Are there 2 conflicting interests with Dreamweaver's intended use?

[zagarskas]

I have an idea posted here

Here are 2 supplemental videos packed with evidence and elaboration on that idea ^

1500 Reasons why Dreamweaver CC 2017 is not ready for full stack developers - YouTube

7 things that would have made Dreamweaver CC 2017 useful to developers - YouTube

I seek to start a discussion here based on the following premise:

I suspect there are only 2 types of users for DWR and they need 2 different pieces of software

• User Type A: Coders who use code view 99-100% of the time <- (this is me)
  • we stopped using BBedit right around 2005, (v 8.2 or so) when we found Macromedia's version of Dreamweaver
  • we manage sites, write code all day, and use DWR as our launchpad, development and site management suite
  • we don't care about the design view one single bit
  • we often fire up SSH to change file Perms when the right click "set file perms" options does not work in DWR
    
    
• User type B: Designers who are not 'afraid of code', but pretty much shy away from it
  • they likely use the design view and occasionally swap a color HEX value.
  • they likely think responsive design and CMS system websites can pass web standards by using a GUI like Photoshop + DWR design view.
  • they likely call Type A often when things need to be done right, and that's OK, nothing wrong with that.
  • they likely have never typed "cd" into an SSH window.

"Following Adobe's acquisition of the Macromedia product suite, releases of Dreamweaver subsequent to version 8.0 have been more compliant with W3C standards" [snip Adobe Dreamweaver - Wikipedia ]

=> This natural evolution seems to have stopped with the release of CC 2017 where as a clear conflict of direction and purpose has become evident. As a "Type A" user I loved almost everything about Dreamweaver CC 2015... till CC 2017 came out. Adobe fixed bugs and made improvements on each release while:

1. Keeping all of the past features
2. Improving on existing features
3. Adding some new features.
4. while managing to never ruin the original intent of the software

That dream has now ended.

I don't know whats going on over there at Adobe, but as a user on the front line using DWR every single day it is pretty clear to me that something internal has happened. Maybe the old development team is gone? I don't know, but I do know something really bad has happened with CC 2017 and I suspect a great many others have noticed this as well. I hope to bring attention to that fact by writing this.

2 weeks ago I updated to DWR 2017, and to my horror I realized I was not using a standard upgrade from a version 2.0=>3.0, no indeed, I was using a piece of mostly untested software with a great many well tested and very useful features removed, features that I used on the daily.

A harsh assessment of DWR CC 2017 could be stated as follows:

"It's as if a graphic design team with no coding experience or prior knowledge of the Dreamweaver family or CC 2015 release was turned loose and allowed to brutally gut out and molest everything - from the intuitive language of interface design to the very core features and functionality itself: CC 2017 has been ruined. Imagine using a Phillips-head screwdriver, and one day someone deciding to replace the tip of the Phillips-head with a hex key and expecting you to believe that it's an improved version... your not going to be fooled."

"Dreamweaver from Adobe is the industry-leading web development tool that lets you efficiently design, develop and maintain standards-based websites and applications. Dreamweaver 8 provides a powerful combination of visual layout tools, application development features, and code editing support." [Adobe]

=> I feel that application development features and code editing support have been ignored in CC 2017 and fear that they will continue to lose support unless we communicate to Adobe that CC 2015 was in the right direction and CC 2017 is the wrong direction for Full Stack developers.

There are easily 1000+ ideas and 300+ bugs in the "feature request forum" that should not even exist as feedback.

Adobe Dreamweaver: Bugs: Hot (308 ideas) – Adobe Dreamweaver CC: Feature Ideas

Mind you, nearly all of these things in that forum ^ worked fine in CC 2015

What do you think?

Has Adobe decided to simply abandon a progressive version based release model for Dreamweaver?

The other apps (premiere, photoshop, illustrator, ect...) work mostly like they used to and have improved but on examining Dreamweaver CC 2017, the answer seems to be yes...

Do you think that the direction of Dreamweaver for full stack development in the CC 2017 release is an improvement, or a step backwards?

