In my view, Dreamweaver hit that point maybe two versions ago. The last release, CS3, introduced a few neat tools (most of which I’ve never used) and the latest version, CS4, adds a few more tools and smoothes off a few rough edges. But, even so, I have to say that I really wasn’t champing at the bit for another upgrade and, in the couple of months since I began using CS4, I really haven’t made much use of its new features.
These features include a ‘live view’ which sort of ‘activates’ the page in the editor by ‘turning on’ CSS styling and JavaScript effects. This displays an approximation of the way the page will appear in the browser (this will generally be more satisfactory with static HTML pagers and less so with dynamic pages generated by, for example, PHP or Ruby On Rails). Useful but not really a killer feature.
There are various other additions such as Subversion (version control) integration, improved JavaScript editing including ‘code hinting’ and tools to help create desktop applications using Adobe’s new AIR framework.
But probably the most striking new feature is the user interface. This is similar to the interface of Fireworks (see the Bitwise review) and is pretty nice and pretty slick. But again, not something that I can, in all honesty, say that I’ve been yearning for.
The best news, in my opinion, is that the upgrade from Dreamweaver CS3 to CS4 was entirely painless. All my web sites were migrated entirely automatically and I wasn’t even prompted to re-enter my passwords.
In short, while there is nothing in Dreamweaver CS4 that’s really blown me away, it remains by far my favourite web editor and it’s the one I plan to stick with.
For full feature guide see: http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/
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