing and dicing PSDs supplied by the designer), text editor (I'm using Geany at present) and lots of browsers.
This is pretty much the process I've used when I've been involved on the client side, and while it can have its problems (many designers who've never actually had to code a site have trouble groking liquid layouts and other web-centric design issues), it seems to be the best setup. People who are good coders and talented in both art and visual communications are rare, so it makes sense to divide the labor.
The one thing that surprises me about this process, though, is that almost everyone uses Photoshop to do the artwork. This seemed like a basic fact of life to me, until I ended up working at a shop that did everything in Illustrator, and I was surprised to find out how much better this setup was -- not only did the artists seem to be more productive, the vector artwork seemd a lot easier to take apart however I saw fit as a coder. After working there for three years, it's been kindof painful going back to working with PSDs, and I wonder how much of the industry has every tried both given the apparent advantage of Illustrator...
(And this is to say nothing of Fireworks. I mentioned it in the parent and don't want to sound like a broken record, but if Illustrator is better than Photoshop for this stuff, Fireworks is another 10 times better -- it's all the good stuff about both integrated into a program expressly designed for making websites, and it's so good at its job that I don't understand why its product cousin Dreamweaver gets all the fame.)
Tweet, tweet.
Guess you've never seen what happens when a client decides to design their own site.
"Handing Dreamweaver over to someone with no experience was always a joke." Yip I can agree with that, I got my start in webdesign by agreeing to take over the monthly updates of a small local zine, I was given an hour tutorial with the guy who built the site in dreamweaver before he got on a plane to Sydney. I had about 10 new pages to do up, that took me most of the next month to get them up to the site working on them a few hours a day, probably at least 60 hours in all. This was in 2000, I stopped using dreamweaver when I got heavily into using CSS for page design and layout and also started using *nix as my OS of choice. I did have to use dreamweaver for a contract I did around 18 months ago, and found it quite nice to use - it was the first time I had really used templates in dreamweaver. I'd agree with many other commentors when they say unless you want a generic looking site you will still need the services of a developer, I use Drupal Joomla and Wordpress fairly regularly for different jobs/projects and most of my time is spent making the sites looks different from every other cms site out there
Pfft web design is easy
You mean like the kind who'd write with a straight face "the new Web 2.0 world of script-based PHP"?
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
That's, uh... cool. what's her uid?
-jpeg
Bluefish has had autocompletion for a few months now (in the unstable versions only, so far) and i love it! It means i can type "po[enter] r[enter]" instead of "position: relative;", etc. It saves a lot of keystrokes.
Things are going in both directions at once. You can have a site that is completely code or a site that is completely WYSIWYG and a lot more like a work of art from the creators perspective. In the early days of WYSIWYG there was often a large discrepancy between what you saw and what you got. Today, either way works and it more depends on what you are doing on the web. Some people do art on the web. Some code business projects. Some do both at the same time.
"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves". - Confucius
I never used Dreamweaver but I can see how they might be failing...
IDEs like Eclipse and NetBeans are so ridiculously strong and are free.
I do most of my development with Aptana (which is a stand alone version of Eclipse catered towards PHP and JS, although they do offer an Eclipse plugin version as well).
How can Dreamweaver compete with its features?
Here are some of the main benefits of Aptana. I'm sure Dreamweaver might have some of the features but it's also not free.
- Nearly flawless syntax highlighting + code complete for PHP/JS/JSON/CSS/XML/HTML. Very customizable.
- Syntax highlighting/code complete for JS frameworks like jQuery (maybe proto... I don't use it) as well as PHP frameworks like Zend (never used it first hand).
- Code complete picks up PHPDoc comments as well as user defined interfaces/classes/methods/properties/etc. on the fly.
- Nearly flawless JS/PHP debugger (!).
- Ability to work locally on PHP without having to setup any bs. Just install Aptana and you are instantly ready to run/debug PHP locally.
- Ability to connect to a remote DB while working locally.
- Connect to a remote FTP server so you can synch your files up without any hassle.
- Built in DB browser (sort of like phpMyAdmin).
- Fairly intelligent interface (you can switch between "Views" easily.. as in, your debug interface looks different than your coding interface which also looks different than the DB editor interface). All views are customizable and are 1 icon click away (or automatically switched).
- SVN.
There's a whole bunch of other stuff too but there's no point listing it all as the above covers most of the main features. I left out Aptana Cloud because it's not free, plus they have videos on their site if you want to learn more about it (I don't use it).