As a full stack developer I think that

1. CC 2017 is a step backwards
2. CC 2017 lacks important features that existed in 2015
3. some of the new CC 2017 features do not belong in Dreamweaver and should be in Adobe Muse instead
4. Features from Dreamweaver 2015 should be re-instated
5. Dreamweaver should continue to be a developer tool, or split it into 2 versions

Closing thought: trying to build 1 vehicle that fly's, swims and drives usually ends up doing none of those things very well which is why its better to just have a plane, a boat and a car...

[BenPleysier]

Without commenting (due to lack of time) on your well presented rhetoric, I would like to point out that the refresh button still exists and well in the bottom left hand corner of the Files panel.

[zagarskas]

Ben,

Thank you, that's helpful, and crosses off one of my concerns.

[hans-g.]

Hello zagarskas,

thanks for your detailed development of a "Please Split Dreamweaver into 2 products - one for Coders and one for Designers".

In my eyes a similar idea I tried to bring over Adobe's developers in "How can we improve Adobe Dreamweaver?" The link is:

Divide the display of Dreamweaver files (instancing) onto two separate screens. – Adobe Dreamweaver ...

Unfortunately it's landed in "Backlog", Nevertheless I've found more than 60 supporters. Maybe you too could "climb on the bandwagon" too.

Hans-Günter

[zagarskas]

Hans,

I will take a look. Thanks for the info.

[osgood_]

Whilst I appreciate your very insightful and well versed post - what decent developer cares about DW?

If you write code mostly by hand then use some other editor. Don't be a muppet to the Adobe hierarchy who seem to be clueless and mostly only care about how many rounds of golf they can get in. They lost the plot long ago. Anyone who has frequented this forum long enough have made that clear on numerous ocassions.

The more developers that shift away from DW the better then just maybe they will finally wake up and start listening to those people who use it. For my part unless I'm desperate I will never upgrade DW again as its too bloated for my purposes, now packed full of stuff I'll never need and never use.......so I have largely moved away, mainly to Brackets which is also an Adobe creation BUT for dedicated coders its sweet, lean and lightning fast. Yes, it lacks good file managment but from what I've read it is still being developed going forward. For the past 9 months the Brackets team has largely been occupied by integrating it into DW. I dont quite know what they have shifted across and how good it works within the DW environment.

I only hope they do not abandon Brackets to concentrate on its devlopment within DW BUT I would not be surprised - why would Adobe waste time on further developing  a FREE editor, some would say much better than their paid for one,  when others are paying for it - it don't stack up.

[zagarskas]

in response to osgood_)

I do buddy, indeed I do. I prefer Adobe because it fits into my workflow. I deal with a number of clients (firms and company owners alike) who send Adobe resources constantly.

Adobe products have made my life much easier. I don't come here to post ideas in the Adobe forum to mindlessly troll the company about its product and complain, I come here because I want these tools

...and whats more, I want them to work well.

On any given day I am receiving Adobe Kuler color profiles, a layered PSD file from the designer with links to Adobe Stock, links to CC download assets, fonts from TypeKit, a non-working landing page done in Adobe Edge and some junk they attempted to mock up using Adobe Spark. That is fantastic. Now my job is to take those "pieces" => launch a VPS with a firewall, build a Magento eCommerce store, layer on an AdWords campaign, tie in some landing pages, install funnels and tracking, pass speed scores, validate the SCHEMA, ensure OG:metta is working and then test it all on 10-15 devices and maybe an HD monitor or 2.

For me, that means using Adobe Software in my workflow.

