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Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 - Upgrade Edition (PC)
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| Price: | £197.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Delivery on orders over £5. Details |
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk
12 new or used available from £197.99
Average customer review:
Product Description
Top new features of Dreamweaver CS4
Live View--View your web pages under real-world browser conditions with the new Live View, whilst still retaining direct access to the code. This new rendering mode, which uses the open source rendering engine WebKit, displays your designs like a standards-based browser. Changes to the code are immediately reflected in the rendered display. However, Live View is no ordinary static viewport. Trigger your CSS-based navigation to view hover states or pull-down sub-menus, and freeze your page at any point to review the generated code. Explore your code rapidly while viewing the page in the real-world browser rendition of the new Live View. Click to enlarge. |
Related Files and Code Navigator--The Related Files feature displays all the documents associated with your current page, whether CSS, JavaScript, PHP or XML, in a bar along the top of your primary document. Click any related file to edit its source in Code View while viewing the parent page in Design View. Changes made to the related file code are immediately reflected in Design View. Prefer to work at code level? A click in either Code or Design View brings up the Code Navigator pop-up window, which displays CSS rules, server-side includes, external JavaScript functions, Dreamweaver templates, Library files, iframe source files and more.
CSS best practices--Implement CSS best practices without writing code. The new CSS tab in the Properties panel shows the styles for the current selection, plus all applicable CSS rules. Hover over any property to view a jargon-free tool tip. Create and apply new CSS rules in the Properties panel and store in the same document or an external style sheet. Dreamweaver CS4 even gives you control over the specificity of your rule; just click Less Specific or More Specific in the updated New CSS Rule dialog box to target your style precisely.
Code hinting for Ajax and JavaScript frameworks--Write JavaScript quickly and accurately with improved support for JavaScript core/DOM objects (Window, Screen, Document, Event), primitive data types (Object, Array, Number, RegExp, String) and advanced custom functions, with support for parameters, class constructors, and nested objects, updated in real time as you modify your related JavaScript files. Incorporate popular JavaScript frameworks including jQuery, Prototype, and Spry by attaching the appropriate external JavaScript files--Dreamweaver automatically displays code hints on demand. Built-in syntax error detection helps you create accurate code first time, every time.
 The green symbol in the upper left corner of a PSD file inserted into Dreamweaver tells you that the source file and web-ready instance are in sync. Click to enlarge. |
 Panels, like the CSS Styles panel, can be quickly expanded to make modifications to your web page and, with a click, collapsed to allow maximum screen real estate for your design. Click to enlarge. |
Adobe InContext Editing--This new online service lets anyone who can use a browser update content quickly and easily. Design your editable pages in Dreamweaver CS4 to retain total control over the look and feel of your sites; then, simply designate the parts of the page you want your clients to be able to change, with all other sections remaining locked. Easily set CSS styles to ensure entered content is properly and consistently formatted.
HTML data sets--Create your data in a standard HTML table, a series of div tags, or even an unordered list, and then choose Insert > Spry > Spry Data Set to easily integrate that data into a dynamic table on the page, complete with sortable columns, a master-detail layout or other sophisticated displays. It's easier than ever, with real-time previews along the way. Spry Data Set also works with XML files to render information from RSS feeds and other sources.
Improved Photoshop integration--Simply drag and drop a Photoshop PSD file into a Dreamweaver CS4 page to create an image Smart Object. Unlike standard web-page graphics, a Smart Object is tightly linked to its source file, so if you make any changes to the source image, Dreamweaver notes that the files are out of sync; just click the Update from Original icon in the Properties panel to immediately update your image without opening Photoshop. If you’ve used an image several times across your site (e.g. a logo) you can apply updates individually or in bulk, maintaining unique sizes. Photoshop images can also be re-scaled directly in Dreamweaver with no image degradation.
Subversion--Dreamweaver CS4 integrates Subversion for a more robust check-in/check-out experience to handle version control on collaborative projects. Checked modified pages into a Subversion repository directly within Dreamweaver and update your site to get the latest page versions.
