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Has Dreamweaver got any better..?

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 5:01 am
by McGruff
I'm several years behind with Dreamweaver. My memories aren't good: it used to churn out appallingly bad html which had to be corrected by hand. Just wondering if the latest versions are more usable?

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 5:41 am
by patrikG
Not a great Dreamweaver user, I have the same reservations. Been using it recently (MX 2004) for some small projects and it churns out good HMTL/XHTML as far as I was concerned.

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 5:55 am
by onion2k
Bad in the version 2 days it was horrible.. these days it's gotten a lot better .. for HTML. I wouldn't want to use it for PHP.

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 8:31 am
by neophyte
Dreamweaver churns out good html/xhtml (mx). But I've never been happy with the CSS it produces through it's wizards. The gui produces very verbose css. The best thing about Dreamweaver in my opinion is it's code beautifier. If you're a newbie to html/xhtml, I guess it helps you with produce it visually. But I rarely if ever use the graphic/visual side of Dreamweaver anymore. I won't be upgrading my copy. If you know you way around html/xhtml I'd use Bluefish or Quanta plus or even NVU before I spent money on Dreamweaver. In fact the only Macromedia product I'd shell money out for at this point is Flash.

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 9:09 am
by Todd_Z
I used dreamweaver for about two years, and it was great [i never touched the layout mode, cuz the html/css output is horrid in my opinion] - I learned css because of dreamweaver, but now i don't need the auto-complete css stuff. I moved over to Zend Studio. In my experience, if your project is simple enough to be able to use the layout view in MX and not have to look at the code at all, then its great - but if you are just going to have to fix the html and css when you're done, its not worth the trouble, might as well get the experience of writing the whole page by hand.

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2005 10:11 am
by theda
Crimson Editor is 1337, :)

Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 5:29 am
by m3mn0n
I need to get me a copy of the latest Dreamweaver. :x I'm still with just MX but it does what I need fine. Syntax highlighting, FTP, Project management, etc.

I'd move over to Zend Studio but the price is the issue for me. I've seen the tour and it's extremely nice. I'd recommend it to anyone who had the funds. :)

Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 8:50 am
by theda
Like every other program, I'm sure someone found a way to get it free -_-;;

Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 11:19 pm
by Todd_Z
I would never....... <don't tell the feds>

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 3:42 am
by Grim...
I use Textpad at home, and Zend at work.

Zend is awesome :)

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 6:14 am
by phpdevuk
I've always found dreamweaver crashes too often for me, I use crimson editor most of the time.

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 6:54 am
by pleigh
what do you guys think a substitute for dreamweaver?(talking about similar features)...i too am having trouble using that dreamweaver...it takes time to load...and worse, it crashes too often.. :?

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 6:57 am
by patrikG
I haven't evaluated it properly, but nvu is often touted as Dreamweaver's open source equivalent.

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 6:58 am
by Subfusion
The new version of Dreamweaver is exactly like the old one, all they have added is a plugin which lets you add video options, they have made some improvements to the GUI and added a few extra features, that's all.

The best program you can use to code PHP is Notepad and TopStyle Pro when you're designing in XHTML and CSS.

Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 7:04 am
by patrikG
Subfusion wrote:The best program you can use to code PHP is Notepad and TopStyle Pro when you're designing in XHTML and CSS.
I don't want to start another discussion about which editor is best, but using Notepad to code PHP nowadays is a bit like being a Amish person working in the IT-Industry.