In promising news for web design and development, Macromedia’s Dreamweaver MX 2004 claims it will possess much more powerful CSS support, as well as significant improvements which will help its users create accessible content. A page from Dreamweaver’s tour presents an overview of its CSS-related features. Susan Morrow, a senior director for Macromedia, is quoted with this statement in an article at MacCentral:
“It’s time for CSS to become the broad standard it should be, […] However, to date, it’s been difficult to implement.”
In an interview published last week at DMXzone, Dave Shea made reference to the need for “visual CSS editors” in order for traditional designers to begin using CSS en masse. Dreamweaver seems to be expanding to bridge that gap. While I hesitate to give up control over the construction of my markup and CSS to what we used to call WYSIWYG editors, Dreamweaver is certainly looking like it will enable more use of CSS by a broader group of designers and developers. Appropriately summarizing the concept is this statement from the MX 2004 Story:
Whereas the initial MX products blazed a new, uncharted trail, the MX 2004 versions make the path cleaner, wider, and easier to traverse.
Advanced support for CSS in Dreamweaver is a mixed blessing. It’s good, because this means more sites and applications will be built with more optimized and accessible code by default. It’s organization of rules and properties looks like it might simplify management of large, complex style sheets. My only concern with Dreamweaver is the same as it was as Macromedia announced expanded and smarter HTML support in prior versions: it’s very possible to use as a crutch which enables designers to avoid learning and understanding how the Web is (and should be) built. In order for us to truly understand the Web and design successfully for it, we need to at least partially understand the underpinnings. CSS is no exception. One only need look at the mass of sites produced in the last five years by designers and agencies who had no understanding of HTML, or what constituted appropriate use of Flash, to see an abundance of bloated and awkward sites which adhere too closely to the principles of print design.
CSS is written, at least in part, in a designer’s language. The syntax is not hard to learn or understand. The difficulty surfaces when working around browser discrepancies and behavior differences. Hopefully, Dreamweaver will step in to ease the frustrations of creating consistent cross-browser pages, but not completely replace the need to learn and understand what CSS is and how it works.
Also of note for this new version of Dreamweaver is the Accessibility Overview. Here, Macromedia points out the preferences and features which will ease making web content accessible. Many of these features have existed in Dreamweaver for several versions. But accessibility features are now consolidated and easier to find, and Macromedia is more actively explaining how to take advantage of them. Dreamweaver will also feature tools to validate pages for compliance with Section 508 and WCAG Priority One checkpoints. When we mention “accessibility”, we’re usually discussing the building of sites which are accessible to people with disabilities. Often ignored when talking about accessibility, Dreamweaver will also contain features which make it easier for people with disabilities to create web sites and applications.
Macromedia has been working with the WaSP’s Dreamweaver Task Force over the last few years to improve the Dreamweaver product, and to raise awareness of web standards within the development community. Macromedia is now working with another highly respected and knowledgeable authority to refine use of CSS and web standards throughout their products and web site. The Macromedia site walks the talk, demonstrating beautiful design which uses CSS for layout, and nearly validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional (save for a few missing alt attributes in images here and there, and some missing type attributes in their script tags).
Obviously, Macromedia has been taking huge strides to improve support for web standards. They deserve a lot of credit for their efforts and successes in this space.
Posted at 12:03pm in CSS, Technology
30 comments (Comments closed)
I agree, Macromedia has always seemed to be a “responsible” (for lack of a better word) company when it comes to Web standards and best practices. I for one am excited to see what the new version of Dreamweaver brings. I don’t use it all that much, I like you, prefer to handcode, but if WYSIWYG editors can help to promote a better, more standard Web — I’m all for it.
Like Keith, I too prefer to hand-code (there’s nothing like BBEdit), but it is encouraging to see web standards becoming a major selling point for a company like Macromedia. When the “What’s New” list starts with “Rich CSS Support” and “Cross-Browser Validation” it is a very good sign.
Supporting web standards and accessibility will now be seen as a practical thing to do for many designers, as well as for larger web firms and in-house departments who rely heavily on apps like Dreamweaver in their daily workflow.
The strongest point here is the realization that this potentially will lead to many badly-CSS’d sites by those who still don’t understand what’s under the hood. But it is a huge step in the right direction.
What I’m lementing right now is the apparent demise of Homesite. Yes, it’s integrated into DW for the most part, but that’s a hefty pricetag if all I want to do is code. But then, how much further could HS be developed? I guess we’ll leave the hand-coding tool development to BareBones and Bradsoft (TopStyle).
France: Don’t lament too quickly. As Craig Saila pointed out today, Macromedia hints in their FAQ that HomeSite development (or at least some type of hand-coding product) may continue.
The crutch vs. understanding battle is a vicious circle. There will always be the guy that can drive the car, but doesn’t know how to change the oil. I think the key is to continue to support web standards and clean, valid, code (as this site does and others like it, and through companies like Macromedia). Continued encouragement will only raise the standards that much faster.
