Monday, July 23rd, 2007
Dreamweaver for Ajax… should we take it serious again?
Category: Utility
I realise that I am just one person, but my experience with Dreamweaver has been:
- There was a time in the past that everyone used it
- A lot of designers still use it, but developers don’t
- Developers poo poo it.
That being said, I have heard some developers talk about Dreamweaver again. I then saw that Nitobi now has Dreamweaver extensions for their components so I thought I should put a survey up so we can all see what the community is up too!
2 rating from 161 votes
Nice topic. I had to deal with all the mm_* crap in a web site last week.
It’s not April 1st today, is it?
Dreamweaver seems to be for people that don’t know what they are doing when it comes to coding. I personaly would never use it, even if its free.
I find Aptana/Visual Studio Web Express better and these are both free.
I fail to see how there is any difference between Dreamweaver, emacs, vi or Notepad when it comes to coding. I can write code in any of those and get the same result.
It all boils down to the tool you’re move comfortable with. As Martin said above he had to deal with the mm_* horrible code Dreamweaver writes. The solution being, write the code yourself.
I prefer to hand-code everything whenever possible and I would never consider using Dreamweaver for development, including Ajax. DW may have been slowly catching up to modern trends but it’s still of no use to me.
@Joe: I don’t think that we are talking about Dreamweaver in code view. Because as you said its just like any other text-editor, but rather when using it as a WYSIWYG editor. This is when it generates horrible code (or used to I haven’t used it in a while) and thats why any developers I know ‘poo poo’ it.
I choose ‘other’ in the poll - I don’t use any ‘all singing all dancing’ IDE instead I use editplus. Slightly better than a plain text editor. But am happy with anything that has syntax highlighting, ftp and matching brace highlighting :)
As for WYSIWYG editors, I haven’t used one in a while but I think it would actually slow my development not speed it up. I know some developers swear by it for laying out the initial frame, saying it makes them more productive. But I just don’t see how alot of button pushing, and menu navigation to find different elements could be faster than just typing them!
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to switch from TextMate.
I had a hard time shouting at my colleague NOT TO MESS UP MY CODE! After a compelte deinstall of every computer here there was finaly peace. Still he “designers†are not able to write good correct code, but at least my code is untouched!
If you don’t use the WYSIWYG mode, how good is Dreamweaver? Is it good as an editor? Does it have code completion, macros, code snippets/templates…?
I’m just asking; I’ve never used DW since along time.
@Aaron - Oh god no. Anyone who uses any WYSIWYG should be hung on site. There’s just too many unpredictables and the like that can allow for uniform, consistent code.
I use Dreamweaver entirely in code view. I write straight HTML, CSS, etc. all there because I would never trust a WYSIWYG. Perhaps it’s better to say “Developers ‘poo-poo’ on DW’s WYSIWYG” as the Code view option is just the same as anything else with highlighting, FTP, etc. I love my DW, just don’t be foolish and try and use anything but the Code View option but to go “Should we take it serious again?” is just silly. Of course you should, it can do anything those other editors can.
If you can type it, you can do it in any of the above. End of story.
I was a HomeSite user from the very beginning, but when I got into real development I moved away from Dreamweaver. I now work in Eclipse.
Only Hand coding!!! All editors create bad code to some degree.
Notepad++ is my editor of choice.
I come from a Graphic Design background and I effin hate staring at lines of code for hours a day. GO DREAMWEAVER!
I resent this pole, as an avid TextMate user. I used Emacs heavily when I was doing C and Java, but have since moved to Rails and hope to never look back. TextMate is as powerful as Emacs and Vi but much easier to configure and extend (in my view).
i’m using DW but in code view as, already said here, WYSIWYG view just produce definitive crap code. The big advantage compared to Notepad++ (which is what i use on PC’s) is that the FTP soft is integrated, whenever i save my file it’s straight forward upploaded. Secondly i can as well make my chmod visually; just right click on server file and voila… This is just a few examples that i like with an integrated product such as DW compared to “All of my softwares are open at the same time” solution.
Dreamweaver in code view is one of the fastest web IDE’s out there and has great auto-completion. Visual Studio is the fastest and most informative, but requires plug-ins to support many non-Microsoft technologies. Aptana/Eclipse is good too, but way too slow for my taste, I had to disable validation and auto-completion just to get it usable.