Know whats AWESOME about that? It's tripped my business for 2 reasons:

1. First off it acts as a bridge between my systems => for example:
   • manage webfonts for text on screen directly in DWR
   • exporting images from PSD into the skin/frontend/default/ folder for a custom Magento theme
   • double click em in DWR and hop back over to PSD
   • retype some text ensuring the right 'designy' font is used
   • adjust a graphic from the stock library,
   • make sure the colors match the Kuler profile
   • save it, export it, code up the CSS and PHTML files as needed, (still in DWR mind you)

• maybe drop a custom plugin in, do an F&R over the whole app/code/core library to patch a Magento bug
• complete the theme, push it live
• hop over to the iPad G1, 2, 3, and minni for a REAL preview using Edge Inspect, (and occasionally Reflector2 or Virtualised OSx with xCode)
1. Second, it acts as a bridge between the customer and me = > This is 2 fold:
   • It shows the client they "cant" do this on their own, but they CAN show me exactly what they want
   • It allows them to deliver assets to me in an efficient way, (especially when multiple teams of people are involved.)

Bottom line: From 2001 to 2007 that was hard to do... in 2008/09 without THAT ^ workflow in place a custom Magento site and campaign of that scale would have been 25-50k (With easily 50+ hours of file, asset, approval and project management BS) a 6 to 9 month project maybe 4 months if I subcontract a couple guys. If I wanted to do a crap job I could go buy a template, but years of experience have proven that to be really dumb...

With the workflow I now use I can pump out that SAME campaign for 8-16k in sixty to ninety days.

(note: graphic design not included)

Now if you think that somehow "does not make me a decent developer" then I suppose the IRS and my client list would disagree with you, but maybe you are right, maybe i'm not a "decent developer"? Maybe I am a good freelancer, and guess what? I use DWR to build Apps, CMS themes,  launch web based campaigns and support them 24x7.

I love my job. I love that clients can "rent" Adobe software and bridge the gap between us, or at the very least learn why hiring a pro is effective. I do not like what is happening to a tool that helps me enjoy my work. I want my voice to be heard, I have "invested" in this company since 2001 and so far its been a wise move, the CC2017 release of Dreamweaver is causing problems => the squeaky wheel gets oiled.

"quod erat demonstrandum" and good day to you sir! lol

[osgood_]

zagarskas wrote:

  I don't come here to post ideas in the Adobe forum to mindlessly troll the company about its product and complain

Some one has to do the 'donkey' work for you otherwise you wouldn't be getting as good a product as you currently are, rest assured of that. You owe those that DO complain a sense of gratitude IF you can't be bothered to do so yourself.

zagarskas wrote:

For me, that means using Adobe Software in my workflow.

Now if you think that somehow "does not make me a decent developer"

Reap what you sow. IF Adobe has you in their pockets then there's not much you can do about it really but to 'suffer' what they give you. I've now moved on from DW, and very much doubt if I'll ever return to it. Its been a difficult decision but because I feel it 'swings' both ways which means it has to dilute its attentions I feel there are better products suited to my particular workflow.

Its difficult to say who/what is a decent developer/workflow - some using Muse would say they are decent developers and what's the point in writing any code, maybe they are right. Im sure in their minds they think they are right. We all have our own ideas as to what/who constitutes a decent developer.

[zagarskas]

I fail to see what you gain by entertaining anything said here in this post or have managed to contribute to the original question

[Are there 2 conflicting interests with Dreamweaver's intended use?]

As for the "donkey's work", I detect sarcasm... I come from a different mindset, my attitude is one of appreciation of development cycles with user feedback, bug reporting systems, survey's and posting ideas in product forums - which I often employ the use of and am quite sure Adobe reps actually read.

I can say that anytime a trac was posted to my list the way I handled the request was often based on the presentation...

To be candid and direct => people saying "the app sucks, its broken, fix it idiot" got replies from me 72 hours later such as "are you using Internet Explorer? try restarting your modem, do a factory reset on your device" . For those who took the time to document a real issue such as "the submit button is off the screen, I have to scroll left to press it, I am using an older version of Android" those were handled immediately with a thank you note and a suggestion to the owner that the customer receive a coupon code...

The only positive concept I can seem to pull from our conversation thus far is that somewhere in the stats this post will be seen as active, to which I encourage you to continue to post.

If you were a Dreamweaver user I would go so far as to ask "if you agree with any of what is said here please consider copying the feature list, one item at a time, and posting it to the Adobe feature request platform and vote UP the following item basically asking Adobe to build an IDE that fits into the CC workflow": 

Feature Request/Bug Report Form

Cheers.

