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Personally I considered Dreamweaver CS3, Adobe’s first upgrade to the program after acquiring it, to be a “must have” update.Obviously, a lot of you didn’t see it that way.

Lately I’ve fielded a lot of questions from people considering upgrading from Dreamweaver 8 (CS2) to Dreamweaver CS4. While it’s fairly easy to find information about the incremental updates: from DW8 to CS3 and from CS3 to CS4 (links at the end of this post) I haven’t found a source that offers an overview of what’s in store if you make the leap from 8 directly to CS4. So I’ve put together a quick  overview with some brief comments of the features that await you at the end of the DW8 to DWCS4 upgrade process.

New in CS3

Overview: CS3 marked the beginning of the process of integrating Dreamweaver into Creative Suite but more importantly it was the first version of Dreamweaver  to support CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) styles and layout in a manner accessible to non-programmers. That feature alone made CS3 a required update in my book. Of course with the new functionality there was also a bit of a learning curve.

• Integration with Adobe Creative Suite
  • Copy and paste from Photoshop
• Improved CSS handling
  • Convert inline CSS to a rule
  • Built-in CSS-based page layouts

  Spry (AJAX) widgets and effects

  • Pop-out menus, “accordion” panels and more
  • Browser compatibility checking
    Hints
    Community-based help
• Tag Inspector: right click to view
• Adobe Device Central
  • Preview designs for mobile devices
• Better Intel support for Macs

New in CS4

CS4 continues Dreamweaver’s integration into Creative Suite but the changes are more evolutionary than those in CS3. What you’ll notice immediately is several UI (user interface) changes that may take a bit of getting used to. Other changes offer increase functionality – especially In-Context Edit and AIR Authoring – but you might never notice them if you don’t go looking.

• Improved integration with Adobe Creative Suite
  • Photoshop Smart Objects automatically update placed images when the linked Photoshop image is changed
• New Workspaces
  • Built in workspaces: App Developer, App Developer Plus, Classic, Coder, Coder Plus, Designer, Designer Compact
  • Ability to create and save custom workspaces
• Related Files Bar
  • Easy access to linked JavaScript and CSS files
• Live View
  • View JavaScript and CSS effects within Dreamweaver
  • View effects of code changes “live”
• Improved code hinting
  • AJAX and JavaScript code hinting
• In-context  editing
  • Online editing through an Adobe hosted service
• HTML Datasets
  • Import tabular data from an HTML file into a sortable table
• Subversion Version Control
  • Improved version control for site with multiple authors
• AIR Authoring
  • Convert your web site into a stand-alone application
• Additional document viewing options
  • When viewing code and design in the Split view, the window can now be split vertically as well as horizontally (menu: View>Split Vertically)
  • Menu: View>Visual Aids> offers a variety of viewing options to make page elements more readily identifiable
• Code Navigator
  • Easily access code in linked files
• Layout Mode for “drawing” tables no longer available

The bottom line

Should you upgrade from Dreamweaver 8 to CS3?

In a word, YES. You’ll get the benefit of two excellent updates, an improved UI and access to “modern” web technologies like CSS and AJAX.

What about the learning curve?

Make no mistake you may encounter a significant learning curve moving to CS4. How steep it is will depend upon your familiarity with advanced web technologies such as CSS. If the move to CS4 marks your first venture into CSS-based (as opposed to table-based) layout, expect a few headaches as the wonders (and eccentricities) of Cacscading Style Sheets are revealed.

However, if you’re serious about web design, the transition to CSS is a requirement and CS4 offers the tools and templates to make the transition possible and rewarding if not always pleasant.

Additional resources:

• What’s new in Dreamweaver CS3: An excellent step-by-step guide the differences between DW8 and CS3
• 6 Things To Like About Dreamweaver CS4
• Dreamweaver CS4 Features Overview (Adobe)

What’s your experience?

If you’ve got information or tips that you’d like to share about the Dreamweaver upgrade experience or if you got questions before or after making the link, please leave a comment below.

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