Sam: Since you’re comparing it to changing oil, let’s call it a “viscous” circle…
Thanks, I’m here all week ;-)
Looks like the improved support is mainly code-side, at least, that’s the impression I got from the demos. The tools look quite nice; I particularly like the highlighter that tells you what bits break in which browsers. That’s exactly what a CSS newbie needs, and let’s be honest, I’d use it a lot myself. I’ll keep an eye out for the demo version.
I see it as a step in the right direction: a proliferation CSS and all the benefits that come with it.
As for the crutch argument, well that’s something really up to the individual designer. As always, Natural Selection will separate the pros from the amateurs.
When I first became interested in designing websites, I didn’t know the first thing about HTML. I used Frontpage 98. Over the course of a year, I gradually learned more and more about HTML, until I finally uninstalled Frontpage 98 and began coding completely by hand (partially because I wanted to be a serious designer, and partially because it’s so damned tough to get anything to look right with the program). I’ve since come into my own in regards to web standards and design accessibility (I still have a lot to learn, but hey, who doesn’t).
I think if someone uses a WYSIWYG editor and that they’re serious about web design, they’ll more often than not make the transition to hand-coding. And if the editor “crutch” that they’re trying to free themselves of supports web standards, all the better. With tools like this coming out and the growing number of XHTML/CSS sites, it might be possible for beginning designers in the near future to learn proper web design from the ground up, rather than learning how to make tag soup sites and possibly making the leap to proper web design later on.
France,
From what I understand, Homesite will continue as a separate product. What’s bundled with Dreamweaver MX is Homesite+ (basically, it’s a slightly modified version Coldfusion Studio). Homesite 5.5 is $99, a fair price, while Homesite+ is available only with the purchase of Dreamweaver MX ($399, which is also fair considering you’re getting Homesite+, which when sold as Coldfusion Studio cost over $500).
All that said, I love Bradsoft’s software. :)
Macromedia totally needs to be appluaded for supporting web standards. However, I agree that visual CSS editing will likely be flawed. I myself like hard-coding the CSS because I’m a layout perfectionist. However, if you’re not a code guru, Macromedia Studio MX 2004 does sound like the right tool for making a standards-compliant site that looks decent.
Does anyone else think it would be pretty useful if Macromedia just combined Dreamweaver and Fireworks? I mean, I know they’ve been trying to integrate their functionality for the last several years, the Studio thing and what not, but the work flow’s just not there. I personally wish you could edit an image, maybe add a little (tasteful, of course) drop shadow to your header or maybe change the kerning, and then, in the same program now, also edit the padding and border color of its container div, update some copy, hit Save and upload the whole page; new images, new HTML and all to the server? Anyone else agree? Am I just missing out on some huge bit of functionality that I’ve never discovered before or does everyone else have to update an image, save as .PNG, export as .GIF or .JPG, go to WS_FTP (or whatever), FTP the new image to it’s appropriate folder on the server and repeat as necessary? Why not just combine it all? Now, I realize it would take a huge leap in functionality (especially for the WYSIWYG interface) and I’m not sure how the code view would work if you could edit the images, but anyway …
i for one hope that the DW ftp client gets a major overhaul. it always smacks me as badly inefficient when, for instance, i need to delete a huge directory on the server, and DW spends a few minutes going through each and every file contained in there (rather than sending a single “remove the directory and all its contents” command to the server). another feature i miss is the ability to set permissions on files/directories…i still end up having to use cuteFTP or something to make sure a directory has got r-w-x set the way i want/need.
but yeh…wait and see, eh ?
The biggest problem I’ve had with Dreamweaver MX is its inability to display CSS layouts properly in design view. I prefer to handcode my CSS just like the rest of you, but it does me no good if DW’s renderer breaks the page so badly that I can’t edit the text without switching back to the code. Simply displaying the layout correctly would be a huge improvement, never mind the program’s ability to write CSS on its own. (And I know that displaying CSS layouts correctly is never simple, but MX is worse that NN4 in this regard.)
There’s a little-known page on the Macromedia site where you can send them your wish list for future versions. It’s a good way to get the engineers’ attention; I wish more people knew about it.
The biggest problem I’ve had with Dreamweaver MX is its inability to display CSS layouts properly in design view.
Exactly. I hand-code in Dreamweaver and use TopStyle for CSS, but find editing text in Dreamweaver’s Design View to be exasperating because everything looks so screwy. If they’ve fixed that, I may upgrade. If not, I might go back to HomeSite.
The biggest problem I’ve had with Dreamweaver MX is its inability to display CSS layouts properly in design view.
One of the great great features used in Flash MX is ‘Live Preview’, which is used for Components. In the authoring tool, you can see on the stage how the component will look and take effect. One of my dreamweaver wishes (see link above) was that they would develop a “Live Preview” for CSS tools. They really should develop that out.
…Great write up, Doug!
