Reprinted Articles

A lot of software upgrades are not really worth buying, being over-priced and often full of bugs. Dreamweaver upgrades, however, always tend to be worth getting.

Dreamweaver is used in web-development and, because the web is constantly evolving, each new Dreamweaver release usually offers features which reflect the rapidly changing environment in which the program is used. Adobe recently acquired Macromedia, the company who created Dreamweaver. So what have Adobe come up with in this their first upgrade since inheriting everybody’s favourite web development tool?

Dreamweaver is now part of Adobe’s Creative Suites, so part of the upgrade will simply be cosmetic, but what else have Adobe come up with in their first upgrade of this industry-standard web development tool.

Dreamweaver CS3 has useful new features for transferring CSS code from one location to another. You can move an internal CSS definition from inside an individual page to an external style sheet. It is also possible to take inline CSS (located next to the item it described) and transfer to an external style sheet.

Dreamweaver CS3’s browser compatibility check allows developers to target specific versions of all the major browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Safari) and generate a report detailing CSS-related issues with elements on the current page.

Dreamweaver has long had great features for integrating content with Fireworks. This new version extends a similar level of integration with the more widely-used Adobe Photoshop. Documents, slices or selections can be copied from Photoshop and pasted straight into Dreamweaver. An Image Preview window then appears in which compression and optimisation settings may be specified before the image is saved.

The fact that Dreamweaver and Photoshop are now both Adobe products is reflected a new level of compatibility between the two programs. It is now possible to make a selection in Photoshop, or to select a slice, copy it, switch to Dreamweaver and paste. The selection will automatically be converted into a web image and a new window will appear offering you a series of options for optimising the image. Dreamweaver CS3 also embraces the new Ajax technology. Ajax is a programming model which allows developers to create extremely interactive pages which are constantly refreshed with content loaded from a server but without reloading the page. Dreamweaver’s version of Ajax is through the Spry framework. This is a collection of JavaScript routines which can be inserted on the page and automatically generate all the necessary code.

Dreamweaver CS2 has several different kinds of widgets. For example, there are menus and submenus which allow developers to design complex navigation systems which would otherwise take days to code. Then there are form validation widgets which check the content entered by a user into form fields. There is also a widget for creating a tabbed interface which displays different content in the same place depending on which tab the user clicks on.

Spry effects work on most HTML elements. In response to user actions, they will do things like fading, zooming or shrinking an element. The kind of stuff traditionally done using Flash.

Spry data sets are JavaScript components which allow Dreamweaver users to design pages that display data pulled in from XML files. The data can be set up in a summary/detail fashion such that anyone viewing the page can click on a something already displayed to bring up detailed information on that item.

Dreamweaver CS3 is the first Dreamweaver version to run on Intel-based based Macs as well as PowerPCs. There are also versions for Window XP and Window Vista.

Last 5 posts by Andrew Whiteman

• Basic Errors Among Microsoft Word Users - August 13th, 2008
• InDesign Training For General Users - May 16th, 2008
• Microsoft Underdog As Expression Web Takes On Dreamweaver - March 5th, 2008
• Adobe Illustrator: Fiddly And Frustrating? - February 26th, 2008
• Using Dreamweaver To Add Javascript To Your Web Pages - February 15th, 2008

Tags: Web