Customer Reviews

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I've been designing with DW for a while now. The 2004 upgrade remains essentially the same, except for a few changes:

[1] The default is now CSS. If you want a tables based layout, you can still work with it but a change needs to be made in the preferences.

[2] The previous Dreamweaver MX supported CSS-P to a degree but editing it wasn't always easy. MM were obviously aware of Dreamweaver's rendering problems and for the new version, have borrowed upon Opera's rendering engine to do some of the hard work and it's now several magnitudes better.

[3] Secure FTP built in

[4] Microsoft Word and Excel copy and paste. Earlier version would lose the formatting when text was pasted inside DW. In this sense, DW now equals Frontpage

[5] On-the-fly cross-browser compatibility checking

[6] Some simple image editing like cropping and tonal adjustments without leaving the program

All this is fine and dandy, some of these features are also a god-send, but the CSS handling is a bit quirky yet. Surely, there must be a simpler and more intuitive way to do all this? There's far too much jumping around the interface required. Instead of providing one really inspired WYSIWYG way to do things, it seems to offer a multiplicity of mediocre alternatives, almost as if the programmers couldn't make their minds up and say, 'Hell, we'll put it all in'. That is a recipe for camels, not thoroughbred racehorses.

If you know your way around Dreamweaver already, you might welcome the new CSS editing facilities but 50% of the full price for an upgrade seems grossly excessive. I'm a bit disappointed that after all this time, Macromedia have produced something that is okay, but not great.

Besides, in the rush for an upgrade (now that GoLive is getting its own feet too) MM seems to have settled for some degree of bloat. My DW updated to 2004 MX is even more of a RAM hog than before.

Net net: I'd wait for the next version upgrade, by when hopefully MM would have tied in all these loose ends.

I'm one of those people who tends to upgrade their more expensive software every other version rather than every one. That being said I've used both DreamWeaver 2 and 4, but never MX (5).

I didn't notice a lot of improvement in version 4 over 2, so I wasn't that anxious to do the upgrade. But I have to say that I love MX 2004! I won't go into an extensive list of things that I can do in this one that I couldn't before, but suffice it to say, there are a lot of them.

The biggest improvements to me are the more integrated workplace and the ditching of the floating pallets. I hated the floating pallets! I used the drop-down menus instead because they bugged me so much! I also love the improved FTP/Site Management interface. Secure FTP, people!

The tool is slick and powerful. Well worth the cost to upgrades. The bad thing: It doesn't like my Amazon Associates code! It tags them as invalid HTML and ignores them when it uploads the site. As a result, I still have to edit those pages in FrontPage and upload the site using a traditional FTP client. Not good (this is why it only gets 4 stars).

Also, in the next version Macormedia should add an "as you go" spell checker or at least put a button for spell check on one of the button bars. This is another thing I use FrontPage for. I edit my more text intensive pages in FP and then import them into Dreamweaver.

Don't waste your money on the full suite, though. With the exception of DreamWeaver, none of them are worth the money. I'm glad I qualified for the Academic version (and discount).

The tools are overrated and over priced. If you're a web designer there are free or inexpensive tools that do what you need from Freehand and Fireworx. (I am no fan of Microsoft, but after trying several tools, I do most of my web photo editing in Picture It!) The one feature I use from Fireworx is the button creator. The rest of it's extranious. Flash may look nice, but it slows your site down too much for my taste. I almost always skip the Flash animation when I visit a website.

Bottom line -- Buy DreamWeaver, but skip the suite.

This is a review of the PC version.

Yes, the new Dreamweaver indeed looks great... Unfortunately, that's where my praise for this product ends. I have used DW off-and-on since version 3, and used it hardcore since MX was released last year. When MX was released in 2002, I noticed a little bit of a performance slowdown, but nothing too cumbersome. Besides they added alot of new features in MX, so a little slowdown was to be expected. However, with MX 2004, only a handful of new features have been added, and these features are really more "convenience" features than blatant necessities.

MM added this new tag parsing feature that automatically goes through the entire document and pulls a list of tag attributes each time you switch to a different tag. So, let's say you're at a TABLE tag, and then click on a IMG tag. The program will go through and make this list of attributes and CSS options. Decent idea, but it is SO SLOW!! I am very disappointed with how poorly this software functions. My computer is still fairly fast (1.3Gig, 512 RAM), and I am disappointed to see how ineffective this program is. Unlike going from V4 to MX, there is really no need to upgrade to MX 2004 if you already own MX. I downloaded the trial and considered purchasing the suite, but I don't think I will be making this purchase now.

