Everybody who works with graphic design, web develop, pre press and everything that is related to any kind of graphic editing, including video editing, when asked what it is his favorite editor, will probably answer Adobe package. Recently, Adobe "acquired" Macromedia, leading company oriented to web editing and publishing. When i heard that, i was actually thrilled since knowing Adobe reputation, I couldn't imagine that any of those tools can go sour. Well, is it?
When I heard about new CS3 package from Adobe, i had to take a peek at it. Not only because I tend to use newest versions but because i wanted to see what new can be brought to Dreamweaver, since packed with few extensions it was my number one choice for web editing(not because i dont know html/css, but because it have few PHP extensions i cant live without). So, when i downloaded trial, i was anxious to test it ASAP. Well, that ASAP was kinda not so fast actually. When you download trial, and run it off course, it first unpack all install to temp directory. Odd choice i though but hey, lets install it then. When i started installation, first thing you notice is different installer Adobe used. And when i finally click install, I almost fell of my chair. Installer is so slow, that you can easily go for a walk with kid, on the way back sit for some coffee and cake, read whole newspaper, take a shower, give bath to kid, and when you come back, it will still need few minutes to finish install.
After install was (finally) done, I though ok lets see what is new. Well, apart from changed about screen apparently nothing much. There is new feature called Spry, something like Adobe Ajax, but that wasn't actually new. I saw that extension on Interakt web site , guys from Romania were developing their own Ajax extension for DW. Off course, if you go to their site, you will see they are "acquired" by Adobe too. They dont provide anymore their wonderful extensions, since now they work for Adobe now. On the second thought, do you really need Click-and-point Ajax feature in DW? Not really, since you have to do it yourself, and you don't expect Adobe give you free 2 click Yahoo mail BETA do you? So, for starter users, they will find this feature "nice", as of experienced developers, they will probably skip it. I know i will even i don't find myself too experienced… Other new feature is Browser compatibility check. At first I was thrilled to see that, but that didn't last for long. Again, experienced developers already know about, if not all, most quirks you can get with creating cross browser pages, so starters will find this update usable since it gives you nice warnings about IE (well in most cases anyway since it has crappy CSS support) errors and eventual solutions on, yes you guessed right, Adobe support forums. There are few more new features in new DW, but after a while you will probably find them not so useful.
On the other hand, what did you expect? DW was and will be leading tool for WYSIWYG html editor, and lets face it, its not nuclear physics to create HTML page. And worse thing is that installer that takes ages to install. I mean, its not 6GB game (though they will install faster than anything from CS3 package), its like 300MB installation that should install in like 3-4 minutes or so.
So as of final words… It have new features that somebody will find useful, but in my opinion, not really worth of upgrade.
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CS3, graphic design web, html, web develop