[osgood_]

You said:

Please Split Dreamweaver into 2 products - one for Coders and one for Designers

They have its called 'Brackets' - go find it and start 'coding'

I'm sure 'coders' already have and its a very good product, along with numerous other editors like Atom, Sublime, VS all mainly aimed at coders NOT designers.

In my opinion DW HAS found a niche market, which defines it from such editors as Brackets, Atom, Sublime etc its aimed partly at coders and partly at designers. IF you need support such as commercial extensions to help you produce work because you don't have the ability to code it yourself, think it's a faster workflow or whatever your reasons  then DW is a good product for you.

IF you are happy coding solutions yourself and don't want an editor packed full of redundant stuff you will never use then its probably not a good fit.

So Adobe now has 3 products aimed at 3 specific target audiences:

1) Dreamweaver - Coder/Designer

2) Brackets - Coder

3) Muse - Designer

Choose your weapon based on your own requirements.

[Nancy OShea]

It's always fun to speculate.  But seriously, splitting DW into 2 or 3 separate products will never happen. 

During the public beta, there was discussion about turning off stuff for coders and leaving stuff on for designers.  Which sort of happens when you first launch the software and it asks which Workspace you want to use, Coder or Designer.

I think DW should build more on the Brackets concept.   Offer optional extensions for coders or designers to switch on/off as desired while keeping the core software as lean as possible.  

Nancy

[BenPleysier]

This is going to be interesting, so far (not including myself):

• 2 x constructive/positive
• 1 x destructive/negative

[osgood_]

BenPleysier wrote:

This is going to be interesting, so far (not including myself):

• 2 x constructive/positive
• 1 x destructive/negative

Sadly Ben the truth hurts .....we all know you don't like to hear the truth. Any reasonable web-developer, although it may be difficult to initially prise themselves away from their beloved choice of editor, would do so if it was failing their expectations. Seems like a positive move me.

Personally I think DW should be a bare bones editor with optional extensions for stuff like Bootstrap, Css Panels etc if you require it. That would appease both those more point and click operators and those that prefer to code. All this nasty included stuff, in the eyes of some operators, just 'dirties' the software.

So yeah, I agree with the OP there should be 2 versions which we know is not going to happen BUT wait a minute it has - Brackets.

[Rob_Hecker2]

How can a development environment be geared to coders if it doesn't include debugging tools? There is no such thing as a coding IDE that lacks debugging tools. That is why you will never see a review of PHP IDE's that mentions Dreamweaver.

HTML and CSS don't need debugging. The W3C markup validation service is all the debugger needed. Javascript needs a debugger, but there are Javascript debuggers built into browsers. PHP, on the other hand, requires debugging tools in the development environment.

I'm not criticizing Dreamweaver. I'm just pointing out that the product cannot target serious coders due to the lack of PHP debugging tools, and a few other features one finds in an IDE.

I see DW as a tool for front-end development. The integration of linting, preprocessors, and even bootstrap, and the fact that the database tools were dropped, all indicate that the DW development team shares this view.

[zagarskas]

Rob Hecker

Thank you for your input, but when I debug I do so in the following way:

• Live testing server, push files, password protect htaccess
  • for me: DWR is a suite for managing and developing, not debugging
• Chrome inspector for CSS and JS
  • real browsers are used - no sims ( literally 20+ browsers installed via virtualization)
    • only rarely is browserstack used
  • real devices are used - no sims (literally 30+ devices on stands some using Reflector2)
    • only rarely is a sim used
• PHP will most always tell me where the problem is  error_reporting(-1);
• error_logs and server side tools do the rest

I find that this method shows me 2 important things that simulators and other IDE's have not in the past:

• what users actually see on the live site
• what hackers might actually try on the live site

Sound insane? To some, im sure... but consider that my server environment changes constantly, Windows, Apachie, Linux... heck i've got a client that is still using ColdFusion and another one that runs PHP right along site "classic" ASP.NET.