Notepad++ is the editor I use for all my web work. Simple, unobtrusive, but has some power too. Now if it could only do multi-line search and replace, I’d be in heaven.
There are a lot of asp.net developers out there who are loving Expression Web. :-)
I wrote a comment here …
dreamweaver does have an amazing find and replace. Still, I chose simple text editor because that’s what I learned to code in and thats what I like the best. I do use dreamweaver sometimes if I’m writing a lot of php since the tooltips are nice.
I might start looking at aptana again some time in the future though.
I love Dreamweaver - I use it all the time. I don’t use the WYSIWYG bit ever (Except for previewing to make sure I’m not on drugs). I write all my PHP in it.. I like the built in http://FTP. I wish there was integration with SVN - then I’d just have babies with Adobe.
I can’t stand writing in Notepad.. Dreamweaver kicks ass!
You’re all over analyzing the issue. No self-respecting programmer uses WYSIWYG cause there’s no reason; we’re programmers, you can’t “build” code by “seeing” it. It’s all typing, nothing more and for those of us lucky enough to have departments that handle the visual side, we never touch anything that ANY program can do with WYSIWYG.
So, because of that it comes down to the program that you’re comfortable with and has the features that allow you to work more efficiently or quickly. Plain ole’ Notepad doesn’t do http://FTP. VI doesn’t do CVS (Or Subversion), etc, etc. So you find what works with your needs. This has nothing to do with “I started doing real development, and I’ll never touch DW” or the like.
The program is what you make of it. Anything that’ll let you write *text*, will do the job. That’s all there is to it. Nothing more. For all I care you could use DOS’ “edit” command for all I care as long as it was what you wanted to use.
At the office, I have to use Windows, so I have moved to using PSPad for my coding. It has built-in FTP, just like DW does, but without all the overhead. It’s a nice little editor.
At home, I’m all Linux (PCLOS), and have sworn by Quanta for years now. Although I tend to use it in direct FTP mode as opposed to the “project mode”. Project mode has it’s purpose, just not for me with one site per server. It’s great when working on experimental stuff though … when you don’t want to touch your production files.
Eclipse is where its at. Why any one would use plain text editors without some of the advanced features that platforms like Eclipse offers boggles my mind. I get code highlighting, code hinting, integrated ToDo lists, easy navigation of code through outline modes… and then I get plugins and built in features like Ant that are just too good to pass up.
I was using HomeSite from the allaire times too! I was really angry when MM bought allaire and never improved homesite itself!
Last year when I turned all my projects to UTF8 I had to abandon homesite for DW (obviously only code view)… I tried to do it sooner but DW was really bloated and buggy before. Now Its really cool! The only thing I miss from HomeSite were my own code snippets that I could reuse very simple with a key shortcut… I am really dissapointed DW doesnt support that even though it’s built on HS!
Please Adobe fix this!
Simple snippet-based text editor happens to be just enough for smaller projects.
Once you have bunch of classes/modules, intellisense and auto completion become quite helpful and navigation without “code outline” - somewhat problematic. Aptana is the way to go in such cases.
I miss HomeSite.
+1 for Homesite/CFStudio! I have got Aptana with CFEclipse and PHPEclipse added in, as well. But Homesite is still good even today: it’s got built in FTP and RDS, and you can use SVN/CVS with it as well. Plus RDS browsing and automatic profile switching based on the file name. No need to switch perspectives to go from CF to PHP, it automatically changes by the file extension, for code colouring and tag/function insight and completion.
Marc: Why DW lacks support for SVN or any other VCS is beyond me. But there’s some extensions available that integrate with SVN. I use SVN4DW which only adds support for update and commit, but it’s better than nothing. There’s also some commercial extensions available which I haven’t tried.
I create all code TextMate, I’d find it difficult using anything else. I used Dreamweaver years ago and have had a look at the latest version but it still seems to be focused on wysiwyg so it doesn’t appeal to me that much. The only thing Dreamweaver was good at for me was syntax highlighting.
I still use DW for developing js/css/php. What I love the most is definitely the FTP integration. I would like to have better code completion, but at least it has some basic code completion for php.
Of course I’m not using the WYSIWYG bit *except* for writing text content, because then I get automatic html entity codes for my native languages special characters.
