Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 [OLD VERSION] Reviews

• Dreamweaver 8 Now Comes in a CS3 Box

  
  By A3ON015NJ0HPQ0 on 2007-05-21
  I strongly suggest DW8 users download the free DWCS3 demo from Adobe and see what you think--before you buy. Three stars because it's good old Dreamweaver, but two taken away because it's not an improvement.
  
  There are some new toys to play with, but the old dog is still sick. Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 should be called "Macromedia Dreamweaver 8.5 Ajax." The new CS3 interface is not part of Dreamweaver, and it seems nothing at all was done to fix the existing problems or improve the core application. I'm about a week solid into using DWCS3, and for all intents and purposes, this is Dreamweaver 8. Calling it "CS3" is marketing and nothing more. The code has the same bugs, the program still locks up or crashes occasionally, and the FTP is every bit as slow and error prone as before.
  
  There are a few integration tweaks to allow use with the CS3 suite, but they're not much more than menu options to open other Adobe apps. Opening the Adobe apps independently in CS2 and Studio 8 was the same as using them "from within" Dreamweaver CS3. The Ajax Spry tools are going to be a great thing for the advanced users, and the CSS tools are better than before, but plugins and third party apps do a lot of these things better. The "advanced" Photoshop integration is little more than improved cut & paste operations, and it crashed DW on me twice.
  
  I think it's somewhat dishonest to charge DW8 users full upgrade price to get DWCS3. Dreamweaver is a good program, but it's still broken and it needs fixing. I'm assuming Adobe wasn't ready to go to market with Dreamweaver, but it was time for CS3 in the Adobe life cycle. If they had put GoLive in the same box with Flash and not included Dreamweaver the fans would have rioted, so they spat this thing out prematurely to finish the set. As a full version upgrade this is a supreme disappointment.
  
  

• I love it! Sweet!

  
  By A3FCL4APUQPOKF on 2007-06-24
  I previously used version 4 of Dreamweaver. I only used it on a basic level because I never really studied how to use its features. Then I got Dreamweaver CS3. The first time I launched it, it looked very bizarre and perplexing. Then I got Garrick Chow's "Dreamweaver CS3 Essentials" video tutorial from lynda.com. I highly recommend it! It makes it so much easier and fun to see demonstrated how to use the features. I also recommend following along doing the exercises on your own copy of Dreamweaver CS3 while you watch him do them. I love Dreamweaver CS3. It has so many features that makes things so much easier. I recently had to create some new web pages based on someone else's existing web site and its several long, complicated style sheets. Dreamweaver made it easy to track down all the style rules that various tags were using. I would've been lost without that feature. And Dreamweaver has so many other helpful, powerful features. OK it's not perfect, especially the WYSIWYG design screen part of it, but I would NOT want to create web pages without it! It has saved me SO much time! I really don't care if it's not much different from version 8 because I never used that version anyway. So I don't think that's a valid criticism to make. If you have version 8, then just don't buy CS3! CS3 is definitely radically different and far superior to the version 4 I was using. I haven't noticed much in the way of bugs yet either. The only problem I had so far is that on Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG design screen, sometimes some things don't look the way they're supposed to. But that's not a big deal, because it takes me less than a second to go to my browser and see how the page looks there. The design screen at least gives you a reasonably good idea of whether you're going on the right track with your coding. Also, even when you're working in the code view, you still have many powerful dreamweaver features to help you get stuff done faster and easier.
  
  
  
  

• Not much improvement over DW8

  
  By A2N50NAL2TQ94I on 2007-06-28
  CS3 adds the Spry AJAX tools and a some new pre-built CSS layout templates, but in reality, similar javascript and CSS code can easily be found for free with a simple Google search. Beyond that, there really isn't much else in terms of new features over the previous Dreamweaver 8. Also, I dare say it has introduced several bugs, or maybe they are just annoying new "features".
  
  For example, when you open up a site, half the time the entire root folder is collapsed, forcing you to have to re-open it each time. There seems to be no pattern to this behavior, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Also, the root folder has this weird habit of disappearing under the local files bar after a few seconds. So if I open a site and don't un-collapse the root folder within 2 seconds, then entire thing disappears under the bar, forcing me to hit the site refresh button to get it back. VERY ANNOYING!!!!
  
