pj_the_pug's Full Review: Adobe Dreamweaver 4.0 Full Version for PC (DWW40D0...
I've been designing web pages since 1996. I bought a "how to" HTML book and was on my way with notepad. I prided myself on being able to write raw HTML code and design entire websites just by using notepad. Well then the late 90's came around and I realized it wasn't practical to do it that way any longer. I needed to find an HTML editor to write to code for me to save time and energy. So even though the idea of "copping out" with an editor seemed blasphemous to me, I realized the necessity of having to use one. The difference can be compared to cooking with a microwave as opposed to a conventional oven. Sure the microwave seems to be like "cheating" but it really is faster at the job.
So I turned to several editors: Microsoft Front Page (blech!), Adobe Page Mill (do people really use this?) and then finally Macromedia Dreamweaver. I actually started using Dreamweaver when they had version 2 released and I loved it then. Since then I upgraded to Dreamweaver 3 and now finally Dreamweaver 4. I have to definitely say that Macromedia must have a team of web designers on their programming staff because they just seem to know all your wants and needs.
The interface is very simple. For those who know Microsoft Word or even Microsoft Works, the interface is almost the same. "B" button means bold and "I" button means italic. There's also familiar left align, center align and right align buttons just as in the Office suites. So right off the bat using it, I felt I was in somewhat familiar territory.
Linking and page properties are simple, there are 99% of your page properties all on one floating tool box at your realm so if you need to format anything, you can do it with one swift action. However I wish there was a way to make this horizontal floating toolbar either anchor to the top of the page or be vertical aligned because I find that sometimes it gets in the way of your designing and you are always moving it out of the way.
Other toolbars make it easy to insert complex HTML objects such as Flash animations, tables, frames, form objects and more. Just by pressing a button you can insert a table and select it's dimensions whereas before I had to write at least 3-4 lines of code just to insert the table. Nevermind what was in the table itself.
With the new release of Dreamweaver 4 Macromedia got smart with their code inspector. Before when you wanted to view the page source, you had to bring up this annoying box that would cover your work while you tweaked your code. Now with Dreamweaver 4, they have offered this "split screen" view so you can see your code at the top and your actual page design below. Other new features of Dreamweaver 4 was the addition of "assets" and "reference". Although I don't use the page assets, I find myself using the reference quite a bit. Can't remember the HTML code to underline something? Look it up in the reference! They have a complete listing of several HTML tags and what they do. VERY COOL.
Another cool feature of Dreamweaver is the ability to preview your page rather quickly in a web browser. All you need to do is hit F12 and your page comes up in your default browser. They also give you the option to define a secondary browser and if you hit "shift + F12" you'll be able to preview it in a different browser too. I have it set where Internet Explorer is my primary and Netscape is the secondary. However I always make it a point to check the page in Netscape because it's an "HTML exact" browser meaning it doesn't let you get away with wrong coding. Internet Explorer is more intuitive and knows that the designers are human and could possibly have made a mistake and will interpret it normally. Netscape isn't forgiving like that, either you do it by the book or your out of luck, and (very rarely) Dreamweaver will enter a nested HTML tag or insert some tag Netscape isn't compatible with and you'll need to change it manually. If you are a casual web designer you shouldn't have to worry about this, it only happens when you are using high end layers, tables, forms, JavaScript or anything else that can garble up your site. If you are just making a website about your dog and your family tree, you shouldn't have any problems with Dreamweaver and Netscape.
There are so many features in Netscape that it's impossible to list them all but I'm going to list some of it's better ones:
Spell Checking
User Friendly Interface
The ability to view your site on different screen resolutions (including WebTV)
Several preset JavaScript behaviors such as popup windows
The ability to create mouse rollovers easily
The ability to embed Flash images
Easy Linking and Named Anchor Tags
Easy insertion of tables, frames, and forms
Split screen code editor
The ability to create a quick and easy thumbnail gallery
The ability to FTP right from Dreamweaver
and many, many, many more!
Believe me, I've tried several editors out there but no one can take away my Dreamweaver. You don't have to be an HTML God to run it, with practice the novice could figure it out as it comes with several tutorials to follow as well. Excellent program that will only keep getting better with age, I use it every day.
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