I just released a new video tutorial that introduces the new CSS option in the properties panel.

In a nutshell, Dreamweaver CS4 has made it even easier to add and modify CSS code in your web pages.

You can view my growing collection of Dreamweaver CS4 in the Dreamweaver section of killersites.com.

PS: Firefox on the Mac sucks bad.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

I wanted to announce that I just released a 6 page article on Dreamweaver CS4 … concentrating on it’s PHP and database features.

Check it out: Dreamweaver CS4 Introduction to the PHP toolset.

I also plan on creating a bunch of supporting dreamweaver CS4 video tutorials to help fill in the details not covered in this chapter. I hope you find it useful.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

In the following video tutorial, I give a guided tour of the new Dreamweaver UI.

Video Tutorial: First look at Dreamweaver CS4

I just released the first of a few video tutorials on the soon to be released Dreamweaver CS4.

CS4 has a few great new features that I have found to be real time savers and are really worth another look:

- Workspaces
- Code Navigator
- Related Files

Video: Dreamweaver CS4 new features

I’ve been beta testing Dreamweaver CS4 for a little while now and I’ve been looking forward to spewing my nerd impressions. I had to hold my tongue until Adobe released DW CS4 to the public …

In this article, I provide a quick overview of what’s in CS4. But don’t worry, in soon to come articles and video tutorials, I will be digging deeper.

News:
Since I wrote this article, I’ve put out a few FREE Dreamweaver CS4 video tutorials that demonstrate some of Dreamweaver’s new capabilities. You can find them here:

Dreamweaver CS4 Videos

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My first impressions?

It’s pretty cool overall. Beyond the general improvements, there are a few really nice features that make Dreamweaver CS4 a worthy upgrade:

• Workspaces: expanded and now really easy to change the UI layout on the fly.
• Code Navigator: a new feature that makes it dead simple to dig into the code supporting your pages.
• Related Files: another new addition that gives you easy access to linked files associated with the document you are currently working on.

Each of the above features are so important that I will be creating a video tutorial for each of them.

A new look and feel

Dreamweaver CS4 introduces a whole new look and feel to Dreamweaver. CS4 now has the uniform Adobe UI called ‘OWL’ – OS Widget Library. The new user interface basically makes Dreamweaver look and act like the other Adobe software packages: Photoshop, Illustrator etc …

Deprecated / removed features

Dreamweaver is 10 years old and understandably, some of the things that made it into Dreamweaver turned out to not be so useful. So, Adobe made the smart decision (IMHO) to dump the crap so that they could concentrate and new stuff. From Adobe’s site:

Dreamweaver recently celebrated its 10th birthday with the Creative Suite 3 launch, and after a decade of development there are many features in the application that require significant resources to maintain release to release, but aren’t being used with significant frequency. Correspondingly, we’ve recently made some difficult decisions as a tradeoff between continuing to support infrequently used features vs. developing new features to both streamline key web design and development workflows and support newer technologies and development models.

So what did they remove?

* ASP.NET server behaviors and recordsets
* JSP server behaviors and recordsets
* Layout Mode
* Flash Elements
* Flash Buttons and Flash Text
* Site Map
* JavaBeans
* ASP.NET server behavior mechanism
* JSP server behavior mechanism
* Web Services Panel
* Timelines

… Makes sense to me.

Improved Ajax (Spry) and Javascript support

Adobe has got their collective ear to the ground and so they picked up on the fact that Ajax and Javascript are very important to web design these days – Web 2.0 anybody?

… Just in case you are relatively new to the web design world, just understand that Ajax and Javascript are the keys to all the fancy new web wizardry that you see on sites like Google Mail.

Dreamweaver CS4 has an expanded Ajax capability via their Spry framework and better Javascript editing support complete with more sophisticated code hinting. It’s pretty easy to create client-side Ajax enabled do-dads like form validation routines etc …

Conclusion

So far, I have to say that I like Dreamweaver CS4. The cool new features combined with the more flexible and versatile user interface, makes it easier (and maybe even a touch more fun) to build websites.

PS: did I mention that I have new videos coming out on Dreamweaver CS4?

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

1 – What are Dreamweaver Server Behaviors?

In a nutshell: Dreamweaver Server Behaviors are point-and-click tools that will write out the server-side code (PHP, ASP, ColdFusion) that will allow to do things like:

• Display and update records from a database.
• Create password protected pages.
• Process HTML forms.

Beyond the basic tools that come built into Dreamweaver CS3, there are lots of 3rd party plug-ins that extend its’ power where you can do all kinds of things that you would expect programmers to take care of.

For example, Adobe themselves have something called ‘Adobe Dreamweaver Developer Toolbox’ – often simply referred to as ‘ADDT’. From their site:

Adobe® Dreamweaver® Developer Toolbox is a set of Dreamweaver server behaviors and commands for creating dynamic web applications using PHP, Adobe ColdFusion®, and ASP VBScript server scripting technologies. This Dreamweaver extension helps web developers create membership-based websites, portals, blogs, and image galleries, as well as content management systems, CRM back-ends, and other web-based solutions without requiring advanced programming knowledge.

Sounds great, except in real life … it ain’t so sweet. So much so in fact (the rumor has it) that ADDT will be discontinued.

Let’s get to the point:

Dreamweaver’s Server Behaviors are NOT a replacement for good old fashioned programming ability – not even close. You should only use Server Behaviors to:

• Create very simple database driven pages.
• To prototype a web application.

2- What’s wrong with Dreamweaver’s Server Behaviors?

Basically, the code that Dreamweaver generates, is organized/disorganized in a brittle way – it is easily broken when you make even minor changes.

I don’t want to get into the nerd-details, but what I can tell you is that if you do anything beyond the very simple, you will end up breaking your code along the way.

… Most of time, you will end up having to rewrite the code by hand anyway … loosing any time savings you might have gained using the server behaviors.

What can a web designer do?

So what’s the solution for web designers who need to build dynamic web sites beyond the limitations of Dreamweaver Server Behaviors? Simple, learn to program!

… It reall isn’t that hard if you can find good tutorials or better yet, good video tutorials on server side programming.

Thanks for reading.

Stefan

Yes, I do have my finger on the pulse of the nerd-zeitgeist and from what I understand, Dreamweaver CS4 is coming out sooner than later. I’m guessing sometime this winter.

Are there any details?

I’m not sure what is coming (in terms of new features), but I have heard what is leaving and not coming back:

• ASP.net support.
• Layout Mode and Timelines.
• JSP support

Some speculation:

I am guessing that Adobe will position Dreamweaver to be more web developer centric than designer centric.

Not that they will turn Dreamweaver into a glorified text editor, I just get the feeling that they will spend more time on the coding end of things, than on the design end.

My thinking is based on the work Adobe has done with Flash CS3 and especially Actionscript 3.0.

… It is clear with AS3, that Adobe made the decision to make the Flash scripting language more appealing to hard-core programmers than to designers. AS3 is much more powerful but it is more complex and harder to learn than Actionscript 2.

That said, please do keep in mind that when it comes to what may be coming in Dreamweaver CS4 … it is total speculation on my part.

CIAO,

Stefan Mischook