Neil Merton

Initial Thoughts on Dreamweaver CS3

No, I’ve not received an early copy of Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 - but I have been spending some time reading up about the release on Adobe’s website, so I thought I’d share what my initial thoughts are on this upcoming release’s main new features.

1. The support for Spry (AJAX): How many people use Spry (it’s Adobe’s AJAX framework)? I looked at it briefly, once, but didn’t like how it inserts ’spry:command‘ into html tags - so that’s where I left my investigation. So, no, this feature is not one that interests me.
2. Photoshop & Fireworks integration: Ok - it is just me or is it really not that diffecult to have Photoshop/Fireworks open while you’re working in Dreamweaver? Do I really need to copy directly from either of these programs and paste directly into Dreamweaver? I don’t think so. So again, this feature doesn’t interest me.
3. Browser Compatibility Check: Code semantic and valid css and xhtml and your code should be compatible with most browsers! This feature isn’t for me.
4. CSS Advisor website: Won’t this be available to the general public anyway?
5. CSS layouts: Glad to see that this is included - it should help those starting out in web design to get to grips with css layouts, but it’s not one for me - I prefer to get my hands dirty thank you.

So there you have my initial thoughts. This isn’t a release that will excite any hand-coder. Sure there seem to be some great new features for people starting out in web design - but are these people really going to be willing to shell out their hard-earned cash for this release?

Will I be paying $199 (upwards!) for the upgrade? Unfortunately not - I’ll be putting my money towards an editor that is trying to make life easier for coders.

Gem of an Editor

I recently had the need of a code editor that could make backups of files before saving them - a feature that I though I wouldn’t be able to find in a free application.

After a short Google session I came upon Crimson Editor. It’s no longer being maintained but it is definately worth investigating if you’re looking for a light-weight code editor. The one feature that I do love is the ability to create a copy of the file before it was editted when you save it. This can also be done in such a way that they get autonumbered - thus creating a simply version control system.

There is a set of ColdFusion tags in a syntax file (click on ‘Syntax Files’ and then search for the term ‘ColdFusion’) and these are very easy to install. It doesn’t have an auto-complete feature, but this can be a good thing as it forces you to remember the tags.