Unless you really need the latest and (not so) greatest tool, I would pass on this one and stick with the original MX version.

FYI, Macromedia has gone the way of other vendors and requires you to register the product online with a unique serial code.

I've used Dreamweaver MX on my PowerBook G4 667 (768mb RAM) with every version of OS X for over a year now. It has run flawlessly.

The upgrade to Dreamweaver MX 2004 has been dissapointing mainly because it's so slow - ridiculously slow. After previewing my work in a browser then switching back to DW, it typically takes about 5 seconds for the document window and editing windows/panes to display and then a few seconds longer before I can actually begin selecting them and making changes. Editing has the same problem whether using the 'Code' or 'Design' modes. I thought using the Code mode would speed it up since the software wouldn't have to re-draw the screen after every edit, but that didn't help a bit.

The application has also crashed many times and that says a lot because OS X applications do NOT crash often. When designing websites, I always have Safari, IE, Netscape, and Opera running along with Virtual PC running Netscape, IE, and Opera open just so I can check consistency across many platforms. I can't even recall DWMX crashing once with all these applications open, but DWMX 2004 crashes at least a few times per session whether or not I have all these applications open. It's slow and unstable. These are just a couple of the MANY complaints I have with the software.

I won't waste your time (or mine) by writing a huge negative review. I see that just about everybody is upset with their purchase of this software. If you have DWMX, I suggest you DO NOT upgrade it until Macromedia has addressed the problems that people have spoke of. I hope that somebody from Macromedia reads these reviews and the company takes acknowledgement of them. This upgrade is just not worth the hassle and definitely not worth the money. I'm uninstalling it in lieu of DWMX and I'm sure many others have done the same. I gave this software two stars because, despite its downfalls, it is functional and you can build website with it, but if I compared it to DWMX, I would give give it zero stars because DWMX is better than DWMX 2004.

I have used Dreamweaver 4 and MX. MX is certainly good enough to keep using, especially if your client websites are mostly maintenance projects. If you're still into DW4, you may be falling behind the proverbial power curve.

I've been using MX 2004 exclusively for about a month now. Buying wasn't an easy decision. When I purchase any piece of software, I don't just fill-out some requisition form, I have to spend my own hard-earned dollars. I read and re-read the other opinions posted here at Amazon before I ventured forth and downloaded a trial copy. To be honest, I found some of the criticisms valid, but most just never materialized for me. In fact, I'm more than satisfied that it was a great decision to move up to the new Version 7.0.

Here's my take on the `cons:'
* 2004 does take a little longer than MX to crank up, probably on the order of 5-6 seconds longer. Regardless, if you run Photoshop, Illustrator or for that matter any Adobe application, you'll find the Dreamweaver MX 2004 start up still very speedy in comparison.
* Other critics have mentioned DW MX 2004 crashes especially with other programs running. Sorry, I just haven't had an occurrence.
* The FTP is just as smooth as MX. The coding seems to work fine for me. I can't identify any sluggishness or other maladies.

But, my computer is a PC running a Pentium 4 (2.40 GHz ) with 512 MB RAM on a very stable Microsoft XP Pro OS. Yes, it is a relatively "fast" computer with enough Ram to run the applications that I need to build my websites. It should be. You can't haul 25 tons of bricks with a pickup truck. If you're investing in top-of-the-line software, you need to have the hardware to support it. (MACs? I retired my MAC several years ago when I realized the Internet isn't part of the print media industry.)

Here's why this software is worth the investment:
* First and foremost is the unparalleled support for CSS. Let's face it, CSS is an integral part of the future for web development. It's time to buy your ticket and ride.
* Very important is the support for ASP.NET, PHP, XML, XHTML and other emerging technologies.
* Really cool for me is the new customization capabilities for the work environment, especially the Inserts Bar "Favorites" tab.
* There's a totally new integration capability for Word and Excel files that gets really exciting when you realize how easy it is to post documents straight to live with very little effort.
* If you're obsessive-compulsive for details the new cross browser validation rule checker is right up your ally. If you're not, this new feature will drive you crazy.
* Finally, the enhanced coding tools help make the everyday web page building experience go a lot easier.