But of course, compared to features I’m used to from java IDE’s like IntelliJ IDEA, DW comes a little short.
Komodo Edit + jQuery extension does it for me, quick code completion, navigates through all my php + xhtml + js + css, suggests accessibility code, autotabs, has crash recovery, easy extensibility, Mozilla codebase with in-browser preview…. it’s even easy to setup php preview with Apache + PHP installed (as many already do). I’d spring for the integrated IDE except for how complete the free Edit is already, it’s cut my coding time by 1/3 - I used to be one of those hardcore Notepad coders, too, but now I can’t live without proper syntax highlighting and multi-language comprehension - and it’s the fastest, easiest save-to-server for server-side development I’ve found
Dreamweaver hasn’t changed much since that time in the past when everyone used it. Switching between programming/WYSIWYG is a joke. It just tosses some menus around. Hopefully they will one day take things serious and leave out WYSIWYG. Or even split the Dreamweaver project into two applications (coding/wysiwyg). That way they can start focussing on making innovative changes to the application real programmers could benefit from.
used Homesite until my first UTF8 project, the BOM insanity pushed me into the loving arms of Eclipse. Aptana is great and Adobe’s own JSEclipse is ok too. I think the last time I fired up DW was when I had to convert a large word file to HTML, it was always good at that. Since Adobe is big on Flex I think it would make sense to roll DW into an Eclipse plugin. I would def install it!
This is not actually a discussion. Developers don’t use Dreamweaver. Designers do. It;s like design mode in VS.NET - if you see someone with it open, stay away. Next question …
WYSIWYG isn’t developing anyway .. it’s garage sale method you cheap bastards.. pay a developer already!
I use code view dreamweaver as the others I’ve tried have the lack the 1 major thing DW has and that’s the ftp integration. The latest CS3 is also super fast..
I prefer Editplus.. but, sometimes use vi editor.
I’m a developer and I love Dreamweaver. I don’t touch the design view (except if I need to find an unmatched html tag quickly — DW shows little icons where close tags are missing or invalid). I use DW with development because its so quick and easy to to make a change, hit the hotkey to upload to the FTP site and then alt-tab to the browser to test the changes. The code syntax formatting and completion are pleasant bonuses. My problem with DW is the cost. For those simple features (just the one’s I use) the cost is rarely justified. I’m trying to find the perfect open source alternative that works almost identically. nVU comes close but not close enough for code development. Bluementals WeBuilder is very nice, but not free (cheaper than DW though). I haven’t tried Aptana, but by the looks of it, I think I need to wait until php is fully supported. Coda on OSX looks great, but might take a little while to get used to, plus I mainly use Windows. Eclipse looks nice but a bit more than what I need in terms of all the development options (I just need an IDE for web scripting, (x)HTML, javascript, asp, php…)
Coming from a user since Dreamweaver 2 the last two versions were bloated and going in a bad direction. Dreamweaver has an excellent editor, code complete on css/javascript/html/php/jsp etc. It is great for when you need to do JSP or PHP especially. The built in reference manuals for CSS/Javascript/XHTML/PHP/JSP/ASP.NET etc are all killer. The File management and find and replace is nearly unmatched. Yes the design view sicks, Templates are a monstrosity, mm script is horrendous but even VS.NET has these elements and they all suck in there as well. My main problem with the last two version is all the bloat they have added to the UI and little performance improvements. The same is happening with VS.NET, it is cool to have all your tools in there just when it starts taking you 10-30 minutes to open a file and do simple tasks is when programming IDEs have gone too far.
honestly if you ask me you don’t need any particular tool but your brain.
Another vote for Notepad++.
Though it’s true that ‘all you need is your brain’ and a text editor, it certainly speeds up the development process if your text editor allows you to simplify the process of indenting evenly, as well as color-code text by function.
Does it have code completion, macros, code snippets/templates…?
Yes,atleast for php,jsp and ASP.
@Dan - Correction. Developers use ‘Code View’ in Dreamweaver. Designers use the WYSIWYG.
Learn about something before you decide to attack it. DW’s code view is a wonderful tool and yes, I’ve tried Eclipse and hate it. Too bloated and too “all-purpose” that tries to appeal to every single aspect of every single codebase which winds up watering down the entire product. Then again, these are my own tastes. So as I stated before: Use what works for you. If it can write text, it works for someone.
