Adobe's Dreamweaver CS3 reaps the benefits of its new master

Score

• 4 / 5

For

• Improved interface
• New features

Against

• No real excitement

Verdict

Since Adobe's purchase of Macromedia, the web-design community has been waiting for this particular release. As the two design tools almost continuously employed together, Dreamweaver and Photoshop already had a special relationship. And with Creative Suite 3, that relationship has become even more solid.

Unlike the rest of Creative Suite 3, Dreamweaver doesn't look too different once fired up. The standard Code, Split and Design buttons are where they've always been and present the split-or full-window panel view in exactly the same way as it has always appeared. The Properties Inspector is still a free-floating palette with a Links Editor and text properties, although the smart feature within the Links Editor that now pre-guesses recurring links is a very welcome addition.

The Site Inspector panel still graces the right-hand side of the workspace in much the same way as it always has, though look closely and you'll notice some subtle but important additions. Both CSS Styles and AP Action Elements are given the space they deserve, as is the Assets tab. In fact, the last of these has had a thorough going over, and here we see the first substantial benefit of Adobe's Macromedia venture.

Within the Assets Tab is a selection of added buttons, all representing page elements; from colour assets to swf Flash movie files. As with Illustrator's stage, individual assets can be lined up and simply dragged onto a document object, saving the File | Import run around. It's only as effective as the assets you have at your disposal, but for large rich media sites with recurring page elements, it's a great helper.

One new feature that does appear on the standard Commands panel is the Check Page tool. Although previous versions could check browser compatibility, broken links and other code-wrecking detritus, now Dreamweaver is part of the Creative Suite proper it gains the full power of support that Adobe can offer.

One prime example of the benefits of Dreamweaver's new stable is the Check Page tool, which doesn't just validate code, or tell you what's wrong - it browses through Adobe's huge online Help archive and community area and tells you what the problem is and how to fix it. Results are then posted to the Adobe community and logged for future updates and bug-fixes.

Spry workflow

The CSS workflow is the most obvious area in which Dreamweaver's been spruced up, though. A huge new range of templates is available on start-up, and they're well thought out. You can now also shift CSS snippets from inline to external documents using a context-sensitive menu, meaning any templates you use or modify will be archived for future use; simply put, the more you use this feature, the more templates you'll have.

A further Adobe-bonus is the support for Spry. After being available as a standalone AJAX library for a while, it's now integrated into Dreamweaver, bringing the simple joys of drag-and-drop interface elements and widgets, as well as XML data and inline effects.

All of this is what you'd expect from a new version of Dreamweaver. It supports new standards, has a more streamlined approach to site management, has better templates and even better help. But this is Dreamweaver CS3, and it is now a spoke in the Creative Suite with the application support to match.

This is none more evident than in Dreamweaver's support for Photoshop. There's now direct PSD import, which retains the original image at source for quick editing. Decide a colour scheme needs tweaking or layer mask adjusting? Simply double-click on the image within the Site Manager and launch Photoshop.

What's more, any edits made in Photoshop can be updated in Dreamweaver (as long as the link remains intact), and the History Inspector saves the changes whether committed or not, meaning you can always toggle between them before and after for a comparison.

Further support comes in the form of far simpler tools. You can now select an area of a PSD or image in Photoshop and paste it directly onto your page within Dreamweaver; the selection is even optimised en-route, saving the two-up or four-up hassle of previous versions when importing images.

Dreamweaver has reaped the benefits of joining Creative Suite. In terms of operability, stability and standards support, it has it all, and still retains the ease and power of its former incarnations. There are disappointments, but they are certainly not flaws: for instance, defining a site map can still be confusing even to the most experienced user.

And although Dreamweaver CS3 is bereft of any bold new features, it now dovetails seamlessly with the creative tools most web designers depend upon, and that's what's most important.

Specification