New Features in Adobe Dreamweaver CS3

Many software upgrades offer poor value for money and many have bugs. However, there are some upgrades which always worth having. Adobe Dreamweaver upgrades tend to be of this type.

Since web development is constantly evolving, each new release of web programs like Dreamweaver tend to contain features which are introduced in response to changes and new technologies in the way websites are constructed and elements that can be placed on web pages. Dreamweaver is now an Adobe product, since the acquisition of Macromedia. So let’s see what Adobe have done to enhance what is probably the most widely-used web development tool in the world.

The previous version of Dreamweaver, version 8, assumed that most users were using tables for the layout of their pages. Since then, there has been a shift towards creating more accessible page layouts using cascading style sheets (CSS). This change is reflected in Dreamweaver CS3 which now includes a series of useful CSS layouts which can be used as the basis for new pages or, more typically, new templates. Each layout contains HTML comments which explain how they are put together and how they can be modified.

Manipulation of CSS code has also been made easier with the addition of features for reorganising styles and transferring them between style sheets. Users can now automatically transfer an inline CSS style to a style sheet or convert an embedded style sheet into an external one.

Dreamweaver CS3’s browser compatibility check allows developers to target specific versions of all the major browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Safari) and generate a report detailing CSS-related issues with elements on the current page.

Dreamweaver has long had great features for integrating content with Fireworks. This new version extends a similar level of integration with the more widely-used Adobe Photoshop. Documents, slices or selections can be copied from Photoshop and pasted straight into Dreamweaver. An Image Preview window then appears in which compression and optimisation settings may be specified before the image is saved.

As well as enhanced support for CSS, Dreamweaver now allows the inclusion of elements of the new Ajax technology which uses JavaScript to add a new level of interactivity to web pages by updating the page with elements from a server without having to reload the page. Dreamweaver’s implementation of Ajax is via the Spry framework. This is a collection of JavaScript-based code which provides a simple way for web designers to add Ajax content to their pages without having to type a line of code.

Dreamweaver CS2 has several different kinds of widgets. For example, there are menus and submenus which allow developers to design complex navigation systems which would otherwise take days to code. Then there are form validation widgets which check the content entered by a user into form fields. There is also a widget for creating a tabbed interface which displays different content in the same place depending on which tab the user clicks on.

Spry effects work on most HTML elements. In response to user actions, they will do things like fading, zooming or shrinking an element. The kind of stuff traditionally done using Flash.

Spry Data sets are JavaScript objects that display data from an XML source in an HTML table. There is also a useful drill-down capability whereby users can click on summary information displayed in rows of a table to display detailed information in another region of the page.

Adobe has not forgotten Mac users in this upgrade either. Dreamweaver CS3 now has Intel-based Mac Compatibility. This makes CS3 the first version of Dreamweaver to run natively on Intel-based Macs (as well as PowerPCs).

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