Seriously, why would I spend $200US on Dreamweaver when I can goto Aptana's site and download Aptana for free? What does DW CS4 offer that this editor doesn't heh?
PS. I'm not affiliated with Aptana at all. Just a fanboy of their product since I started using it about 2 weeks ago.
I agree - more specifically, the web is moving into a more specialised area, where Dreamweaver doesn't have the ability to compete as it's based on one view of how a webpage is constructed.
The web is definitely moving further toward a CMS approach of arranging and syndicating content, which packages like Drupal, Teamsite and so on serve well. However, there is still a need to work with the presentation of such sites and their components.
What would really rock would be a tight integration with the WYSIWYG components of something like dreamweaver, with a CMS, so it becomes an intergated part of the workflow. The site management stuff in dreamweaver, while good, just doesn't match how (large) sites are managed in the real world anymore. But as an editor, it is still very powerful and of benefit to anyone creating web content and design.
Once you have created a site with dreamweaver, you are effectively locked in. The HTML it writes is appalling.
Agreed, it can do good stuff - templates, layers and lots more. Try and have a look at what it has done in a text editor. As a deliberate stir, I state that FrontPage code is a lot easier to read. Perhaps, less standards compliant, but a lot easier for someone with less expensive software and experience.
Several years ago, I was given a set of simple pages written by different programmes, including MS Word. As everyone might guess, Word came first on the size with all its junk. Dreamweaver came (a not close) second. The winner for the tightest code was, unsurprisingly, the one done by a text editor but FrontPage Express came out well. As I remember, all the pages looked identical.
Conclusion? Simple tools and knowledge are better than complicated tools and software lock ins...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
When I got in the web-dev business I started with Dreamweaver. Not because it was all that good, but everybody I knew (and thought was a "pro" web-designer/developer) used it, and loved it. In the beginning I started as an all-in-one web developer, meaning I've done the server side programming, client side HTML and CSS, and the occasional JavaScript.
Couple of years passed away since then, and I now absolutely don't want to use Dreamweaver at all. Why? Because I do not create static sites anyway, PHP support is worth shit (no autocomplete, no outlining, etc.), the HTML autocomplete feature just doesn't cut it for me (it works, sort of, but not the way I like it; it doesn't prevent you from introducing not-valid-for-the-doctype attributes, etc.). The only good things, which I do liked was the integrated FTP support (but no version control support of any kind), and the CSS editing mode (I could edit the CSS rule from the HTML file and the modifications were saved in the external CSS file, linked to the HTML file).
Since then, I use Aptana Studio, and I absolutely love it. It has all I need. It works good with PHP, Ruby, HTML, CSS, JavaScript (actually this is awesome, very good quality). It has FTP, SFTP support. It has version control support (CVS, SVN, GIT, maybe more). And a very big plus: it has support for the most popular JavaScript libraries (autocomplete and all), like: jQuery, Prototype, Scriptaculous, MooTools, EXTjs, Dojo, etc.
And to top it all, it has integrated support for online deployment to the cloud (Aptana Cloud) where you can have a hosting plan and deployment done with a few clicks right from Aptana Studio.
Oh, and did I mention the server-side JavaScript AJAX server, Jaxer?
It beats Dreamweaver hands down any minute.
When was the last time you actually saw a static web site?
This "news item" is the equivalent of saying "horse and buggies are disappearing from the streets".
Maybe you would better remember it, if you didn't use the auto-completion.
New things are always on the horizon
and scriptless Javascript
Tfa fails to mention Flex - Adobe's answer to the dynamic web.
"It's a doughnut stuffed with M&M's. That way when you finish the doughnut, you don't have to eat any M&M's."
Try using Django. kthxbai
To be fair, that's more MTV.
Does that mean web developers who use Django get their money for nothing and their chicks for free?
but may I ask: what is the real benefit to totally handcoding a site as opposed to using web design applications? I really like the ability to create a layout in Fireworks and then have that imported into Dreamweaver where I can continue to design graphically or code by hand where I feel it is necessary. I can see what it will look like instantly in the WYSIWYG, and then test it in the million different browsers I have installed on my system. Some of us do not want to code our sites 60 hours a week, we want to spend the time on figuring out the actual look and feel of the site, writing copy, editing graphics, etc. Maybe if you have a full team of developers and a marketing department its a different story...marketing writes the copy, creates the images, has the concept for the layout of the site, and then developers just code it to marketing's specs.