Personally I like a standard text editor. I don’t like PHP, JavaScript or HTML IDEs which try to help me along with suggestions. I prefer Notepad or using the built in editor in CuteFTP Pro.
As for AJAX, I’d rather program that without any help. But that’s just me (I like control over my code :) )
Well… This discussion is older than the Bible drafts…
Programmers hate visual… Designers hate codes…
Dreamweaver is designed for designers or, for those who can understand the DW Way-To-Do-Stuffs… Programmers wants to do things exactly the way they planned… And DW will NEVER do exactly using the way they want…
I understand the way DW uses, and I know how to make DW do 90% of everything I need… So I use my other hand to take a coffee while I’m building a query and deciding how it will be presented.
GO DW, please keep my left hand away from RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) and let me build my web apps and site with more than those 32 HEX colors I remember…
Ah… And by the way… You all are making this post as a “I USE HyperBLAH Code Editor which is awesome cause it brushes my teeth and combs my hair” center… This post is supposed to talk about DW flaws, ideas, features, etc… A simply “I don’t like DW”, “I hate DW” or “I think WYSIWYG Editors are disgusting” will do it…
I personally don’t give a “pooh pooh” for which damn editor you guys use. Please, ask for another post entitled “Let’s talk about Code Editors”.
for me DW was never worth the money.
Dreamweaver WYSIWYG does a great job of letting you see what your page would look like if your users downloaded your code and then opened it up in their copy of Dreamweaver! The best!!!
I have to admit though, sitewide regex find and replace by tag name is pretty nice. Never could’ve converted tables to css without it.
Hand editing DW generated code isn’t too difficult if you know what you are doing - that’s ‘if’ as if you don’t the code can be OK but you’ll break the DW interface. You can switch between using WYSIWYG and Code view at will, use which ever view is most convenient.
I don’t know if we should “take it serious” again, but maybe we should “take its seriously” again. Aaargh, how I hate this modern trend to slovenly English which misses off the correct ending of words.
You’re criticizing English usage and didn’t check your own comment? That makes it kind of hard to take you seriously.
“Take its seriously” - I’m hoping that extra ’s’ is just a typo.
“… which misses off …” - What does that mean? I guess you meant something like ‘drop’.
Personally I’ve been using DW for ages and never had to complain about it. I never use the WYSIWYG on it, or if I do it’s to quickly scroll to the right bit of code on big pages. As some have already said on here, it’s what you make of it. I like having the FTP and file/project browser on view all the time, code highlighting, etc… We use eclipse on bigger projects and it’s great for SVN, but it has too many features not needed for ’simple’ coding.
I’ll stick to DW for now, it’s got all I need!
@Joe -
Real developers don’t open Dreamweaver. I should know - every person I have worked with that used Dreamweaver for development, even to edit a text file, is a moron. I’m sorry, that’s just how it is. You’ll get over it.
At least on the Mac, DW is slow and painful, the code editor is primitive, code auto-formatting is an offensive joke. Other apps offer just-as-good-or-better project-wide search/replace, CSS handling, etc. One good thing about DW is the design view (because if you always need to access at the code level, even for trivial edits or layout visualization, then you’re doing something wrong), and the one irreplaceable thing about DW is the site/template functionality.
If I could find a Mac app with anything close to the template functionality, I could (and would) move about 100 legacy sites off DW. If someone did this as a bundle or something for TextMate, I’d have their baby. And I’m a dude! I did a survey of available apps several months ago and no dice, so we’re stuck with the dinosaur.
@Dan - That sounds like an assumption brought on by a stereotype you’ve created in your head. Back it up with real facts and you can feel free to contribute in a mature manner.
FTP/SSH does _not_ belong in a text editor. That’s where you use WinSCP or something.
@Joe - No really, those are the facts. Every single Dreamweaver “developer” I have worked with is a moron. The only way I could prove it to you would be to line them up and have you stare at them as they stare back at you, all with eyes glassed-over and furrowed brows, trying to understand what was happening. There is no stereotype - it is the truth.
@Joe
Don’t feed the trolls.
