Dreamweaver CS6 Review

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PHP is one of the most widely used programming languages in the world today. PHP is widely used along with HTML, CSS & Javascript to create websites of all kinds. In fact, most of the websites in current worlds are created using these technologies like Facebook.

Now if you are a programmer, you know how difficult and complex it could be to create and maintain a website. Therefore its better to have tools which let you organize things in certain manner which facilitates the basic process of create website so that you can focus on main stuff like coding rather than taking care of trivial stuff, that’s where IDE come into the picture.

There are many PHP IDEs present in the current world, few are free and then some are paid.

Today we are going to review dreamweaver which is one of the hottest selling IDE in the web development world.

Dreamweaver CS6 Review

As mentioned earlier, dreamweaver is one of the highest selling IDE in the world. Also, it is one of the oldest and most talked about IDE.

You can divide IDEs into few separate categories based on the skill level of the programmer.

Seasoned programmer can even work with notepad but the new to beginners, who are also learning the language and basic process, may find it hard to focus on maintaining website along with learning their usual stuff. For example, under manual development without appropriate IDEs, if you rename a file, then you have to manually update their links in your files but with most of the IDEs, it will automatically update the links and dreamweaver too does that.

A simple IDE will make their life easy. Dreamweaver target programmers of all kind but it is preferred more among beginners to moderate.

Reason is quite simple, in terms of sheer size, it is huge. You may have to purchase books to learn it but that doesn’t mean that is the only way. It is designed in such a way that even a beginner can start work without giving too much to learn this tool.

It is designed well and support many languages and provide very good interface to create websites. In fact if you are looking to create mobile compatible websites, then dreamweaver is one of the best tool. It provide option to create fluid grid templates with its built in feature which create templates for you. So you don’t have to bother about basic stuff.

You can simply go ahead with styling. You will find everything on the user interface, so if you want to design the header or add a section, you can just do that by selecting appropriate value in the sidebar menu rather manually coding it.

After inserting that value into your CSS, if you select it, it will enable a different menu in the bottom which could be used to add styling to that section. You can change its font size, family & color etc.

Dreamweaver CS6 Languages

Some of the major languages/technologies supported by dreamweaver CS6 are;

PHP

Javascript

XML

HTML5

JQuery and JQuery Mobile Support

And much more.

Dreamweaver CS6 Features

Some of key features in Dreamweaver CS6 are;

• Edge Web Fonts
• Live Preview of your code within dreamweaver where you can see the actual output of your code without leaving it.
• Split view where you can code in one half of the screen and see the output in the second half of the screen.
• CSS3 transition
• Phonegap build support to create android and iOS apps.
• Easily add videos and audios using HTML5
• You can insert variety of codes like forms, templates, script using the insert menu item in the link without manually coding those tags.
• Ready to use templates for website and mobile devices.
• Integrate well with major CMS like wordpress.
• Monthly affordable subscription

Just have a look at some of these screenshots from Dreamweaver to give better understanding;

Downside of Dreamweaver

It is probably one of the most expensive IDE available in the market.

Its auto-complete functionality is not very good, especially if you compare it to something like zend studio.

Tend to add lot of stuff in the built-in templates which may displease you.

Dreamweaver Review Conclusion

Dreamweaver is definitely a good IDE to begin with, I mean you will read lots of negative reviews online but as a matter of fact, it is one of the highest selling products in this category. Now it is also a fact that it is often sold due to the fact that it is created by Adobe. But nonetheless, you cannot take away the fact that it support few cool features like split view, live preview, phonegap build and mobile templates.

It is a good tool for starters. Traditionally dreamweaver has been used as a website builder tool with HTML and CSS but that doesn’t mean that it is not good for PHP or Javascript.

In our next review, we will talk about Zend Studio.

Stay tuned and share your Dreamweaver Review with us.

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