But many organizations, especially small businesses that like to do things in-house don't have those luxuries. I have been in the position of being responsible for ALL ASPECTS of a corporate site, from copy to images to layout and coding. Many people in positions like mine love the ability to quickly put together the site, have an automated tool tell me the code is compliant to whatever standard I desire, and then dive into the code where I see things just aren't right, or to write the dynamic portions of the site that can't be put together in a WYSIWYG environment. Tools like Dreamweaver (especially Dreamweaver, I've used it since Dreameaver MX) and really the entire Macromedia Studio/Adobe Web Design package as a whole have been a Godsend.
Ultimately if the page looks great, runs well, is secure, built quickly, cost effective, and meets all the requirements of the organization or customer, what's the problem? Other than personal ego and bragging rights (neither of which have anything to do with creating a website), I don't see the big deal.
It means i can type "po[enter] r[enter]" instead of "position: relative;", etc
I just find that annoying. It breaks my concentration.
In Bluefish, turning it off is as easy as clicking a box in the preferences dialog.
Are you really comparing Dreamweaver with Drupal? My God. Some poor schmuck is now ditching Dreamweaver and installing Drupal 7.x ( it is the latest so it must be the greatest ) wondering why they need to know their mySQL login credentials for a replacement to DW. Oi.
LOL, really. Holy hell. And this isn't the first idiotic article this guy has written. I wonder if it takes a special skill set to be a jackass columnist for a pc magazine.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Every site I have done...
is in Emacs.
If I could afford dreamweaver I may take a look at it... I started to look at Drupal, but I already know PHP and MySQL and have built my own CMS libs.
No I am a molecular biologist and most of my dynamic sites are just little things I have done for fun...
But I really like Emacs for an editing system. Not trying to be adversarial, it just works for me, and it is on any machine I ever run across.
Who said he was writing html with vim? I use a text editor that is a bit more graphic-y (kate), but that does not mean that I am writing entire web pages by hand and copy-pasting bits between them.
Rather, I write the php or asp or [insert server side scripting language] that generates the html from information the database, applying a standard and easily editable template to it. If you want to talk productivity, this is it. One person can maintain and constantly redesign dozens of websites (got to keep up with the latest in web-fashion) while other people provide the information.
This is the only way to do web development properly.
First your skills ARE incredibly valuable and you deserve your high pay for the hard intellectual work you do. However tight architecture is NOT the only thing that makes a web site successful in fact good graphic design is what the user sees up front, you can have the best most efficient modularized back end and if you have such poor taste that you put say blue text on a yellow background your web site will still be an usability disaster. In short there IS a place for people with art/design background who know about things like white space:
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/css_101/
The most readable fonts, what an anti aliased font is, what colors complement each other, having enough color contrast for web page elements to stand out etc. If you implement a web side with the best most efficient custom coded Drupal plugins but fail to find a designer no one will want to visit your unshiny fast beast. In short don't just snidely dismiss those of us whose skill set runs towards photoshop, Wacom tablets, Dreamweaver, basic Joomla and reading poetry on lunch breaks if you want a popular web site as well as one that is efficient. Your code oriented arrogance may well be your own downfall if you can't see beyond the forest of fastest sorting algorithms and other non visual CS oriented thinking.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Dreamweaver isn't dying. Otherwise I would have confirmed it.
No, the cliche isn't "Netcraft Confirms It confirms it". It's "Netcraft confirms it".
:-P
Bet you tried registering that one first, though
Defense rests.
Or I used to, anyway. Now that I'm gradually switching to Linux, I will be learning to use a new and probably much cooler web editor soon.
The point remains, however. Comparing Drupal to Dreamweaver is like comparing cars to paint. You can draw a picture of a car, but it won't move anywhere. You can build a car without paint, but you'll be limited in making it look like you want it to.
(Though, to complete the analogy, you don't need to handle the paint pistol yourself when you can use a packaged theme or pay a design studio.)
In Bluefish, turning it off is as easy as clicking a box in the preferences dialog.
This is why opensource wins. In Dreamweaver you probably have to buy a time-limited shareware plugin ;-)
These days I use gedit, because life is too short to use vim. I think there *are* code completion plugins for it, but I can quite happily live without them. There's not exactly a world of difference between syntax highlighting and code completion...
Actually, in Dreamweaver, you just disable it in the preferences window. Funny how Dreamweaver having a features years before open source gets around to copying it (in an unstable branch) is a win for open source.