When I debug any of the accounts listed in my site manager they could be drastically different on a daily basis. For me the best way to do that was to dev in DWR, upload, refresh Chrome and open the inspect element tab, then download the error_log right into DWR and simply read it...

DWR does indeed do some debugging, it shows convenient little red "x" on certain lines when it detects a brace is missing or other minor things in PHP and JS which is helpful in debugging a human syntax error. Ultimately, I have never really had a problem debugging a live site in a test environment letting the log tell me where the problem is and personally prefer it to jEdit or PHPstorm...

Maybe I should not be using Adobe DWR anymore to dev and manage sites when faced with that kind of stack? That said if you have some suggestions as to another IDE I should consider using please feel free to elaborate what you might do in that situation.

[Rob_Hecker2]

DWR does indeed do some debugging

Well. . .I think you are unfamiliar with debugging tools. There are two main debuggers for PHP. Xdebug and ZendDebug. I think ZendDebug used to be open source but no longer is. It is packaged with Zend Server, which is the web server I use. Xdebug is open source.

Debugging tools allow you to do such things as set breakpoints and view the state of variables at different stages of the script. IDEs like Eclipse / Zend Studio provide an interface for these functions, but use the Zend debugger or Xdebugger underneath.

There is a fantastic PHP debugging tool included with Zend Server call Z-Ray. After a script runs, it allows you to view extremely useful information which you could not easily access otherwise. For instance, it shows you how a prepared statement populated with bound parameters looks when it goes to the database, revealing missing parameters or parameters populated differently from how you expected. Z-Ray also lets you see the state of all $_SERVER, $_SESSION, $_COOKIE and $_POST variables.

[Paul-M]

The whole point of Dreamweaver was that is was a good/solid all round tool especially when Ultradev/DW merged into one tool years ago -  You could build your workflow around it from prototyping in the companion program Fireworks to design/layout and development in DW. Adobe stopped support for Fireworks and ripped out a shed load of features from DW and gave us not very much in the way of new/useful features, what they do add tends be glitchy, have performance issues, sometimes seems to be a complete waste of dev time and leave you scratching your head.

I think Adobe will do what ever the want with DW they have demonstrated since buying Macromedia they either don't understand DW or don't care what users want.

[Nancy OShea]

And there is User Type C:

People who want to use DW to build HTML Emails, a hybrid document with tables, inline CSS and a bunch of other stuff that's not technically W3C compliant.  

Nancy

[davidhelp]

I am type D

D for Dave 

[zagarskas]

@Nancy OShea

I feel that description is essentially a "tybe B" user.

The primary break-point being: "does use" or "does not use" the visual editor. Consider that "type a" I refer to is like an author who speaks and writes English very well, they need "neither a visual editor nor a translator" to write a book in English, they simply pour out the language via the keyboard.

An analogy might be this: Imagine if Microsoft released a new version of MS Word that required you to point at objects and disabled the keyboard, so, if you want to write a book you now need to click the image of the word. This would be helpful to some people, but essentially that kind of drastic change would be a way for one user type to tyrannize another user type.

Another perhaps 'extreme example' to show how drastic these changes are becoming might be this: imagine you open Photoshop one day and all the tools are gone, in their place is a CMD line box where as all PSD users are expected to use command line to edit photos. Want to rotate an image? you must now type "rotate(X,Y)" want to change the hue of an image to red 50%? you must now type "rgba(22,00,00,0.50)". There would be quite an uproar...

I feel its important to clarify that neither "type a" nor "type b" are implied to somehow be "bad", they are 2 existing user types and I see their interests conflicting where as users like myself are being forgotten and our primary productivity tool is losing it's effectiveness.

In closing, I suppose it would be wonderful for Adobe to just release a developer focused 'Integrated development environment'. Adobe 'almost had it'... all they need to do is re-release Dreamweaver CC 2015, (without the visual editor) and add in a few things: presto Adobe IDE. Instead, they released DWR CC2017 and removed or molested allot of useful things...

