I used Dreamweaver on a PC for years. When I switched to a Mac, I tried Coda - didn’t care for it at all. Rapidweaver seemed to much like iWeb - very cookiecutter. Great if you need a quick site, but not real code-friendly. I have settled on two great apps - TextMate by macromates and CSSEdit by MacRabbit. Not WYSIWYG, but they are both amazing apps. With TextMate I can edit directly on the server through CyberDuck FTP, so I can immediately see my changes on the server once I hit save.
Defacto for wysiwyg editing yes I agree. It’s a good design tool for design-oriented developers but few web programmers actually use it.
Yeah it’s a pity image ready is dead but I say good riddance to GoLive, what a dreadful app!
Just as a matter of interest, are the dreamweaver users here mostly working in wysiwyg mode for static (ie plain HTML and CSS) sites or is anyone using DW to make server driven sites from PHP, ASP.NET or JSP.
If you’re purely designing static driven sites then DW is the best tool out there - unless you prefer something template driven then I’d go for rapidweaver or even iweb.
As a coding environment I found DW quite inadequate compared to TextMate or Coda. In fact when I moved to mac DW was the biggest disappointment for me. Admittedly I haven’t used DWCS3; DW8 and MX was quite un-PHP friendly and it didn’t even include code completion for that language (I do 95% of my development in PHP). I’d be interested to hear if DWCS3 has improved PHP support.
Here is the list of the new features from 8 to 9 (CS3)
adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/upgrade/
a few enhancements but in reality more of a “splash screen” update from 8.
Yes instead of development I should have said design. Many people I know including myself use PS, FL, DW, IMR to design an overall look of a site or template then if you want dynamic hand the basic template of to a hardline coder and then they can work out the back end, sometimes coming to you for a header, footer, or page design then they use those building blocks to assemble a working dynamic site.
Hey Chris have you ever used Joomlia? What is your take on Joomlia sites?
I’ve designed quite a few Joomla sites. Awesome CMS. I use it and Drupal, but usually turn to Joomla when I need to turn a site over to non-technical users. It’s administrative interface rocks!
Hey Wock, I’ve used Joomla on occasion; it’s very good and quick to implement and like direland said it’s perfect when you’re doing work for non-techies and clients who want something cheap, fast and cheerful. I’ve also learnt a lot from perusing it’s codebase 
For something light-weight and tailored though it can be overkill.
Nothing wrong with the PS, FL, DW, IMR workflow; in fact that’s how I started to learn web dev. Design mode → Split View → Code View → Code Mode and then finally moved to TextEdit and Coda. Took about 3 years and 5 sites but I’m really glad I made the transition.
Thanks for the link too. Looks like DW is moving in some solid directions but I agree it doesn’t look like a substantial improvement on 8 but that’s Adobe for you. I’ve been using InDesign since version 2 and the only thing I’ve seen - in practical terms - from that to CS2 is the size of the footprint and some XML crap that is next to useless for technical writers.
Heh heh, yeah. As a tech writer, I got really excited when I heard that the XML/long document features from FrameMaker were being integrated into InDesign. ‘Finally,’ I thought, ‘I won’t have to have Windows to do FrameMaker work’.
Sadly, it was completely b0rked - nowhere near the power and stability of FrameMaker. InDesign is great for what it is, but it’s still no Long Document editor.
FrameMaker is another product that’s been all but abandoned by Adobe. No major updates for 5 years, and then the update they DID put out (FrameMaker 8) had no changes except PDF 1.8 support and a CS3 splash screen. And still no new Mac version 
Ah well, no call to uninstall VMWare fusion just yet…
Tell me about! I’m stuck using bootcamp until - or if- Adobe ever get around to porting FM8 to Mac. There were rumours of it but when ever I’ve contacted Adobe they sing the same tune ‘no plans as yet, but keep visiting our for the latest news and information’. Personally I don’t see it happening.
In my last two jobs I’ve been stuck tech writing with Office and InDesign. Adobe’s pricing of the creative suite will probably kill FM eventually because company’s purchasing officers won’t pay for FM when their IT suppliers wave the photoshop carrot under the nose.
As we agree though InDesign is appalling for our job and quite frankly FM is now so outdated it’s almost as bad. Do you reckon we could leverage multimarkdown to have scrivener export to DITA or Docbook? I’m unfamiliar with MMD but I can’t imagine it’s that difficult.
Nice to see another Aussie tech writer on the forum
Adobe nixing FM for OSX was a move to “kill” quark but in reality Adobe is shooting themselves in the foot.
You can sign the petition for requesting FM for OSX here
fm4osx.org/
Indesign 5 (CS3) is really the best version to date BUT the improvements are more so for those that use it for DESIGN and commercial layout.
Long Documents (especially Tech Documents) in indesign fall short of expectations. You would think Adobe would have two versions of Indesign.
The Indesign that comes with CS3 and maybe an IndesignTechPro purchased update that would incorporate FM8 technologies seamlessly into the Indesign workflow.
Indesign is wonderful for incorporating PS files, AI, PDF, and about any graphic file without a hitch. It has wonderful design tools for creativity but it falls short when handling and organizing really long technical documents.
As to XML I think Adobe is still on the fence and a little confused. They set their eyes on Flash format and are really pushing their Adobe Air format
labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/
But I have noticed Adobe acting quirky before. Remember when Apple released Final Cut pro?
And how about Adobe Type Manager never seeing OSX.
Or the quiet death of Image Ready and GoLive (I can understand GoLive but IMR should have been fully combined with PS instead of just killing it in favor of Fireworks)
And why would you release Adobe Framemaker for Windoze and not develop it for OSX? OSX would by far be the better platform. To gain market share in mac users that use Quark in their workflow…
The detailed answer. More people on the Mac Side purchase Indesign than on the PC side. If Framemaker were on the Mac side then they wouldn’t get the “numbers” to dominate the publishing market in order to squeeze Quark out. Hence they convince the Mac Users to purchase Indesign to not only replace quark but another avenue is those that use Framemaker. Adobe targets them as well to switch to indesign to further entrench themselves in the publishing market for total domination.
But what Adobe doesn’t get is there are avid Framemaker users that would use Indesign as a replacement if it could actually handle things as well as Framemaker (which it does not).
Adobe created the best layout program (indesign) but they missed the boat in thinking that a design program would be just as good as a specialized program (FM8) when it comes to lengthy documents.
I think Adobe loses focus on the overall roadmap sometimes and then has to spend time “catching up”
I do think once they have entrenched themselves better in competing with Quark that they will eventually release Framemaker for OSX, of course after they have already switched Framemaker users to an “Indesign” workflow.
It would be interesting if someone wrote a “plugin” that worked with Indesign that gave Indesign more power and flexability in handling long Tech documents. If someone succeeded in doing that they could make a fortune in no time.
I have tried Joomla on a few sites (I like it) I come from a Static Web Design background and I am getting my feet wet in Dynamic. I have played with PHP-Nuke a tad but really like the Joomla setup and admin tools. But I have noticed that some users cannot access the site sometimes and I adjusted the Security setting to level 2 per the instructions (For proxy users /aol) but still sometimes they cannot reach the site. I used another template on another site and they had no access problems that I know of so I have to figure out if it is the “template” causing the error or the “setup and installation of Joomla”
New to it and I am not a hardline coder (Static design or basic PHP config file adjustment) but I do not know PHP or coding extensive enough.
the one drawback I had with Joomlia is custom designing for me is limited to the template and what I can replace (template graphics, etc).
I think one day I may try to learn how to design a Joomla template and knock the socks off my pet cat. 