Themes and modules don't magically appear from the void
Uhm... Hottie Parms wrote:
Unless you want to stick to the default Drupal (or insert CMS here) themes, you'll probably want to design your own CMS template so people get a unique feel for your website. You'll still need to fall back on your classic static web-design skills using programs like Dreamweaver (or notepad).
Btw, if you're talking about modules, Dreamweaver is a shitty PHP IDE. Use phpDesigner, use the free Eclipse plugin, whatever. For pure PHP, Dreamweaver is just a half-decent text editor.
I use Drupal Joomla and Wordpress fairly regularly for different jobs/projects and most of my time is spent making the sites looks different from every other cms site out there
How about you learn to use a comma?
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
I am the guy who created the Drupal extensions for Dreamweaver (download at http://xtnd.us), and I have to disagree with the article. No respectable designer would use free themes if theyâ(TM)re entire career is based around custom designs. Dreamweaver is strong and is a key tool in creating Themes for CMS systems such as Drupal, or any other customizable CMS.
Dreamweaver is a tool for web production. I manage user groups for Adobe and Drupal in Los Angeles (LA Drupal; DrupalCamp LA), and the room gets packed when I cover Drupal + Dreamweaver⦠so I repeat, this article is not based on true market numbers. Web designers are not dropping Dreamweaver, but instead asking how it should be properly used in web workflows when a CMS is adopted/customized.
The latest release of Dreamweaver (CS4) is a boon for people who need to stay on top of web design as it has great live preview features, the best CSS editing for pros, and a live JavaScript engine that allows you to pause any state of interactivity - which Firebug does not have, and has had PHP and database support for a long-long time. Dreamweaver is not for VI hardcores, of course not - it never was. People need help with their workflow and not told their commercial software is âoedead.â
Drupal + Dreamweaver = http://xtnd.us
"Dreamweaver remains the best HTML/CSS page-based editor available." How did you even quantify this?
Panic's Coda which is Mac only, far surpasses Dreamweaver user interface and lack of feature bloat. Also keep in mind that Dreamweaver suffers from the same problem FrontPage has, is injects all sorts of extra crap HTML that is unneeded. Plus who the hell uses a WYSIWYG editor for Web Design and Development anymore? Learn how to do HTML and CSS by hand, you will be much happier with the results.
A litle off topic, but I agree. The new WYSWYG is done through a browser.
Not that I use Drupal as I find that too complex. I use a package using a hierarchical database (i.e. a filesystem) to minimize technical load and some good skins so no html, no css knowledge here.
Code sucks and sucks and will continue to do so. Most CMS's i came across generate awful code and navigation, including Drupal, Wordpress, typo3, joomla or how it is called, they all did very badly "out of the box". You have to put a lot of effort into them to make them produce reasonable sites.
Dreamweaver has a bad history, it was a tool that tried the impossible: To make pixel perfect sites in the age of Netscape 4 and Internet Explorer 5. Maybe it got better, i have seen it has a quite good text editor now. Though nothing Eclipse or any Kate or Gedit can't more or less do. (Integrated FTP client?? Who is still using FTP?)
Of course using it as a WYSWYG tool for web "production" is limiting. Because you cannot "see" everything, most of the things that happen online are not "visible" anyway. Everything will come into a form at one point, but the real design is in the processes that lead to these forms. Dreamweaver encourages to think about the web as "pages" in a catalog you flip through or export from your desktop publishing app.
But as long as "design" onlnie means to put gradients or the latest fashionable graphical style everywhere, Dreamweaver will have its uses. Though there might be better tools for this task, like Fireworks.
Dreamweaver is not an architect, it does not really openly make decisions for you.
Actually, in Dreamweaver, you just disable it in the preferences window. Funny how Dreamweaver having a features years before open source gets around to copying it (in an unstable branch) is a win for open source.
Did you hear a whooshing sound there? Don't worry about it.
I use a rock and papyrus to write my code. I am superior.
"Now I am an architect..."
You were moved into management.
Sigh.....
why would any designer worth his salt use dreamweaver and not a real graphics editor like photoshop or illustrator (or gimp and inkscape)?
I have my own response in here.
http://www.chibidesign.com/personal-blog/82-im-sorry-but-dreamweaver-is-dying-review.html
At end of day you have to fit into some kind of box the question is which tool is best for the job at hand, No point reinventing the gallery unless thats what is most important given the time and times change. Sometime you have to work with people who just know what a keyboard and browser are and they want to say and do. Nobody has even mentioned Ubercart and you can use dreamweaver and Drupal together and its great. Disruptive technology gets stuff done.