What's so special about Dreamweaver?

I use it
but i feel the only way to find out is to see for your self

You can donload a 30 day trial from http://www.macromedia.com

Give it a go.

Well it costs hundreds of dollars.

It doesn't do anything that you can't do with lots of FREE editors.

It adds MM_ to half the javascript code so everybody can tell you used Dreamweaver.

I give up .. what is so great about it????

Dreamweaver is the best WYSIWYG editor out there. By far. It doesn't add extra messy HTML like others do (ahem... can anyone say Front Page/??) and everything works in both browsers (depending on release versions of course - DW 3 code may not necessarily work in NS 6 for example). Oh, and DW doesn't change your code if you edit it by hand, unlike some of the other ones out there. Their JavaScripts to tend to be rather messy though (I don't usually use them)

I find that I switch between Dreamweaver and Homesite quite often. Sometimes I find that it is much easier to use a WYSIWYG for certain tasks - like preliminary page layout, for example. Setting up a tabled layout in dreamweaver is so much easier than hand coding. You can use your template image (your mock-up in photoshop or whatever) as a template for your design in Dreamwever (it shows up as a background image temporarily while you're working with it - you can fade the transparency of it and everything) and then draw your tabled layout on top of it. It makes it really easy to see where you need to merge cells and where exactly to put which images. I usually start my layouts like this and then do the fine tuning in Homesite.

Another thing is that it integrates very will with other Macromedia products, so if you use Fireworks or Flash a lot DW could be very handy. There's also a lot of other tricks in there - like behavours which make scripting easy if you're not comfortable doing it yourself (or don't want to spend the time looking for or writing the script you need), site management tools, lots more.

Now, I mentioned WYSIWYG above - until the latest version (v. 4.0), DW wasn't very good when you wanted to edit the code by hand - the HTML window basically looks like netscapes "View Source" - V. 4.0, though, improves on that a lot. It could be the perfect tool for people who like to switch back and forth - I can't wait to try it!

Oh, and it doesn't really cost all that much compared to other standard design tools like Photoshop for example. (you can get DW and Fireworks together for about USD $400)

[Edited by Megan Jack on Jan. 04, 2001 at 10:20 PM]

Well, don't put any weight into what I'm about say....

I have a pirated version of DW2. I tried it, and didn't like it. I was just used to coding in Notepad, and was not familiar with WYSIWYG programs. All the little icon intimidated me... j/k. WYSIWYG programs just never cought on to me. Don't know why.

That may change.... I have a class in the Spring. I got my parents to buy me the Macromedia Web Design Studio for $200 at the campus bookstore. (hehe, I'm 19, have a job and I can still get my parents to buy me stuff, ). The package comes with Flash 4 (with free upgrade to 5), FreeHand 9.0.2, FireWorks 3, DreamWeaver 3. So I'll have to learn how to use DW (and I guess how to use all the titles together, as Megan Jack was saying).

My editor of choice... M$ Visual InterDev. Why? Because we use it at work, and I'm very comfortable writting pure code with it. (it also offers help with ASP and JS coding)

I use the html part of frontpage.

Sometimes notepad is the best way to do any html, but dreamweaver is just a pathetic way to get more money.

It looks horrible, feels horrible, and just screws up code.

At least frontpage works with IE pretty well, and since it's the big bad browser from microsoft, it's going to be used by a larger percent of people, meaning that your webpage will at least come out right