Macromedia - Dreamweaver > Reviews (2)

The creator of Dreamweaver is Macromedia and there slogan is " what the web can be" and the possibilities with this program are quite endless, it's only your imagination that can make the most of this program. This is the ultimate tool in designing your web page. You have your basic features that are included from other designing programs like the opportunity to insert images and create links (which are the very basics of designing web pages). But Dreamweaver comes bundled with lots of other beneficial tools from reference libraries, debugging tools, advanced development tools like cascading style sheets, integration with other Macromedia product like Flash and Fireworks, it's impossible to list everything or even understand it all! And everything can be done through great, inviting graphical user interface!

I have been using Macromedia Dreamweaver for about three years, and only decided to make the move after hearing about
how good this product was and how it was a leader in it's field. I had been using free web page builders, and once I made the move to this more advanced application is was very daunting. But once using the guides, tutorials and lessons with the product I was able to incorporate previous knowledge and build on it with this program and learn a lot more and created and maintained some great web sites.

Things I like most
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There are plenty of things that I like in Dreamweaver but these are the ones I found and find most useful.

The lessons and tutorials that are available are great, one of the tutorials has you build a web site from start to finish. You have a look at the web site finished as it has been previously designed
for you, and then you start from scratch and build it step by step. After this type of process it gives you a greater knowledge of that Dreamweaver can do and you can go on to incorporate the things you have just learnt into your own ideas. This is one of the best, if not the best set of help files that I've seen with an application.

I love the panels that are arranged around the window of Dreamweaver, they are all there for quick accessing to items and they all have their different and important uses. The first panel is the object panels, where quick links to inserting images, tables and lots of other building tools and this panel can be changed to different objects like form links and invisible tags. It's a great panel to use and will come in very useful. Another panel is that for the properties panel which is my favourite because in past programs it took a lot of time finding and clicking drop down menus, but this panel condenses all the properties of an item so that they can be altered and changed quickly and easily. The reference panel is very useful for finding examples and uses for html and JavaScript code.

There are three icons situated at the top of the window that allow you to change views of your design from design view, a split screen code and design view and a code view. This is very useful for when wanting to change html or other codes as you can change the code and see it automatically update in the design.

Other web page builders never had this, or if they did it was a long process of using other programs to do it, or navigating through loads of menus. In Dreamweaver it
is done in a few clicks!

Installation
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Installation can be a bit lengthy due to the size of the application, as it has to install all the help files, the faster your computer the faster this will be. It is a standard installation, where you have to agree o terms and conditions and click a few next buttons.

Problems
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I haven't any real problem with this program it is stable, has never crashed for me and loads quickly. The only program I seem to encounter is with the tables in my designs, when I enter text into a cell it can push all my pictures out of align and I then have to resize my tables, but this is only a minor problem.

Conclusion
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This is the best program available, and I am going to continue to use it for all my designs. It was daunting at first after making the move from basic program but once you start to learn and build
confidence with Dreamweaver it is a really enjoyable experience and the end results are amazing. There are so many functions within the program to give your web site a more professional feel. Web design and development is such a wide field and no one can ever know everything like different scripting languages, but the things you do know and the things you plan on using can all be used with Macromedia, it covers everything.

If you like just building your web sites by using html code without using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) program then the code building view is ideal for you. Certain codes are given certain colours so you can quickly distinguish between text that will be normally displayed, links and images.

If you interested in designing web pages, then this is one that should be used in your creation. The Macromedia web site very often offer trial downloads of the latest version, so you can get a taste of what is available once your trial has run out. E-bay is a great place for buying Macromedia products and you can save a lot of money. I strongly recommend any Dreamweaver version 4 and upward! An excellent application