Although I’m from the old school of handcoding, I always liked the speed boost and control that Dreamweaver offered me. However, when I made the transition from tables to full CSS, DWMX just couldn’t deal with it. This, in turn, made me go back to the HomeSite/TopStyle combo, which isn’t nothing short of outstanding in its own right. However, I’m very impressed from what I’ve seen so far on the new DWMX’s product overview, and might make me switch again because of the speed benefits.
However, I couldn’t stress enough how important getting your hands dirty on raw code is for web developers. I cringe every time I’m get told of someone who knows how to use Dreamweaver but not how to code HTML, let alone CSS. And they call themselves web developers? Ideal as might be to pretend everyone were as interested and conscious about web standards and valid code as we are, reality is many simply don’t care. The new DWMX, at least, might make this fact a little more livable with.
I applaud Macromedia for its continuing support for web standards. I hand code all my sites without fancy authoring tools, but I have to admit that my background is unusual. After 30+ years of programming experience, hand coding just comes naturally to me. My guess is that the hand coders will always be in the minority. Yes, it’s the “right” way to do it, and HTML and CSS are much simpler than the average computer language, but I just can’t see hand coding becoming widespread. The average person wants a WYSIWYG approach, and won’t settle for anything else. If we are going to progress toward a world of web standards, standards compliant WYSIWYG authoring tools will have to play a huge role in the process.
When I viewed the preview presentation of MX 2004 last week, I was flabbergasted by the cross browser validation pull-down. I see it as an enormous backward step, encouraging users to focus on memorizing the impossible number of browser vagaries instead of learning modern standards (XHTML, CSS, etc.). From that pulldown, we’re a mere step away from using the Behaviors menu to sniff out browser specific pages.
Speaking of hand-coding: Is it not kinda silly that one of the “great things” about xml/xhtml is it’s human readable/editable, but the majority(?) of web developers can’t?
This latest release of DW is (hopefully) going to be very important to me. But not so much me using it, more all the CMs and PMs I have to deal with!
I am constantly trying to encourage them to learn exactly what well structured and standards compliant code is, and even if DW does put out what some of us call messy code, it is a necessary evil and I am always happy when they improve it.
B
This latest release of DW is (hopefully) going to be very important to me. But not so much me using it, more all the CMs and PMs I have to deal with!
I am constantly trying to encourage them to learn exactly what well structured and standards compliant code is, and even if DW does put out what some of us call messy code (if used poorly), it is a necessary evil and I am always happy when they improve it. Especially since many people need to use something like DW in order to do any(much)html
I think the one thing that really makes Macromedia stand out, especially the last few years is the fact that they really listen to the users of their products. Heh. Maybe Microsoft could learn a few things from them.
I’m like many of you — hand coding now. Once you make the move to CSS, you can’t use dreamweaverMX for design. (At least for me.)
I was seriously thinking about dropping Dreamweaver (which I only use to hand code now) and move to visual slick edit. I mean, if you’re gonna use a text editor, why not use the best?
Macromedia knows what’s good for them. They have to keep up with technology just like us. I think they realized they were on the verge of losing a few designers in the long run.
I’ve been using TopStyle on PC for over a year now and it’s a fantastic product. It’s the only coding/design tool I use on PC and most often it’s used to verify and validate. My design and code is typically done in BBedit on the Mac side. It has built-in multi-level CSS and XHTML validation, HTML Tidy, realtime visual style previews and a lot more. A great resource to have. It gives you just the tools you want, especially if you’re not a WYSIWYG fan. And it’s quite reasonable.
http://www.bradsoft.com
James and beto,
I think if someone uses a WYSIWYG editor and that they’re serious about web design, they’ll more often than not make the transition to hand-coding.
Dreamweaver’s split Design and Code View lets you do both at once. If DW had no other feature it would still be priceless. I wish DW would never let you hide the code view so people would always have to see the code they’re WYSIWYG-ing.
Dreamweaver is essential for me. I do spend a lot of time hand-coding, but generally after ‘sketching’ out the layout or structure with DW. It’s just so much faster that way. I really like its PHP support, which I don’t see duplicated anywhere else in the market. The CSS layout improvements are very welcome.
I use it regularly for Actionscript coding (on Windows when I can’t use BBedit =), it’s a great tool to have for Flash/web developers—all under one roof so to speak.
PS-congrats to StopDesign for getting the job w. Apple! You deserve it!
I’m still using Dreamweaver 4 mostly because I couldn’t rationalize the expense to upgrade to MX if the WYSIWYG mode displays 80% of my pages as simply a php icon. I use it for prototyping designs, but since most of my content is full of mySQL data and if statements based on URLs, WYSIWYG will probably never catch up.
I use DWMX and Topstyle on PC but am using HTML kit more and more. It and incredible tool covering pretty much everything you can think of and FREE for personal use www.chami.com/html-kit/.
CSS positioning in DWMX design view is terrible. If you would be able to turn off CSS positioning in design view would be great. Besides that, I like DWMX and hope to find new useful features in new version.
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