Overview

Dreamweaver is a professional-quality WYSIWYG ("What you see is what you get") Web-development environment. It allows for easy construction of basic pages while providing flexible tools for more advanced designs that require elements such as cascading style sheets and JavaScript. In addition to providing full WYSIWYG page previewing, Dreamweaver also supports direct text editing of HTML and a convenient hybrid editing mode in which the WYSIWYG layout and textual representations are available and editable simultaneously.

Unlike page-oriented Web-authoring environments, Dreamweaver is designed around the idea of authoring and managing entire Web sites as information collections. To support this approach, Dreamweaver provides extensive features for the management of data that are interrelated between pages, the sophisticated use of templates, and other reusable page features.

I've found Dreamweaver's feature set especially helpful when building projects from the ground up because it provides an efficient way to lay out complex table structures. It has also proved a good way to understand quickly structures in "inherited" projects because selecting a page element in layout view highlights the parallel HTML in the text view, and vice versa.

How Long Did It Take to Learn to Use It Productively?

Starting with a moderate degree of experience with HTML and JavaScript, I picked up the basics of Dreamweaver in one intensive evening (about five hours). However, full realization of its features required completion of a few large projects. Although the number of options may feel overwhelming to beginners, Dreamweaver offers a visual page presentation with easy access to HTML code. Tool palettes help beginners locate the basic elements needed to build a page without hunting through menus, and a built-in tutorial is available for orientation. Common tools and attribute settings are accessible in panels, which are visible by default, and most users will be able to locate familiar page elements. Those who are used to other Web-development programs may have difficulty transferring their knowledge.

Product Quality

Customizability

The GUI consists of many floating tool panels, which are context sensitive, as well as a standard toolbar. The panels can be arranged as needed by the user, and remain where they are placed upon restarting. It is possible to customize the tool palettes, but not without using JavaScript. Dreamweaver's functionality can be extended by the use of JavaScript, and almost anything that can be programmed can be added. This does, however, require considerable programming expertise. User-supported libraries of "extensions" for applications ranging from photo-album creation to automatic page titling (and many more) are available from Macromedia and the UltraDev Zone.

Ability to Program in Scripts, Add Extension Modules, etc.

Very good. Macromedia supports an extension exchange for Dreamweaver. After completing a simple membership form, users can access pages, which include short descriptions and user reviews, for the available extensions.

Ability to Import and Export in Different File Formats

Dreamweaver reads all HTML files and "shares" with other HTML editors. Importation of XML into templates, HTML from Word, and tabular data are all allowed, as well as exportation of XML elements and tabular elements.

Useful or Unusual Features

Dreamweaver's interface is great for people who need to see what the page will look like as they work. I've used it to design extremely complex pages, which Dreamweaver then converts into HTML. This includes the option to convert layers into tables.

In addition to the strong WYSIWYG interface, Dreamweaver doesn't forget the HTML. I've been impressed with the neatness of its code, which also doesn't contain any proprietary tags. For occasions when working within an interface is cumbersome, Dreamweaver supports an option to link files to BBEdit (for the Macintosh) or Homesite (for the PC). For BBEdit, at least (since my test platform was Macintosh), the linking is such that Dreamweaver can open the document in a BBEdit window, with the data currently selected in Dreamweaver also automatically selected in the BBEdit window.

Site extras are also strongly supported. Dreamweaver's cascading style sheet (CSS) feature works wonderfully for setting type with precise point sizes instead of relative sizes that would vary across browsers. Well-written and easy to apply, the JavaScript library has been able to meet most of my needs, although I found occasional manual tweaking of the code to be necessary. For those who like bells and whistles, compatibility with other Macromedia Web products, such as Flash 5 and Fireworks 4, is an added bonus.

The site-management features allow page links to be rewritten in response to rearranging. I've used this feature extensively on inherited sites that were poorly organized. And, for those who make repetitive changes to their sites, the search-and-replace feature is quite flexible and also works with regular expressions. For example, this has vastly simplified changing an entire site from individual font tags to cascading style sheets.

Limitations

For complex designs, the ease of "drawing" a Web page is deceptive, so browser testing and tinkering is still a must for faithful reproduction on the Web. For example, I've encountered pages where Dreamweaver inserts extra spaces into the HTML code causing table items to shift out of alignment. I've also been frustrated that not all cascading style sheet attributes are displayed in the interface.

As odd as it may seem, one striking limitation of Dreamweaver is that it represents most HTML and CSS structures correctly. This turns out to be a real problem when you've labored over a beautifully designed page that displays just as you wanted in Dreamweaver, only to find out that the assorted bugs in the popular browser's display engines cause your page to display in a variety of apparently random and unintended fashions on different browsers and platforms. It would be nice if Dreamweaver included an option to use only HTML and CSS constructs that are known to display identically in recent popular browsers.

The site definition requirements make it difficult to work spontaneously. If you don't define a site before saving a page, all file references are created relative to the hard drive. I've also run into problems when trying to work on two separate sites at the same time, because sites are defined by folder, and only one is active at a time.

Some users report memory problems when trying to use Dreamweaver with other applications running or when working in extremely large page files, but in my experience adding memory can fix this problem.

Comparisons with Similar Software

Dreamweaver 4 is in the same category as FrontPage. In terms of features, Dreamweaver offers more advanced features and much greater flexibility. It also produces cleaner HTML. FrontPage, because of its structural similarities to common Microsoft Office programs, may be easier for beginners who don't want to invest time in learning a new interface.

New features since Dreamweaver 3 include the layout view, in which layers are translated to tables, an integrated O'Reilly code reference, real-time access to the HTML code, and a JavaScript debugger.

Technical Support and Documentation

Those who have registered Dreamweaver may access one-to-one support, either by phone or email. Free technical support is available through a support Web site. Users can also take part in Macromedia-sponsored online forums.

Official Dreamweaver manuals do exist, but they aren't well written and cost extra. However, the built-in help is quite extensive, and Dreamweaver is well represented in online discussion boards. For those who want more guidance, an assortment of project-based books are commercially available.

Target Users

Anyone who wishes to share information online in a format beyond basic text; beginning HTMLers intimidated by a blank text editor; experienced users wishing to save time in the production process.