Today's web developers need to use heavy duty applications that are capable of employing new technologies like PHP, ASP.NET and new standards like CSS in order to build the first-class websites their clients expect. Dreamweaver MX 2004 fits that bill perfectly. Moral: if web development is your profession, it's a given that you will make wise business investments that allow you to keep up with the rapidly evolving Internet. And, Dreamweaver MX 2004 will insure an excellent ROI.

Get Macromedia Dreamweaver 4. They have turned this once great web design package into a hybrid cross of something that looks like Netscape/Flash.

I used it for a month, uninstalled it and went back to Dreamweaver 4. It really is that terrible and the work space is terribly cluttered making it very hard to work within.

Bottom Line -- Get Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 instead.

I eagerly anticipated upgrading to the latest version of Dreamweaver, but was thoroughly disappointed after I installed this dog on my machine.

First of all, Macromedia has a hard time accepting that there are bugs in their software. They always talk about bugs in a way that makes you think they are not bugs at all. Plus the buglist is always hard to find the first time around. You generally have to dig pretty deep on their site to find them. Once you do, you are seldom able to find the answers/solutions to your problem. I have personally relied on 3rd party reviews, and BLOG's to keep me informed.

Now that I have got that out of the way, let me talk about my specific problems:

FTP - I tried to sync my site up with my testing server and had immediate problems. I kept getting an error that says 'sync commands not available, permission denied'. Yet when I tried accessing my FTP server with a different client it worked just fine. Finally, I decided to see what Macromedia had to say about the problem. They begrudgingly acknowledged the problem, but have no estimated time for a fix. After reading forums on the Macromedia site, I discovered that there are major problems with the built in FTP functionality.

CSS - Macromedia is touting this as one of the main reasons to upgrade. I would beg to differ. The CSS tools are buggy, and function 100% different than they did in the previous version of MX.

After discovering all of these bugs, and absolutely no benefits, I decided to go back to Dreamweaver MX, and ditch the 2004 upgrade. Hopefully Macromedia will give me my money back!

Even in this day and time, intimidation still keeps a lot of people away from computers and/or certain software. I'd have to say the mere thought of creating a website has scared the heck out of me for a few years, even though I've wanted to get involved on the creation side. That all changed once I got my hands on Dreamweaver MX 2004. (In a review within a review ... I'd have to say that it's been made easier with the purchase of the ultimate guide to using Dreamweaver MX 2004. The guide is called "Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual" and you can find it here at Amazon by following this link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596006314/qid=1119355630/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-2919037-2524025 ) I haven't experienced one single bug in this program so don't waste your time listening to the older reviews. (Most of those bugs have obviously been fixed by now.)

Dreamweaver is that rare breed of software that has made it possible to jump head first into without drowning in confusion. The interface is as self explanatory as it gets, and Macromedia has gone to extensive lengths to take error out of the website creation equation. Being fairly new, I appreciate the ability to build something without having to completely understand what is going on behind the scenes. With that said, I don't want go on this way forever, because I want to become knowledgeable about the whole process. Dreamweaver puts that into your hands, and let's you decide how much you want the interface to do, and at the same time gives you the freedom to do all of the coding by hand if you choose to. I find myself wanting to understand the coding more and more, and eventually I'll probably find a good balance between relying on the interface, and doing straight up coding by hand. The bottom line is that Dreamweaver MX 2004 is the perfect software because it brings both novice and expert to the table together and it's never exclusionary like so many programs that have come before it.

I owned Dreamweaver MX, and then bought MX 2004. Overall I'm glad I did, but I could see how some people might not need to upgrade. I mostly like the changes in CSS. It's added some wysiwyg functionally for certain CSS stuff. It does seem slower to load though. I run it on a 1.0GHz Pentium M Tablet PC with 512 MB of RAM and it takes a bit to come up but after it does performance is fine. Then it also takes a while to close. I really enjoy using macromedia though and would DEFINITELY recommend it over Frontpage which I used before I switched a couple years ago.

Also, I noticed some people complained that MX 2004 takes a REALLY long time to load. I might add taht 7.0 was the original version released and then they released an upgrade to version 7.1 for free (that you can get at macromedia.com) and it is supposed to improve "overall performance and stability" according to macromedia, but the version I bought came with v 7.1 so I never experienced 7.0. This could make a difference though.

Performance on the MAC platform is SLOW and CLUNKY. This new version has nice improvements over the previous version but the performance issues make the workflow annoying rather than enjoyable. I would wait until Macromedia releases an upgrade for this version before getting it. Believe me I've been a Dreamweaver user for many versions now.