|
 Don
Engstrom
As a longtime user of DreamWeaver 1.2, I had developed
a love hate relationship with the program. I liked being
able to go between HTML code and WYSIWYG editing seamlessly
and have changes in both windows reflected in real time.
I also appreciated DreamWeaver's respect and "hands
off" attitude towards nonstandard HTML. On the
other hand, I found the program to be somewhat crash
prone, especially when using the built in FTP client.
Scrolling large documents was painfully slow and some
of DW's user interface choices seemed non-intuitive.
When we were offered a copy of DW 2.0 I jumped on the
opportunity to find out first hand what improvements
had been made.
Installation/Setup: Installation went smoothly
although I was blown away at the number of files installed.
DreamWeaver 2.0 weighs in at 24.8MB and 940 files! Over
a third of these files are HTML based help files (more
on this later) so, in my mind, the space is well spent.
DreamWeaver comes bundled with BBEdit 5.0 and continues
to integrate with it nicely. While the system requirements
state that DreamWeaver needs 24MB of free RAM, you would
be well advised to bump this number up by about 50%
I encountered "low on memory" warnings when
running with 32MB....
Additions and Improvements: Right off the bat
DW 2.0 felt less sluggish than its predecessor. Looking
under the hood it became apparent that Macromedia had
received and responded to numerous user complaints/comments
about DW 1.2. Below we list some of the items that have
changed and a few that (for better or worse) haven't.
Table Editing - Has been polished up quite
nicely. Rows and columns can be easily selected for
formatting as can contiguous and non-contiguous cells.
Selecting the entire table is a little hard to do
with the mouse but if the cursor is anywhere within
the table, cmd-a on the keyboard will do the trick.
Even better is the new "Format Table" dialogue
which contains 17 preset color schemes/styles you
can modify to suit your needs. I would have liked
a "Save As..." option for creating and naming
my own sets but most should be happy with the preset
options
Color Picker - Another step up
from 1.2. With the strange exception of the format table
dialogue above, most every place where you need to select
a color presents you with the pop-up palette of web
safe colors. Pick one with the eye dropper and the appropriate
hex code is filled in. The eye dropper can also select
colors from anywhere on your screen and DreamWeaver
will automatically snap it to the closest web safe color.
Objects Pallet - Has been beefed
up considerably with support for rollovers, ActiveX
and the most commonly used meta tags. Meta tag management
is still a little unrefined and can only be used to
add new tags, not to edit existing ones which requires
a trip to the html inspector window. Those of you who
need or want access to several floating pallets at once
will be happy to know that pallets can now be docked
and consolidated into one tabbed pallet.
Site Management - Borrowing from
their competitors Macromedia added a "site map"
view to their FTP/Site management window. I wasn't impressed
with this feature in GoLive
because larger sites (like our own) ,with hundreds of
pages and thousands of links, tend to fill the window
with a mass of interconnected lines. DreamWeaver at
least keeps this clutter to a minimum by only displaying
two levels down from the site root and you always have
the option of switching to a more familiar list view.
Changing a file name locally prompts DreamWeaver to
scan your site and fix links that would have otherwise
been broken. I was disappointed to discover that DW
2 still lacks the ability to validate external links.
On the plus side, the built in FTP client seems to be
more robust and less crash prone. Another nice addition
is the ability to change specific links on a site wide
basis. As before, file upload and download is simple
and intuitive and doesn't require navigation to the
appropriate directory on the server. One feature I would
like to see added is the ability to synchronize (in
both upload and download directions) and mirror local
and remote sites.
Help and Documentation
- Scattered throughout DreamWeaver 2.0's pallets and
dialogue boxes are question marks and help buttons.
Clicking on either will launch your browser of choice
and pull the appropriate help file off your hard drive.
Remember those 940 files you installed? Roughly a third
of them are dedicated to help files which include Shockwave
presentations to showcase some of DreamWeaver's features.
If you are new to the program, I would recommend running
the "guided tour" and a few of the tutorials
to get up to speed. Otherwise, just wait until you reach
a stumbling block and look for the link to help.
Conclusions: The above review just touches on a
few of the many improvements made to DreamWeaver. Search
and replace functions have been reworked to support regular
expressions and the WYSIWYG definition has been expanded
to include server side includes. Lastly, and perhaps most
significant, DreamWeaver 2.0 allows the addition and integration
of third party objects, behaviors, commands, and property
inspectors. Visit Macromedia's DreamWeaver Extension Page
for more information. As it stands, DreamWeaver's only
weakness is in its site management where file synchronization
and external link validation are still missing. These
two complaints aside, DreamWeaver 2.0 is a nicely polished
product that should meet and exceed your needs.
| Product: DreamWeaver
2 |
| Company: Macromedia |
| MSRP: $299 |
Rating: 
(5 possible) |
Requirements:
- Power Mac
- System 7.5.5 or later
- 24MB Available RAM (More highly recommended)
- 20MB Disk space
- Color monitor capable of 800 x 600 or better
- CD-ROM Drive |
|
