A Non-Review of Dreamweaver CS4
I have used Dreamweaver on and off for a long, long time. I have lived through many versions of the software. It has been my primary development environment for most of my web development career. During these years it has received a lot of criticism from developers because of bloated and messy code created by its automatic coding engine. Several times I have tried to make the shift to alternative programs like Ultra-edit or the Zend Environment but I always find myself shifting back to Dreamweaver. I don’t use any of the built in WYSIWYG features of Dreamweaver and instead choose to hand code my pages. I really like the syntax highlighting in Dreamweaver and also appreciate the function argument assistance provided for PHP. (I realize other programs offer these features and the syntax colors are generally customizable)
I am by no means a Dreamweaver fanatic. When I make the upgrade to the Mac platform in the next year or so I will probably abandon Dreamweaver all together and opt for TextMate. I am still using on older version of Dreamweaver and never made the upgrade to CS3. For me there were no new features that enticed me to lay down the money to cover the oversized price tag for Dreamweaver CS3 when it was released. The Spry addition was interesting and a step in the right direction but I don’t use the Spry library regularly. Now, I have missed an entire version of Dreamweaver and CS4 is available. I have been listening to and reading reviews online about the CS4 version of Dreamweaver and it sounds like it may be worth at least giving it a 30 day trial.
From what I have read about Dreamweaver CS4 there are a few new features that really add value. The first and foremost in my mind is the addition of code assistance with many of the popular JavaScript libraries. I regularly use MooTools and jQuery to help with Ajax development or other transitions and functions. These massive libraries can be difficult to work with and the new assistance added by Dreamweaver would make using these libraries much easier. Dreamweaver CS4 also has a cool new feature that allows you to pause and debug JavaScript using design view.
The next feature that caught my eye was the enhanced design view. It has been many years since I even bothered to look at the Dreamweaver design view because it has had awful support for CSS based layouts. Since everything we develop at Zipline is XHTML / CSS based they layout view in my older version of Dreamweaver is totally useless. Now the design view is developed using WebKit the same engine behind great browsers like Safari and Google Chrome. Since WebKit recently passed a web standards test, that means the design view in Dreamweaver will now actually be accurate and relevant to what users are seeing online in popular browsers. I don’t know that this will entice me to actually design view but it is a step in the right direction, especially for users who use Dreamweaver as a WSYIWYG environment.
The last major upgrade in my mind is the ability to preview and update code in design view live. This doesn’t seem like a major addition but with the preview engine now using WebKit that means when you are making CSS, HTML, or JavaScript changes in design view they will appear live in the design view and can be debugged using the same click through styling of the Safari browsers debug tool. This can be very handy when developing complex JavaScript. I don’t know that it is a must have feature for me because I have already worked out a similar scenario using Dreamweaver and Firefox that works just fine for me and allows me to take advantage of my three monitor setup.
All in all Dreamweaver CS4 looks like a solid new product. Since this is a non-review I have not tried Dreamweaver CS4 personally but I have basically just given my initial opinions based on the information I have read and heard so far about the new version. I am now going to download the 30 day trial and test it for awhile. Once I have used it for 30 days I will get back to you with my after the fact opinion of the program and all the new features. At this point I still don’t think I am ready to fork out the cash for the new version but that may change once I have had a play.
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