Adobe Dreamweaver & Fireworks CS4
Dreamweaver CS4 includes some nice upgrades from the previous version including a new look and Live Code of your page while Fireworks CS4 uses the great CSS layouts for the first time.
Ease of Use, Performance: 24/25
Look & Feel: 24/25
Features 23/25
How much I enjoy 24/25
Total: 95/100
Dreamweaver and Fireworks CS4 may not have long lists of new features but the entire look has been changed to make things look closer across the Web Design program suite so you have less confusion going from one program to the other. Along with this cross platform look you get a performance improvement and some great features like Live View for direct browser responsive changes in Dreamweaver and the new CSS based layouts in Fireworks.
I have not used Fireworks before and found my first time with it both confusing and quite easy but I want to start with Dreamweaver as I am quite familiar with it. Dreamweaver CS4 is not all that different from the previous version but does have a couple of handy features that makes life easier for web designers.
If you use Java script or other programming inside your web pages that update and change the web pages while you’re looking at it the Live View function is going to be a time saver. You simply click the Live View button to view what your web page will look like in your default browser right from Dreamweaver.
You can also use the Live Code button to split the page and get not only the Live View but the Code with the page highlighted in yellow so you can see the live code that the page is currently using. This is especially handy for use with Java script where code will be changing and Dreamweaver shows you this live but the main function is saving time.
Live View is probably the best and most used new feature that I have seen in this version and comes in very handy for a quick check of the page while working on it. It cuts down on the time it takes for the page to come up in your browser and switching back and forth from the browser and your Dreamweaver program.
Other new features include the integration of other programs like Photoshop, Fireworks and Flash so you can change some aspects of elements and images without even opening up those programs. This is really very handy for quick changes such as image resizing where all your doing is changing one aspect of a part of your web design and only need to save the one copy that Dreamweaver is using.
Once you make a change like image size, quality, format or smoothing the program automatically updates the original image that you clicked on for adjusting. You can do these types of internal changes with Photoshop images, Fireworks elements and Flash components as well as jump to the program to edit them.
Photoshop has also been integrated with Dreamweaver in Creative Suite 4 with Smart Objects that adds the object linking directly from the PSD file. This means Dreamweaver will be using the original Photoshop file as its main image and when changes occur to the main file they can be changed easily in Dreamweaver.
This allows site wide changes using simple single image changes if you want to change things like logos or images that you use throughout a site. Small icons will pop up in the corner of images in Dreamweaver showing the status of each image that is a Smart Object to keep you apprised of things like in or out of sync with the original.
Another great feature that arose from user input is a code navigation icon that pops up when an element of a web page is selected that you can click on and bring up a box of code. The code in the pop up box only applies to that item but it does give you the chance to change properties of that item in code easily.
The other large improvement of Dreamweaver CS4 is CSS and adding features that work better with CSS and JavaScript so you can do more within Dreamweaver. Using the code and styles of CSS adds a lot of functionality and you can also get improved functionality for popular JavaScript frameworks with these new features.
I have not done much with JavaScript and CSS but it does make it nice to have these functions now integrated inside Dreamweaver so you can work on all parts of your website in one program. Dreamweaver has not only made things look more like the other programs for web design and other Adobe programs but tried to make it so you do as much as possible inside any one program.
Adobe has done a great job of working with and listening to users who suggest things so many of the updates with CS4 are just that, user suggested improvements. With Dreamweaver being a standard industry program as well as being out for so many years the company is doing a good job of updating it by adding what the users want.