Comments on: Dreamweaver for Ajax… should we take it serious again?

By: priyadarshikunal

priyadarshikunal — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:32:01 +0000

Guys the question was DW FOR AJAX. I dont use it for ajax except spry. Yeah but while doing my HTM/PHP/ASP.NET and CSS i find none better than dreamweaver. I dont use WYSIWYG ever except while previewing coz as all said it creates messy code.

By: SkylarAnderson

SkylarAnderson — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:07:06 +0000

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.

By: ccharlton

ccharlton — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:41:24 +0000

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

By: Anita Lee

Anita Lee — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:54:54 +0000

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?

By: SDSmith

SDSmith — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 11:53:27 +0000

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.

By: Gavin

Gavin — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:49:52 +0000

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.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 05:47:59 +0000

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)

By: Steve_alex

Steve_alex — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 22:00:04 +0000

“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.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 15:43:44 +0000

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!

By: Aaron Holden

Aaron Holden — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:14:03 +0000

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.

By: Edwin Khodabakchian

Edwin Khodabakchian — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:18:53 +0000

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.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:56:33 +0000

Only Hand coding!!! All editors create bad code to some degree.

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.

Eclipse Web Tools Platform :
Not to be trolling, but this has to be a joke. The WTP editor (both 1.x and 2.0), especially when editing JSP, has got to be one of the most buggy editors ever developed.

By: Tom Cobalt

Tom Cobalt — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:45:17 +0000

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.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:55:32 +0000

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.

By: Sami Lavikko

Sami Lavikko — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:31:00 +0000

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.

By: j0hn

j0hn — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 07:59:48 +0000

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…

By: Michael Geary

Michael Geary — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 03:00:29 +0000

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.

By: Tim Leonard

Tim Leonard — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:17:35 +0000

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. ;)

By: David

David — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:45:56 +0000

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.

By: Jamez

Jamez — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 19:51:30 +0000

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.