| | |  | Web Development | Home » » » Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 Win/Mac [OLD VERSION] | | | | | | | Description: | | Dreamweaver 8 is the industry-leading web development tool, enabling users to efficiently design, develop and maintain standards-based websites and applications. With Dreamweaver 8, web developers go from start to finish, creating and maintaining basic websites to advanced applications that support best practices and the latest technologies. Get more done with Dreamweaver 8. New features and optimized workflows reduce the time required to complete common tasks. Integrate XML data with a powerful drag and drop workflow. Zoom in to get control over design and stay focused on the code with Code Collapse. Add Flash Video in five clicks of a mouse. | | | Features: | |
• All-in-one design and code editor to support the way you work.
• Build standards-based sites using rich visual tools for XHTML and CSS.
• Integrate XML-based data with a powerful, visual, drag-and-drop workflow.
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Weight:
| 0.11 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.5 inches | | Package Width:
| 8.0 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.4 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.15 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 25 reviews |
| | | System Requirements: | | | Platform:
| Windows 2000 / Windows XP / Mac OS X | | Media:
| CD-ROM | | Item Quantity:
| 1 |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 25 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
103 of 105 found the following review helpful:
Still the best of the WYSIWYG fieldNov 01, 2005
By Gregory A. Beamer
"Cowboy"
Dreamweaver consistently ranks high in the field of WYSIWYG web site editors. This release does not stray from this position. Considering GoLive and FrontPage are the current competition, it is not hard to see why (will be interesting to see what comes out with Microsoft Expressions Quartz).
As with previous versions, Dreamweaver 8 has the standard Dreamweaver interface. When you install, you have the option of setting up like a developer or setting up like a designer. It is not as easy to change the scheme (or not as evident), but this is not a major deal as a single developer rarely changes the setup of his development environment.
Dreamweaver 8 touts itself as the king of CSS and it has certainly made some wonderful inroads. By default, you can create styles in a page or in a stylesheet. Unfortunately, it falls a little short in allowing you to change your mind in this place, as well. It would be nice, for example, to drag tested styles from a test page up to the stylesheet. Instead, I have to manually cut and paste or recreate styles. Yes, this is minor, but can't someone make a tool that does this? I would also love to see a tool that recognizes I have already created a style with the same feature or allows me to use the standard font and paragraph changes and automatically create a style. But, I digress, there is no tool that does that ... yet.
The CSS Styles tab gives you a great way of getting down to the properties of a particular CSS style. If you do not want to bring up the designer, which is how you normally create your style, you simply add properties to the style in the CSS Styles tab. Very nice feature. A little different than the properties view in MS products, but much more compact.
Dreamweaver 8 is better at .NET development than FrontPage. It also allows a variety of other development paradigms: ASP (either VBScript or JavaScript), ASP.NET (C# or VB.NET), ColdFusion, JSP and PHP (with MySQL). This makes it a good all around tool for development. I would still not trade my Visual Studio, but Dreamweaver gives me a lot of bang for my buck and Visual Studio has a horrible design surface (at least in the latest implementation - VS 2005).
Dreamweaver still has the best behaviors (client side scripting), but they have not made any real inroads to new functionality in this regard. This has been a major selling point to me in the past and I wish they would have included something to help with AJAX (Asynch JavaScript and XML).
Of the new features, I find the CSS most compelling (mentioned above) and also very aggrevating (Macromedia did not take them far enough for my likings). You also have the ability to zoom on design and use guides (good for CSS layouts). There is also a better Flash integration and collapsable code regions. None of these are grand enough for me to personally take the upgrade plunge.
Down to the nitty gritty. Here are the questions you are probably wanting to know the answer to.
1. Should you buy Dreamweaver (assuming you do not already own a previous version)? It really depends. If you do not have a tool, this is still the best on the market. If you have FrontPage, you might get Dreamweaver if you need the flexibility of working outside of the Microsoft world, otherwise I would say no. The same is true if you have GoLive, as it has many similar features.
2. Should you upgrade? This really comes down to a few features and how important they are to you.
A) If you are heavy on CSS, you might want to upgrade, although I am not sure that this is the best option unless Macromedia really fills in this area. It was not quite enough for me to feel compelled to move on right now.
B) Use a lot of flash? The time savings might be a good reason to move to this version.
C) Need productivity helps, like code collapse, guides and the ability to zoom in on your design? This is the only tool I know of currently that has these features.
Dreamweaver 8 is a good product. If I did not have a previous version, I would seriously consider the cost and bite the bullet, as I feel it is worth the price ($399 street). But, I do not see it worth the $199 street price for the upgrade, aty least not for me. The additional CSS is nice, but it is not enough of a productivity change for me to justify the cost, esp. when I am fairly fast at working with CSS without the additional features.
