Macromedia Studio MX-Win Upgrade from 1 Macromedia product

Other products by Macromedia

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000066EUU
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 29, 2002
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,893 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #9 in	Software > Web Development > Web Site Hosting > Application Servers
  #44 in	Software > Web Development > Web Effects > Objects
  #89 in	Software > Web Development > Web Page Editors > WYSIWYG

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Studio MX is the ideal bundle for professional Web designers, bringing together Dreamweaver MX for page design, Flash MX for animation and interactivity, and Fireworks MX for editing and optimizing graphics. Users also receive FreeHand 10, a full-featured vector image editor, and ColdFusion MX for dynamic Web applications. As for the quality of the individual products, Macromedia proves yet again why the company continues to earn the highest praise in its field of expertise.

Dreamweaver MX is a visual Web editor that generates highly compatible code while also including useful site-management features. Flash MX is the de facto standard for Web animation, containing rich multimedia content in remarkably compact files. Fireworks is a great tool for putting the finishing touches on existing graphics, adding text effects or other elements, and optimizing the results for Web display. These three are the core Studio MX products, and the suite offers excellent value for these alone.

Integration between the individual products is generally very good. It begins with the interface, which uses common elements such as dockable, collapsible panels and a dynamic property inspector, so that you can switch comfortably between products. On a technical level, the key feature is roundtrip support. You can embed Fireworks graphics and Flash movies in Dreamweaver pages without losing any information, letting you later reopen an element in its original application with all its features intact.

The MX range differs from earlier Macromedia products by targeting application development as well as design. The user will need to build on a Web application server, such as the bundled ColdFusion MX or another supported platform, including ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, or any Java Enterprise Edition server. You can connect to databases through JDBC, OLE DB, or .NET data providers, depending on the server platform you're using. Dreamweaver MX is more developer-friendly than previous versions, with an enhanced code editor incorporating many of the features of HomeSite, Macromedia's code-centric Web page designer. Although ColdFusion MX has its own tag language (ColdFusion Markup Language), it generates Java code that can be deployed on any of the leading Java application servers. This also enables Java developers to extend ColdFusion with custom tags and components. In effect, the combination of Dreamweaver and ColdFusion provides an easy path into dynamic, Java-based Web development. As an alternative to ColdFusion, support for Microsoft .NET is a little less comprehensive, but still good, and includes visual designers for the key ASP.NET server-side controls.

Application development is not just a matter of server-side scripting. Flash MX also has potential as a rich client, with an interface driven by embedded JavaScript. Through a technology called Flash Remoting, Flash MX offers support for Web services. The Studio bundle makes it relatively easy to set up ColdFusion to supply these services and for Flash to consume them. While it may seem strange to think of Flash as a rich client moving beyond the Web page, it does make some sense when you consider that it is cross-platform and very widely deployed. In addition, ColdFusion itself can consume Web services hosted on other platforms.

Taking everything together, Studio MX is an essential development tool for ColdFusion, as well as a great bundle for any Web designer. --Tim Anderson

Amazon.com Product Description

Macromedia Studio MX is an integrated suite of software tools for creating rich Internet applications delivered across major platforms and devices. The collection includes Macromedia Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX, Fireworks MX, FreeHand, a developer edition of ColdFusion MX Server, and Flash Player 6.

Work in a familiar, customizable environment with consistent user interface elements, including color management, drawing tools, code editing, a common Property Inspector, and panel management, all making it easy to move between the applications. Create each element of the Web production process, including developing graphics, laying out HTML pages, coding application logic, building rich user interfaces, and assembling complete solutions--all in one suite.

Take advantage of drag-and-drop visual tools and components, code libraries, and extensive code editing support for developing applications using HTML, XHTML, XML, ColdFusion, ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, or PHP. Integration with ColdFusion MX gives you a fast way to develop Internet applications that incorporate Macromedia Flash. Support includes code samples and reference material to high-performance connectivity, common language support between Dreamweaver, Flash, and ColdFusion, seamless integration with Flash components, and an integrated tool set for tying backend logic with Flash user interfaces.

Note: This is an upgrade version for owners of one of the following products: Dreamweaver, Flash versions 2 through 5, Fireworks, or FreeHand version 7 or later.