How to Choose Dream Weaver

Dream Weaver is a Web development program created by Adobe Systems. The most up-to-date version of Dream Weaver is "Version 8." Dream Weaver supports many types of Web technologies, including CSS and JavaScript. It's available for both Mac and Windows systems. Follow these steps to find out if Dream Weaver is the right tool for you.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. What is your Web building experience? Dream Weaver is an excellent program for people not familiar with writing HTML code to create a website. Because the program can hide the details of the HTML code, non-coders, as well as coders, can use Dream Weaver without too much trouble.

2. How complex is your site going to be? Because Dream Weaver is designed for non-coders, its product can be less-than-perfect. Many Web professionals criticize the program for creating pages that are too big and therefore perform poorly on Web browsers.

3. Find out if you are you using Windows Vista. Dream Weaver 8 isn't fully compatible with the Windows Vista operating system. If you're using Windows Vista, you may experience some trouble using Dream Weaver.

4. Determine the level of your programming experience. Dream Weaver allows the user to incorporate other content creation tools and filter and display such scripting technologies as ColdFusion, JavaServer and PHP without any previous programming experience. This makes it ideal if you're a novice at Web programming and construction.

Tips & Warnings

• As you build, check your work by previewing the pages in different browsers.
• You can build multiple pages with similar structures by using the "templatization" feature.
• Adobe has announced that it will not be updating its creative programs to be compatible with Microsoft Vista.
• Code produced with Dream Weaver does not comply with W3C standards. It performs poorly on the "Acid2 Test" that's developed by the "Web Standards Project."

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on 6/16/2007 Dreamweaver is now owned by Adobe. Purchasing Adobe CS3 Studio will get you a suite including Adobe Dreamweaver.