Adobe AIR authoring support--Create multi-platform desktop applications from your Dreamweaver HTML and JavaScript sites with new Adobe AIR authoring support, without leaving Dreamweaver. Preview your Adobe AIR applications within Dreamweaver CS4 to make sure everything is working as designed.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #807 in Software
- Brand: Adobe Systems Inc.
- Released on: 2008-11-15
- Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
- Format: DVD-ROM
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: 1.97" h x 5.91" w x 7.87" l, .70 pounds
Editorial Reviews
Product Features
 Combine Live View with Live Code to reveal code as rendered in an interactive state, like hovering over and selecting a Spry data image. Armed with these details, you can quickly modify relevant CSS rules. Click to enlarge. |
- Cross-product integration with key Adobe tools (Flash, Fireworks, Photoshop, Device Central)
- Support for HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, Ajax, PHP, Adobe ColdFusion and ASP
- Full FLV support
- Advanced JavaScript functionality
Customer Reviews
Serious show stopping bug
Dreamweaver CS 4 is nice - though not a massive improvement for me personally over Dreamweaver 8. Certainly it's quite a lot of money for modest improvements. However I'm a web developer not designer so you may get more use out of the new features than me.
What has put me off is a very annoying bug that effects when selecting text in source view. It doesnt happen all the time - I've not yet worked out what chain of actions I need to take for it to start to happen but once it does it doesnt stop. At first I thought my keyboard/mouse had a fault! What happens is in source view I select a small amount of text ( say 2 or 3 lines ) and then Dreamweaver decides it's going to select all of the text in the text block! Clicking and keyboard presses can't undo this! Anyway it changes cutting and pasting from a quick 2 second thing to a few minutes work! I'm actually thinking about going back to Dreamweaver 8!
As I say it doesnt happen all the time and I'm not sure what sets it off. I notice on the web another person with exactly the same issue so at least it's not just me!
--- Edit Mar 2009 ---
After using Dreamweaver CS4 for a few months now I've found it has a small number of real showstopping bugs. The cut and paste issue seems fairly rare but my main issue is my files have a lot of ASP includes and links to external CSS files. In certain situations this causes Dreamweaver to freeze for anything between 30 seconds to a minute or sometimes 2. When I say a lot of includes/css links I've found more than 2 can cause the issue - but not always - it's very unpredictable! I can however easily replicate the bug and narrowed it down to issues with includes. I suspect the program scans all included files and sometimes this causes the freeze.
It didnt seem to be an issue at first but it's now finally got to the point of having to abandon CS4 and revert back to Dreamweaver 8 for my main web design and programming work.
So until they fix the bugs in Dreamweaver I would strongly recommend not buying it.
The Indispensable Tool for Web Design.
If you want to make a website professionally, you NEED Dreamweaver. However it is more targeted at people who want to make websites professionally, not novices. If you're a novice, you will definitely need some training to help you get acquainted with the program.
The main aim that Adobe seems to have taken is to just help you out as much as possible in terms of easing the work flow involved in making a website.
I am a freelance web designer with around 7 years experience, having seen Dreamweaver evolve since version MX way back, you can really notice the difference in this new version of CS4.
I'm not someone for gimmicks, features need to be useful. And having used Dreamweaver CS4 for a few months now testing, I can safely say that the new features greatly aid me while I'm working and I definitely use them. My first impressions opening the software were wow, it looks different, and it has a completely redesigned interface which is consistent across the CS4 line.
Live View is a feature that's going to be most relevant to developers, it lets you see dynamic code like PHP how it actually will on the website and edit it while it's running.
I like the related documents tab which shows you related CSS and javascript files that you might have attached to your HTML document as it allows you to switch without even having to open the separate file. The integration with Photoshop is also a good feature.
Dreamweaver
Bought this after a free trial download from Adobe. Slightly different to the download in that it has probably been updated. Not used all the features yet, just getting to grips with the website! Price is vastly different to the price Adobe want!!!!
