DreamWeaver MX 2004?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Jennifer Bennett wondered: <<I am thinking about purchasing DreamWeaver 
MX 2004. I was wondering if anyone who uses it could share their gripes 
about it, as well as the things they especially like about it. Why 
should one buy MX 2004 instead of just picking up a cheap copy of 
version 4?>>

MX 2004 is a significant improvement because it runs native in OS X 
(unlike 4--which means cut and paste between applications is smoother) 
and runs considerably faster than previous OS X versions. There's also 
considerably more flexibility in customizing the software (key 
assignments etc.). Because it runs under X, many nice features (such as 
Window swapping) are now implemented. Page layout is still fast and 
flexible, and I like the implementation of templates.

The Help system is improved, but still not up to my standards--maybe 
because I think differently than they do rather than because it's 
poorly done. There are many other features and bells and whistles that 
I haven't had time to explore because I keep my Web sites simple 
(painfully so) and haven't had time to try anything more sophisticated. 
Check the features list to see if there's anything compelling. Whether 
these features are sufficient reason to justify an upgrade I leave to 
you; the ability to work in OS X has made the upgrade worthwhile to me.

Dreamweaver retains some of the major annoyances from previous versions:

- the text editor sucks every bit as badly as in previous versions, 
though you can instruct the software to use your own preferred text 
editor (I'm currently pondering TextWrangler from Bare Bones software, 
http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/download.shtml)

- Copying and pasting text from Word sometimes produces surprising 
results (formats come across nicely, but for larger documents, I often 
see random anchors added to the text--often with "DLL" in their 
names--when I cut and paste, and you can't delete these in the layout 
window--you have to do this in the editor). Haven't tried the "import 
Word HTML" feature, but I imagine it works about the same as previous 
versions--which is to say, better than nothing but not great. I'd like 
to see a direct import of Word files--if it's there, I missed it 
(likely, since I haven't had time to really explore the new features).

- Significant parts of the interface remain poorly thought out: there 
aren't enough keyboard commands assigned by default to the menu 
choices; the software often forgets where you've been working, and thus 
loses "focus" or selects an inappropriate focus (e.g., if you type a 
URL into the Link field in the control palette, the cursor remains in 
that field when you press Return rather than moving back to the layout 
window, forcing you to mouse-click if you want to go back to editing 
text). And so on.

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Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
www.geoff-hart.com
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