  Another thing that bothers me is the copy/paste from Word. I get a lot of documents sent to me in Word that I need to convert to HTML. DW8 did a pretty decent job of converting Word to HTML, but CS3 seems to get a lot more wrong; I actually have to do significantly more "clean up" work now when I do a cut/paste from Word, it is especially bad when it comes to converting lists when compared to DW8.
  
  Even if the bugs were addressed in a patch, I think that overall, this is a very disappointing "upgrade", there really isn't anything compelling enough to justify moving from DW8. I would give this 5-stars if it was an upgrade from Dreamweaver MX, but as an upgrade from Dreamweaver 8, it's simply not worth your time.
  
  

• Are you kidding !? TERRIBLE SOFTWARE!

  
  By A3DRST6ZF150DR on 2007-10-26
  Anyone who rates this software above a 2 is probably a very low end user. This software is *slower* and *buggier* (if possible) than Macromedia Studio 8.
  
  If you're using Studio 8 please listen, don't upgrade. It's throwing away money. Flash cs3 seems to be a great product so far, but as far as dreamweaver goes there's just NO REASON to *downgrade* to CS3.
  
  
  I'm a professional Software Engineer working in Web Development since 1999.
  
  
  
  
  

• Web page layout can be frustrating

  
  By A2SSHK3I9UVRZJ on 2007-07-25
  I like the program but web layout with Dreamweaver can be frustrating if you are familiar with the ease of layout in Adobe InDesign. Adobe should hide the limitations of HTML better and allow text and graphics to be freely placed without the use of tables. It can also be especially frustrating to format text in anything but simple ways.
  
  I hope Adobe can better integrate InDesign functionality with Dreamweaver and also allow InDesign pages to be converted to a web page.
  
  
  
• Adobe does Dreamweaver CS3 Right!
  By A1AQRFOUM2ZCOD on 2007-06-27
  More than any other similar product I've used or attempted to use, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 gives me the best result for the amount of time put in with the product. My search is over, I've found the software that I'm going to continue to use for future projects.
  
  
• AAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH
  By AA9SBTZNSY72B on 2008-02-24
  Having been forced by Mr. Bill Gates's disastrous Windows Vista rollout to upgrade from my previous version of Dreamweaver, with which I was pretty happy, I am encountering nothing but anger, frustration and dissatisfaction with Adobe over CS3. At the moment I am jumping through their hoops trying to get tech help through their labyrinthine online support, and am just about finished before I have even gotten started. The product itself is fine for the task; too bad about their evasive and infuriating disinclination toward support. Aargh aargh aargh.
  
  
• A great tool for beginners
  By A2JXSVLHY6IRDY on 2008-06-23
  If you are a descent software user, the kind of person who enjoys learning applications, then I recommend Dreamweaver CS3. I used this software to build my first website [...] and I would not have been able to do it without this software. Yes, there are other products but this one allowed me to create a fully functioning website without having had any prior html experience.
  
  
  
  
• Powerful but where's the manual?
  By A3QFE924CWUXBH on 2007-11-08
  This is a strong update. Since Adobe bought Macromedia, DW works best with their products. Powerful, nicely laid out, and fairly intuitive, but I wish it had a manual. Had to buy a "Missing Manual" book, which I highly recommend as an auxiliary reference.
  Overall, DW retains its title as king (or queen) of web development software.
  
  
• Another great product by Adobe
  By A16MLQ2UXYDWBL on 2007-09-21
  Adobe really know how to please people with their products. This one is very easy to use and of course it require knowledge to produce quality results.
  
  As far as Amazon is concern, this particular item was shipped fast. In some cases, you just have to make sure that they really have stock since the availability status doesn't update in real-time. But will definitely buy again with [...]
  
  JohnB
  
  

• ColorVision Spyder2PRO Win/Mac
• ColorVision Spyder2 Suite Win/Mac

• Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual
• Dreamweaver CS3 For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
• Adobe Photoshop CS3 [OLD VERSION]
• Dreamweaver CS3 Bible
• Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Classroom in a Book