Advantages and Limitations of Dreamweaver

Advantages of Using Dreamweaver
There are many advantages with using Dreamweaver for designing and maintaining web sites.

1. Building and editing web sites is fast. A user may start with one of many supplied css templates and quickly modify it for their purposes. The GUI interface allows for simultaneous designing and coding. The user can see what their html looks like immediately after writing the code.

2. The split view interface allows the user to quickly build a page in the design view and then refine the html in the coding view. Also, code that needs to be modified may be located quickly by selecting the corresponding element in the design pane. The code pane automatically scrolls to the html for the selected element and highlights the code. The ability to work form one interface also speeds up web development.

3. Dynamic features may be added to a site through the use of page behaviors, Dreamweaver's JavaScript interface, and server behaviors, Dreamweaver's database connection interface.

4. Also, basic image optimization may be accomplished within Dreamweaver and more advanced image processing may be accomplished through the close integration between Dreamweaver and Fireworks. Finally, Flash buttons and other basic Flash elements may be added within the Dreamweaver interface.

5. Hundreds of third party extensions that add functionality may be downloaded for free or purchased. Extensions are usually written in html, JavaScript, or C. Most extensions do one or more of the following: automate changes to a document, interact with Dreamweaver to open or close windows or documents, connect to a data source, insert or manage a block of server code.

6. Dreamweaver offers both a JavaScript API and a Utility API.

7. Dreamweaver is customizable. The user may set preferences controlling how and to what extent accessibility is coded. The user may adjust code coloring, what fonts are used for coding, and how code is highlighted. The user may also set which browsers to use for previewing a page.

8. Besides setting preferences, the user may also directly edit the configuration files. In this way, menus may be rearranged to suite individual taste. Tabs may be added or removed. The names of commands may be changed, added, or removed. Anything about the look and feel of Dreamweaver may be customized within the configuration files.

Limitations of Dreamweaver:
1. Dreamweaver has a steep learning curve. It is a complex program that is difficult to master. In the time it takes to learn Dreamweaver, an individual could be productively hand coding web pages.

2. Many of the existing features could be improved. The check in/check out feature has problems. When checking in multiple files, some files remain checked out. The user must review their file list for missed files and check them in once more.

3. Pages built from complex nested templates sometimes become corrupt during use and must be rebuilt. The visual interface for building tables does not always work.

4. The user must switch between code views and various design views in order to optimize table construction.

5. Although for the most part, Dreamweaver generates efficient html code, the code usually needs to be touched up by hand after making several subsequent changes in the design view.

6. The site map feature needs a great deal of refinement in order to really be useful. Rather than showing a true site map, this feature shows to which pages each page links. The user may continue to follow the link structure in circles.

7. Finally, even though Dreamweaver is very flexible, the interface suggests a particular workflow. Dreamweaver reflects its origins as a wysiwyg web design tool by favoring visual methods of coding pages.

Conclusion :
1) Although far from perfect, Dreamweaver MX 2004 is the best tool of its type and gets a little better, with each new version.

2) Dreamweaver's flexibility facilitates its use by all members of a multidisciplinary Web design team.
3) Dreamweaver is arguably the best stand alone tool to use for developing today's complex Web sites that incorporate multiple technologies, integration with databases and content management systems and that strive for increased usability and use of web standards.