About Dreamweaver

Adobe Dreamweaver is a computer program aimed at Web developers. Dreamweaver works on both PC and Apple computers, and enables the end user to create websites and Web applications using a variety of online technologies such as HTML and Javascript.

History

Adobe Dreamweaver was originally released in December of 1997 by Allaire Systems, a computer manufacturer from Minnesota. Allaire continued to develop the Dreamweaver program until the company was purchased by Macromedia (a graphics and Web development company) in 2001. Macromedia was in turn bought by Adobe Systems in 2005 and incorporated it into Adobe's Creative Suite (a compilation of Adobe's various desktop publishing programs, including Photoshop). Since its first iteration, Dreamweaver has gone through seven major revisions before being brought into the Adobe software family.

Significance

Dreamweaver utilizes extensive desktop publishing code that gives considerable power to both experienced Web developers and first-time users. Dreamweaver lets anyone publish professional-looking websites and Web applications using a variety of powerful Web applications and coding standards, including PHP, CSS, Javascript and HTML. Dreamweaver equalizes the design playing field between large corporations and smaller companies and even home users.

Features

Dreamweaver features a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) Web development editor--users do not need to actually write any computer code. Instead, they can edit Web pages and applications as they would appear to the end consumer; Dreamweaver then makes the manual code edits in the underlying files without the editing user having to tamper with it. Dreamweaver can even synchronize local Web files with online servers using FTP or other data transfer methods, thus managing the entire process of building a site from start to finish. Dreamweaver also features plug-in abilities that let the user extend its functionality as new Internet technologies appear.

Considerations

Dreamweaver is just one of several HTML editors. Compared to many other Web editors from companies such as Apple and Microsoft, Dreamweaver is also one of the most expensive. The consumer should consider what he wants. While Dreamweaver can edit and create simple HTML pages, its strengths lie in its support for other Web technologies such as PHP and server-side scripting. If the consumer does not need such functionality, Dreamweaver may be too powerful and contain software benefits that the end user may not necessarily need.

Warning

Dreamweaver, due to its WYSIWYG editing format, relies heavily on HTML tables. This can create bloated code, which in turn inflates the size of the uploaded website files. Because many Dreamweaver users may not be knowledgeable in the actual process of editing HTML, these bloated files can create clunky Web pages and long load times. Similarly, Dreamweaver websites often fail to pass online HTML standard tests and may not always render properly in non-mainstream Web browsers.