Just because someone codes in DW doesn’t make them a moron. DW has awesome built-in intellisense for faster css development, the ’snippets’ feature is great when you have to plop in a chunk of code, and the FTP feature prevents switching to a separate FTP client for uploads. Oh, but wait, I forgot. Critics like Dan already have entire scripting languages as well as every css rule memorized, and never have to reference anything. My bad.
Dreamweaver? You *must* be joking.
Yeah, you’re right. Notepad and CuteFTP is the way to go.
Dreamweaver is a good tool to develop websites, not web applications, as a developer, I use Eclipse and vim.
I use DW every day and have been for the last number of years. Doing both Programming and design, I have been wanting to find something that can replace DW. What i use the most is the split code view - so then i can get to the code section fast - i hate scrolling through text. I would like a complete IDE if it were possible.. a true xhtml, javascript and css IDE. DW has not been updated by Adobe at all in their last release - their support for css is still extremely buggy in the design view. My feeling is that in the beginning, DW was so far advanced for web design/dev, but now it’s so far behind!
I use VS 2005 for all .net development - and DW for the design elements. I use Zend studio for all php development. Right now I’m trying out Aptana (eclipse) and I am hoping i can soon eliminate DW… but my workflow is very efficient, using DW’s split-code view and site tools… even though they’re limited. Maybe Aptana will allow a code ’selection’ plugin for their split-code view mode. In anycase, if DW is not developed in the next short while, I recommend everyone to switch over to Aptana! (www.aptana.com). An Excellent product, built on eclipse… and in a short amount of time! DW has had years to be ahead but it’s not– it is definitely behind.
I use Dreamweaver CS3 daily for hand coding as a text editor. Never use WYSIWYG because of a custom XML CMS system. CS3 has made great improvements on XSL and CSS support.
If you depend on a WYSIYG environment to build functionality your code will end up being bloated, prone to break and not easy to fix when things do go wrong… hand-coding functionality is far superior. — That said, I have a designer pass me work he’s made in Dreamweaver’s WYSIWYG view… I then strip out the crap and again, using Dreamweaver (in code view), I hand-code all DHTML/Ajax/etc. — So we both use Dreamweaver… but hell will become a ski resort before I ever trust my application’s functionality to Dreamweaver. ;)
I’m a big fan of Komodo IDE. It has real-time syntax checking, so once I get rid of the squiggly underlines, I won’t have any compilation errors. Runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Excellent debuggers for JavaScript, Ruby, Python, and PHP, so I can debug server and client code in the same IDE. And it’s one of the few programming editors that supports proportional fonts. My code is so much easier to read in a proportional font.
Komodo IDE isn’t cheap, but my time is worth a lot more than I paid for it. There is also the free Komodo Edit that Charles mentioned.
I also use PSPad, mainly for its HTML formatting feature that takes any HTML file and indents it so it makes sense.
That’s a point that is often missed: You don’t have to use only one editor. I’ve always used multiple editors to take advantages of the features that each one offers.
I’m a full-time web developer and my config is :
Eclipse Web Tools Platform :
http://www.eclipse.org/webtools/main.php
+ PHPEclipse :
http://www.phpeclipse.de/tiki-view_articles.php
The whole is a great IDE for HTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT/PHP coding…
It amazes me that no-one has brought up UltraEdit / UEStudio. It’s definitely my editor of choice on win blatforms. It has integrated ftp/sftp, column mode, regexp replace and search. It handles large text files like a champ and just rocks overall.
I am hooked on IntelliJ! It’s a non free Java IDE but it has excellent HTML/CSS/Javascript code completion/reformatting/refactoring. If you don’t do Java/Java, it’s probably not worth it, but many believe it to be by far the best Java IDE out there.
What’s the issue with being a developer or a designer, anyone worth their salt ought to be able to understand the basics of both . DW just takes a bit of skill to learn how to use it.
For whatever reason, I found this comment hilarious. I have seen a lot of really bad, tag soup written by “hand coding” developers who didn’t know what the heck they were doing. For those type of developers, something like Dreamweaver is extremely helpful.
I have also personally found the DW template feature, although somewhat buggy, to be extremely helpful when generating straight HTML content (i.e. content not hosted on a site that has server-side functionality to do include/template stuff).
If you’re doing ColdFusion development, there’s really no other viable option (CFEclipse isn’t there yet).
