Macromedia Dreamweaver 4

By Nathan Segal.

All sites in Dreamweaver 4 make use of the Assets panel, which allows you to see all site assets, such as library items, images, colors, external URLs, rich media, templates, and scripts. You can easily drag these items from the Assets Inspector into your pages. The Assets inspector has a preview pane, and will organize your items by which are most often or most recently used, or by categories and nicknames.

The JavaScript Debugger is a new addition, especially important for serious JavaScript programmers. You can write your code in Dreamweaver directly, then run the debugger to check for errors. The debugger checks your code for syntax errors first, then runs with the browser to check for logical errors. For logical errors, the debugger lets you examine variables and document properties while the program is running.

An important addition is the Macromedia Exchange and the Extension Manager 1.2 software, pre-installed with Dreamweaver 4. Dreamweaver 3 users will have to download the Extension Manager and install it. The Macromedia Exchange is where you can download Extensions and add them to Dreamweaver to improve its functionality, all at no extra charge.

There are literally hundreds of Extensions available. All you have to is to download the Extension and use the Extension Manager to install it into Dreamweaver. A few of the categories available are: Accessibility, App Servers, DHTML/Layers, Rich Media, Scripting, eCommerce, etc.
Some sample Extension choices are: Additional Flash Button Styles, Create a Flash Photo Album (where you use Fireworks to make a thumbnails movie), Create and Hot Swap JS Files From Script Tags Extension, Create Behavior Extension, etc. For more information, visit the Macromedia Exchange page at: http://dynamic.macromedia.com/bin/MM/exchange/dreamweaver/main.jsp

Overall, Dreamweaver 4 has been a considerable improvement over version 3 and has begun to truly stand on its own. For overall ease of use and functionality, Dreamweaver 4 is my number one choice for web design.

Pricing and Availability
To obtain more information on Dreamweaver, visit the product page at: http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/. Alternatively, you can contact them at (800) 457-1774. Dreamweaver 4 retails for US$299.00 with an upgrade price of US$149.00. Other options exist, such as the Dreamweaver/Fireworks 4 Studio. Contact Macromedia for more details.

System Requirements
PC
A Pentium 166 MHz processor or faster, with Windows 95/98/2000/ME/NT with Service Pack 3, version 4 or later of Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, 32 MB of RAM with 110 MB hard disk space, 256 color monitor with 800x600 resolution, CD-ROM drive.

Mac
A Power Macintosh with OS 8.6/9.0, 32 MB of RAM with 135 MB hard disk space, 256 color monitor with 800x600 resolution, CD-ROM drive.

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