From Digg via PCPro: I‚Äôm sorry but Dreamweaver is dying …A Post Worth Reading for a Chuckle
FTA: The real problem for Dreamweaver and for its users is that the nature of the web is changing dramatically. Dynamically-generated web applications, from Amazon right down to the humble blog, all offer much more – in-built commenting, voting, RSS feeds, etc Рthan the best sites built on static HTML can ever hope to provide. Read it here.
My take… while I don’t use Dreamweaver, and I don’t like WYSIWYG editors in general, I feel the author is so misguided here in his criticism of the well known Adobe web design tool. He compares Dreamweaver to Drupal and Joomla (two market leading open source content management systems), pointing out that most sites of any scale these days rely on application functionality, ie. RSS, content rating, comments, etc.
Now, while these “Web 2.0″ features certainly are important for user engagement, the actual tool you use for creating the design template used in a site powered by a CMS DOESN’T MATTER! Dreamweaver’s use doesn’t prohibit you from using a CMS, and vice versa. I’m not sure what Tom Arah, the original author of the article, does for a living when he isn’t writing half baked articles for PCPro, but I would be very surprised if it were web design. I can imagine him in a client meeting telling a customer that the Web Server they have doesn’t work with Firefox or that JPGs are obsolete because of iPhones or JQuery is a new database language… Ooh I love unrelated hyperbolic comparisons. Too fun… Let’s try some more. Submit a completely ridiculous web design comparison to my comments here. I need a laugh.
Now, that aside, I do have trouble believing that Dreamweaver is as relevant now as it was a handful of years of ago. With tools like Coda and Expresso out in full force, Eclipse/Aptana offering powerful debugging features and dozens of other free and easy to use text editors out there, I have to think that a WYSIWYG editors appeal is much more limited that it was then. With Web Developer toolbars, Firebug,¬† Safari’s developer toolbar and tons of other design aids for your browser, a design view is pretty pontless IMHO. Simply write your markup, edit or tweak your CSS and tab to a browser window and refresh. Web design, in the world of media production and interactive development is about the easiest deliverable you can preview. What I mean here is that there is virtuall no penalty for tweaking and previewing. Not so in video or compositing, any substantial change requires a new render or RAM preview. This is also not the case in RIA development. You may need to compile your runtime (SWF, Silverlight, etc), upload it to your server and make a tweak to the middleware code, too… You get what I am saying, i think. A design time WYSIWYG offers no real benefit. When you consider that Dreamweaver’s WYSIWYG rendering engine is not Gecko, Explorer or Webkit, it becomes clear that WYSIWYG is actually something more like “What You See Is Wishful thinking Ya Goober” – WYSIWtYG!
That said, Dreamweaver’s editor tool isn’t that bad, and when used only a text editor, it’s okay. It is expensive for that purpose alone though, so unless you are using the site management tools (which I don’t care for – it’s FTP is atrocious), or it’s server behaviors (which are pretty limiting and notoriously brittle – not allowing much customization), or it’s AJAX editing (I won’t touch Spry, sorry) then you may just want to move on. So it’s not so much dying, at least not from the perspective mentioned by Tom Arah, it’s just fading into irrelevance due to lack of upkeep.
Posted on March 8, 2009
Matt Mar 8
As someone who knows virtually nothing about building websites, I do have to give Dreamweaver my thanks for being an easy and intuitive tool for me to use to build my first web portfolio in 2002. And due in a large part to that website, I landed my first job. I taught myself how to use Dreamweaver. in only a few days, and if I can do that, anyone can. Trust me.
If your serious about web design, sure, Dreamweaver probably won’t be a tool that you will suit you in the long run, but for those who cannot devote the time and energy to learn how to “do it right”, Dreamweaver is a more than acceptable solution. There are quite a few of us out there. And that is why Dreamweaver won’t die anytime soon.
Chad Mar 8
Matt, how many people like what you describe purchase a $300 tool to do so? My answer, not many… iWeb, CoffeeCup editor and other free or nearly free tools are more likely candidates for the non-pro.
TeamTutorials Mar 8
The whole point is that the guy who wrote the post you are talking about has no clue what he is talking about. To me it sounded as if he wasn’t just talking about Dreamweaver, but all IDEs in general. I use DW, but haven’t touched WYIWYG stuff. I like the functionality. Syntax highlighting, code hints, tag completing, and it works great with my PHP/MYSQL servers.
Chad Mar 8
TT, agreed. He absolutely has no idea of what he is talking about. It’s a bit laughable actually, hence the mention of completely unrelated hyperbolic statements. Thanks for dropping by.
I don’t really slam Dreamweaver’s editor tool, mentioning that it might actually be it’s one truly good feature, but there are many many other editors out there today that cost much less. My point is really that the things that made/make Dreamweaver unique aren’t really remarkable any longer.