Other than that, I think Aptana has the most promise.
I was initially a TextMate user when it came to editing JS files. Last December, I met with Paul Cotton, the founder of Aptana and decided to give Aptana a chance. Now, 8 months after I continue to use Aptana (which is iterating very quickly and is getting continuously better). I like the fact that they are integrated into Eclipse, have good support for auto-completion, a nice JS outliner and color coding. Aptana makes editing CSS, JS and HTML really easy.
This is a great discussion. I am a developer and have been using Dreamweaver for many years. Because I work so closely with designers it makes a great deal of (commercial) sense to use the same tools where possible and DW does provide everything I need to open a site marked up by a designer and get into the code. The colour formatting, apply source formatting, ftp and search/replace functionality are great. I do agree that it doesnt have everything I need. And it is handy to flick into design view occasionally (but dont take it as gospel). On top of DW I also use EditPad Pro. I do like Eclipse and have Aptana installed on my lappie which I have used for a few personal projects and it does have fantastic features but for commercial sites, 9-5 it’s good ol’ DW.
Oh dear!
The improvements in DW CS3 are not huge, minor in comparison to Flash CS3 and Photoshop CS3, however the inclusion of the Spry/Ajax snippets is handy. I work daily with XHTML, CSS, PHP and some Javascript, I can’t honestly have every base covered. DW helps, and I find, with the exception of Server bindings, that the code prouced is very clean, however, with PHP I do tend to handcode and then I have everything under control. I also use PSPad which I think is fantastic for what it offers and what it costs - NOTHING! And yet, managing many different sites, and having code tips and snippets, and the new improved CSS templates, it’s a handy tool. My feelings for DW do go up and down, but on the whole I’m pleased with it, and especially that the boss pays for it! Those Adobe people don’t half put a hefty price-tag on these things!
“Dreamweaver for Ajax”, hey … Notepad for Ajax !. Naaa, I acutally use KOMODO IDE 4.0 its great. If you are looking for a nice IDE that will do things easier for you, i suggest you try it. Perfect for js,php,html,xml,css…. AJAX.
The only IDE that I will settle for is Coda. It’s a Mac app. Awesome for PHP, HTML, JavaScript, ASP and others. It has a built in SSH, IDE, and Reference Books (search the PHP docs from within the application). A very nice app.
On Windows though, I’m still about the text editor for PHP, AJAX and ASP (I may use syntax highlighting though). Java (or JSP or JSF) it’s not practical to use anything but an IDE. IDE just streamlines your coding in JAVA (jsp or jsf)
I use Notepad++, it has an amazing amount of features and some really great plugins. It has a thin UI that gives you a maximum view of your code. Notepad++ is also extremely lightweight, but feature for feature matches with any other code editor.
I’m just 10 times more productive with it than any other high bulk/memory footprint low-featured Eclipse based editor.
Oh, and @Chris from about 1,000,000 posts above: Notepad++ –does– have a mutli-line search and replace function. Try Crtl+R.
It’s saving grace is: DW has multi-file find and replace. If only Coda or TextMate allowded me to do the same, I’d switch. I run DW on my MacBook Pro, and it’s so clunky; it starts up slow, it quits badly sometimes (”Dreamweaver quite unexpectedly…”), and dallies while retrieving lists of files from my network drives. Anyone who rules out DW because it is aimed at designers who can’t code, is missing the point. Forget it’s WYSIWYG functionality - try it’s code view, it’s easily the best I’ve used, and I keep trying new ones in the hope that I can leave DW behind, so I’m hardly biased.
Adeel Khan, YOU ARE A pompous MORON. Dreamweaver is the most advanced design tool available on the market. How can you talk this way about millions of people?
The same applies here as with all coding. If you can’t code it in notepad by hand then go back and learn it! Then look into some editors to increase productivity.
Justin Are you site smart?
I’d like to mention I made Dreamweaver extensions for jQuery & Prototype API’s that works for versions MX-CS3.
http://ajaxian.com/archives/dreamweaver-users-rejoice-support-for-js-libs-now-available
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who cares if people use Dreamweaver. It’s a text editor with syntax highlighting and a built in file manager/ftp client. Not to mention multi-line search/replace. I think it’s ignorant to think that people use it in only design view when it’s code view is quite nice.