Dreamweaver MX Mac

• Platform:   PowerMac, Mac OS X, Macintosh
• Media: CD-ROM
• Item Quantity: 1

This is a visual editor, which means you can create and edit a Web page by selecting items such as tables, forms and images from a tabbed palette. The Properties panel lets you specify details such as borders, styles and hyperlinks, and you can also use the visual editor for frames and layers. Many designers also like to edit the underlying HTML, and this is where Dreamweaver MX comes into its own. It supports either a pure code view, or a split view that lets you click seamlessly between the code and visual editors. A lot of the features previously found in HomeSite, Macromedia's text-based Web editor, are now integrated into Dreamweaver, including pop-up code hints, a snippets panel that lets you keep handy pieces of code for reuse, and a tag chooser that lets you grab the right tag from a list. An O'Reilly tag reference is built-in.

Dreamweaver's template support deserves special mention. Templates give you a quick start with a number of pre-designed pages. In Dreamweaver MX, they can also be used to lock-down areas of the page, so that contributors can create and edit a story without disturbing the design. Templates can be nested, and changes to an underlying template ripple through the pages that use it, for powerful site-wide updates.

Macromedia used to market a product called Dreamweaver Ultradev, which allowed rapid development of Web applications featuring online databases, member log-in, and other server-side elements. In Dreamweaver MX, this capability is built-in. It has also been extended, adding support for ASP .Net and PHP as well as ColdFusion, Javaserver pages and traditional ASP. Non-specialists will find themselves able to build rich dynamic pages, while the integrated code editor makes this a capable development product as well. In fact, Dreamweaver MX has also replaced ColdFusion Studio, as the primary development tool for ColdFusion MX. It is a uniquely flexible package.

Overall it is hard to fault Dreamweaver MX. It's true that its complexity and professional features make it harder to pick up than some rival products. The abundance of panels and options can be confusing, and a high-resolution screen is required. In addition, the Studio MX products, which include Dreamweaver, are better value for those who need more than one of the MX series. That takes nothing away from the excellence of Dreamweaver as the first-choice tool for professionals. --Tim Anderson

Manufacturer's Description
The world's best way to create professional websites is now the easiest way to build powerful Internet applications. For the first time, you can work in a single environment to quickly create, build, and manage websites and Internet applications. Get visual layout tools. Experience rapid web application development. Utilize extensive code-editing support. It's all in one complete, integrated solution - Macromedia Dreamweaver MX.Now every member of your development team - designers, developers, and programmers - can work in a single integrated environment to create, build, and manage websites and Internet applications. Macromedia Dreamweaver MX combines its renowned visual layout tools with the rapid web application development features of Dreamweaver UltraDev and the extensive code-editing support of Macromedia HomeSite. So the world's best way to create professional websites is now the easiest way to build powerful Internet applications.

• Software > Programming & Web Development > Web Site Creation & Management