[Rob_Hecker2]

Google "PHP IDE reviews" and you will find articles like  the following, which picks the 10 best PHP IDEs, and Dreamweaver isn't one of them, because, for one thing, PHP doesn't fit the definition of an IDE, as I have already pointed out.

http://noeticforce.com/best-php-ide-for-programmers-windows-and-mac

The following article from (2009) describes what a PHP IDE should include (again, no mention of Dreamweaver).

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/the-big-php-ides-test-why-use-oneand-which-to-choose/

I can't think of any reason Dreamweaver would need to compete with the IDEs. Personally, I like DW (up until the current version, which hopefully will get fixed), and I even code PHP in DW all the time. But I don't pretend that DW is or should be an IDE.

Dreamweaver is a good development environment for designers and front-end developers.

[Paul-M]

Its was supposed to be an all round tool - this pigeonholing is probably where it all starting going wrong. Firstly when Adobe made a decision on how it would fit in their product line and clearly decided they were going to drop a lot of the server side tools like ADDT and built-in support for PHP/MySQL which eventually was so out of date it was a convenient excuse to drop support rather update with MySQLi or PDO.

Adobe either doesn't grasp or doesn't care that people build there workflow around programs like Dreamweaver and when they start ripping the guts out of it then it makes our lives difficult and costs us a lot of time. Yes we have to move with the times  but I still have to work on many websites that ideally need replacing by complete new ones but clients cannot be forced into these decisions.

My final point is that its becoming extremely embarrassing for Adobe that they keep making a mess of Dreamweaver.  Live View is and always has been  disaster imo, instead updating design view would have been a better option and the latest Brackets integrations is the final straw. No logic to it whatsoever, it's a mess and if people want Brackets I'm sure they will use the FULL standalone Brackets with all of its extra features.

The 2017 version of Dreamweaver removes more features and creates a lot more problems,  the existing code editor was solid enough and a few tweaks would have sufficed and freed up more time to add a few more much needed features, instead they wasted god knows how many hours on the Brackets crap so they could make a big announcement, Adobe has totally lost its way with Dreamweaver and is slowly killing it (maybe that was the intention all along )...Freehand, Fireworks, Dreamweaver!!

[Paul-M]

For those that work in a code environment and don't need design view/live view maybe take a look at RapidPHP / Webuilder. It has a lot of features and extra plugins including an Emmet and SASS plugin:

Blumentals Software - HTML editor, PHP editor

BTW it also has FULL customisation of code colouring

[BenPleysier]

For those that work in a code environment and don't need design view/live view maybe take a look at RapidPHP / Webuilder. It has a lot of features and extra plugins including an Emmet and SASS plugin:

Although I do have some sympathy for some of your on-going criticisms, you have lost me with the above statement, especially when it provides a background to going to another piece of software.

The parts that I do not understand

• the sudden unnecessary design view/live view after an elaborate thumbs down!
• where is ADDT and the server behaviours panels in the proposed software?
• why prefer Emmet and SASS plugins to Dreamweaver's built in support?

Anyway, enjoy your new software and, with a bit of luck, we will be rid of a lot of verbal garbage regarding Dreamweaver CC2017.0.1

Happy New Year!

[Paul-M]

I think you'll find I;m going nowhere, if you like you can post one of your pathetic, immature photos again!! How old are you again? You seem to have the emotional maturity of a 5 year old, you don't like people having a different opinion to you .... so what, get over it and get over yourself. You'll find a lot of people are not happy with DW 2017, if you don't like my forthright opinions ... tough!!

Unfortunately you my friend seem to be a lot more interested in getting people to click the little 'helpful' or 'like' icons next to your posts than actually making a real difference to where the software goes, years ago the Macromedia Dreamweaver community was full of very clever, knowledgeable people, now we just have people like you trolling the forums ... enough said and no wonder Dreamweaver will be gone in a few years!!

You're arguments are very strange ... Looking at Dreamweaver's current state the Bluementals software is worth looking at as an option for people who work mainly in code view and may seek an alternative to Dreamweaver