56 of 58 found the following review helpful:
 Dreamweaver fits the bill...Jul 28, 2006
By WDM
"spiceminesofkessel"
I have recently become more serious about web page design. I looked at other products and tried them out. However, Dreamweaver has exceeded my expectations. I am not an advanced user by any means, so my rating might have a "new user bias" to it. My first web site used a WYSIWYG editor similar to Frontpage. Then, I downloaded the 30 day trial of Dreamweaver and redesigned the site. Productivity greatly increased and the interface is very easy to navigate, once you get used to it. The new web site is by far more impressive, user friendly, and feature rich without a cut in productivity. Learning Dreamweaver is a pleasure. If you are familiar with web design, the learning curve is very nice. I was making web pages within a couple of hours of downloading the trial. Tutorials are readily available in the Help menu and on the Adobe web site. Of course, you can always find a good book here on Amazon. If the price of Dreamweaver can fit your budget and you are serious about making impressive web sites, I highly recommend the consideration.
40 of 41 found the following review helpful:
Marketing Hype - MX2004 is More Stable/ProfessionalDec 06, 2005
By Bobby Bro
"Bobby Bro"
Pros: code editor is improved, good idea with the FTP background capabilities, love the new zoom feature
Cons: Macromedia put this out hastily, bugs in the FTP, the file times aren't correct, can't use it in a professional enviornment, no word of when updater will be available
I think Macromedia raced to get this one to market. I've been using Dreamweaver since version 2. It's a powerful tool that has evolved into something close to remarkable concerning development of professional web sites/applications. But...
If you have Dreamweaver MX 2004, you have a better version of Dreamweaver than version 8. I can't use 8 in a professional environment due to the way that it stamps file times incorrectly. Collegues are left wondering what the real time was that a page was last worked on. Sometimes the FTP doesn't upload the files that are selected. In a professional environment, this is a major quirk - imagine trying to move 100 files and 10 of them don't make it. You've got to go through all of them to figure out which ones didn't. I've never seen this from another version of Dreamweaver. .
I was hooked by the marketing presentations from Macromedia. I'm glad that Adobe bought them out because the way that the company looked in the end wasn't the same as the first few years I was using their products. But I am afraid of what Adobe will do to the Macromedia suite. KEEP YOUR MX2004 STUDIO. It may contain the last stable version of Dreamweaver. I can imagine working on web sites for the next 5 years with MX2004. If DW8 gets a good update, then I would recommend getting it at that point because the new features are really cool and worth the upgrade if you are in a professional environment. If not, then you may not even notice them.
48 of 51 found the following review helpful:
 Missing manual is unforgivable. Thanks Dreamweaver !Jan 04, 2007
By Eddie Landsberg
"My 10th year as a reviewer ! ! !"
No doubt, DREAMWEAVER is in a league of its own... its unrivaled... sets the standards and unless you're a master of freehand code *essential* for designing a professional e-commerce level website (say similar to the one you're now visiting!) So why the 3 stars...? well, despite the fact that its recently been added as part of the CREATIVE SUITE upgrade (meaning lot's of former GO LIVE users will be jumping over) it comes (get this...) WITHOUT an instruction manual... which to me is a bit of an insult. Of course you can access the information by going to the HELP menu or downloading the supporting documentation online, but I hate to say this... some people like myself actually like to read and study training manuals when they're away from the computer, some even like to sit on the toilet and read, even read on planes and lavish a few moments of their life NOT staring into a computer screen (*and this is coming from a bonified net addict!) Being told "Just go to our website and print it out..." is a bit arrogant - - especially considering that the features in DREAMWEAVER go well beyond any of the other programs out there and do require study if you really want to master the program. - - I'm confused, is the aim to save the rainforest, or make an extra buck? I wonder how many people reading this wouldn't mind paying the extra money for a printed manual (which a member of the advisory team has actually made and is also selling on AMAZON) ??? - - Maybe I'm just whining and complaining... maybe people who've already been using the product don't need one anyway... but I wonder if I'm the only person who is very upset about this ???
17 of 17 found the following review helpful:
If you use a CSS get DW 8Jan 04, 2006
By Peter Disalvo
"Phil Davis"
If you use a lot of CSS DW8 is fantastic. This is a huge headache saver and time saver for CSS developers. In my mind the price for a new DW 8 will quickly be made up in saved development time.
On the otherhand plan on SLOW development. Adding this to your system (like MX) is like tying an anchor to your desktop or stepping back five or six years in the computer world. From what blogs & reviews I have read it aint a RAM issue, this is just slow. I am on Mac OS X 10.3.9
Still if you are a web dev DW is king, personally I wouldn't give it up for anything but the perfomance issues must be addressed.
See all 25 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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