The Bottom Line
- Built-in HTML and CSS validators.
- CSS is even easier to use and the CSS layouts are much better.
- Text and WYSIWYG editor works for all types of developer or designer.
- Includes the Spry framework for Ajax
- Includes Adobe Device Central to test your designs on mobile devices.
- Link checker still only checks internal links.
- Very complicated, can be intimidating to novices.
Description
- HTML and CSS validators to check your code without going online.
- Text editor with color coding for HTML, PHP, ASP and many other languages, plus tag completion.
- The site manager includes global search and replace across all site files as well as file transfer by many methods.
- Direct connections to graphics software as well as the ability to do simple graphic edits right inside Dreamweaver.
- Wizards for many of the more complex actions including forms, frames, and tables.
- Lots of pre-built templates and snippets of code for use. Plus the CSS templates are really well done.
- Dreamweaver CS3 includes the ability to connect to databases and the Spry framework for Ajax development.
- Support for special characters and UTF-8 character sets to write effective non-English Web pages.
- Huge library of customizations available on the Exchange.
- There's even a photo gallery maker.
Guide Review - Adobe Dreamweaver CS3
Now that Dreamweaver is fully integrated into the Adobe line of products, it is a very exciting release. Dreamweaver CS3 provides complete integration with Photoshop and Flash to give Web designers a full suite of tools at their fingertips. And Web developers aren't left out either, the code view is just as strong as ever with color coding and tag completion for more than just HTML: PHP, ASP, JSP, JavaScript, CSS, it's all in there.
And if you're worried about WYSIWYG editors messing up your code, well, worry no longer. Dreamweaver comes with a really nice HTML validator. And what's ever better, it comes with a CSS validator to check that too! Plus, you can do browser compatibility checks on your pages to find out what CSS might cause problems for different browsers and versions.
Adobe didn't drop the Dreamweaver Exchange when they bought Macromedia. Which means that if Dreamweaver doesn't have some function built-in, chances are someone has built an extension for it and put it on the Exchange (note: not all extensions are free).
Dreamweaver is not for the faint of heart. It is a very powerful program with a lot of features and tools. But because of that it can be very confusing for the beginner to learn and use. But once you're comfortable with it, you'll find that knowing Dreamweaver is an asset to your Web design or development resume.
Dreamweaver squeaked out the top spot in my best editors, beating Microsoft Expression Web by just a few points. The most significant differences between the two were that Dreamweaver has the ability to do minor image editing (resize, crop, etc) right in the editor and it comes with a CSS validator. These two products have very comparable feature sets, but Dreamweaver still maintains a lead in the professional market.
Score: 357.5
Reviewed: 15 October 2007