Jon Bergan Mar 8
So, i’m curious. As developers, which IDEs do you use then? It would be interesting to get a bit of a roundup happening here for alternatives.
Darren Mar 9
Chad, I actually find the FTP manager one of Dreamweaver’s best features. I’m a Flex developer (usually with a PHP backend) so I’d like to keep everything in Eclipse if possible so I actually use PDT with Target Management for PHP development but I much prefer to use the FTP in Dreamweaver. I’m curious as to what other PHP/XHTML editing tools have an inbuilt FTP tool that offer all three features that I need: side-by-side remote and local file view to compare files/modification dates at a glance, decent synchronisation functionality and file/folder cloaking.
Nashville Web Designer Mar 10
I have to agree with you. This guy seems to have a poor understanding of web design and development. Dreamweaver can be used to create the HTML, CSS, Javascript and other code needed to turn a plain Photoshop or Fireworks files into a working webpage. Once the design is created and tested these, pages can then be converted using PHP and custom tags to work with WordPress, Drupal, Joomala or whatever CMS or Blog software you prefer.
Of course, like any application, Dreamweaver has some quarks, but the real problems begin with inexperienced or under educated users. If you don’t know CSS, HTML, etc… Don’t expect Dreamweaver to make you a web designer and if you are a programmer/developer, don’t expect Dreamweaver to work like Textmate, Eclipse or Visual Studio. Each tool has it’s purpose and requires a certain level of knowledge from the user.
Matt Mar 11
Dude. I never said I bought Dreamweaver…
…I think I just proved my point invalid…
Paul Mar 12
I used to use dreamweaver, but found that the wysiwyg would put things in the wrong places, and make it confusing. I’m using e-text editor for zend framework coding now, which is great. The snippets are brilliant.
Freelance programmer Mar 18
I personally don’t like the extra code DW stuffs in to your page unnecessarily. NotePad Pro or similar keeps your code lean’n'mean!
siulo darba Mar 18
For the best tool is my hands and brains
bouba Jul 1
DW never add extra code in code mode, its not true.
Horror Jul 16
I use dreamweaver, and I love it. Best software I have bought EVER I never use the design mode though, dreamweaver sucks at doing its own coding lol.
Bob Dickow Sep 2
I agree totally. I do intensive master-page content managed ajax-laden power-packed web sites and DreamWeaver just doesnt’ cut it any more. I use it to debug my HTML: Save source of displayed page in IE, load into DreamWeaver, look for dangling div tags and stuff. Then, see where I goofed and then shut down DW.
Joomla Expert Canada Nov 2
Actually Dreamweaver is still usefull for serious templating.
To make a Joomla template from scratch I use the following apps:
- Dreaweaver
- Komposer
- Gimp
- Photoshop
- Joomla
They all have their quirks and advantages. The good thing about dreamweaver are the Joomla extensions, the instantly insert module positions. There are other tools to do that but Dreamweaver works best in my opinion.
Vancouver Movers Nov 8
Dreamweaver is fine, hell…I even sometimes use FrontPage in desperate situations when I need to save time!
palm beach web design Nov 10
Agreed, Dreamweaver has become a glorified text-editor. I’m still in the habit of using it which is probably the only reason that I’m still using it. Good post.
Canada Wide Long Distance Moving Services Nov 22
I think another reason why Dreamweaver and apps like this are on the way out is that they are too heavy and take forever to install…
I try to use everything portable if possible from PortableApps, Komposer works ok and combine it with Gimp and it works pretty good. Additionally, it doesn’t take 3 minutes to load up!
Vancouver Piano Movers Nov 26
Unfortunately for Joomla template design Dreamweaver is still the only way to go. Reason is that it has the Joomla 1.5 extensions, you can also do Joomla 1.0. The extensions insert the PHP modules automatically.
When will a SERIOUS open source HTML editor ever come out?
Vermilion Dec 5
I take the easy way out. I leave it up to my web master.
xuzo Jan 8
There are now new tools that can mimick the Dreamweaver extensions, not as intuitive but still works not bad. I’ll post a link to them in a few days, a little too busy right now with the hollidays….
Matt Lowe Mar 7
Wow. Some of the funniest, uninformed info I’ve read in some time by what I presume are well intentioned posters but at the same time are obviously COMPLETELY CLUELESS!
For example
>>I personally don’t like the extra code DW stuffs in to your page unnecessarily. NotePad Pro or similar keeps your code lean’n’mean!
>> Dreamweaver has become a glorified text-editor.
and perhaps the weirdest of all:
>>I used to use dreamweaver, but found that the wysiwyg would put things in the wrong places, and make it confusing.
Oh well, maybe they’re just joshin’ us… ?