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It is the common pitch of software developers that their product is the all encompassing, miracle, wonder tonic that will cure all of your computer ailments. Those of us who use these software packages have learned to proceed with the caution we normally reserve for travelling salesmen, carnival barkers and infomercials. The folks at Macromedia, Inc. wish to challenge our cautious hesitation once again with their updated release of the Dreamweaver/Fireworks Studio. They may not have created the end-all, be-all web design package, but they came pretty darn close.

Firstly, the updated Dreamweaver/Fireworks Studio is actually two products, Dreamweaver 2 and Fireworks 2, both of which can be purchased individually or together. We reviewed the original release of both these products in our September 1998 issue. Recently, Macromedia released the second version of both of these products to provide for the new user, a simple yet powerful way of designing web pages. For previous users of Dreamweaver and/or Fireworks, Macromedia added some new features that make complete web design even easier.

Building Pages: Dreamweaver 2
Dreamweaver 2 is one of the most powerful WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors available to web designers (although Adobe's newly released Go Live 4 is supposed to be competitive). As with the first release, the program is an intuitive page editor that allows users to build pages quickly by formatting text; creating and editing tables; changing background, object and text colors; assigning links; placing pictures and even building form objects with the click of a mouse. These features haven't changed much from the original Dreamweaver and for the novice user they will still provide a quick and easy way to build pages. One new feature of Dreamweaver 2 that would definitely benefit a novice user is the Visual Site Map. One of the most important things for a new web designer to understand is the hierarchy of pages in a web site. As a site grows and new levels are added to the server, it becomes more and more important to "keep all of your ducks in a row" as the saying goes and be very organized in terms of where all the pages and page objects are located. The Site Map gives the user a visual representation of the entire site and the relation of pages to each other. This new feature also allows drag-and-drop capability, so pages can be moved and links reassigned quickly and easily.

The new visual site map feature.

While a novice or casual web designer will find Dreamweaver 2 beneficial, the program was designed for professional web developers and it is the program's advanced features that truly set it apart from other WYSIWYG editors. The most powerful feature of Dreamweaver 2 is its complete integration with the text editor BBEdit 5.0. Anyone who has done a fair amount of web design knows that WYSIWYG is a misnomer...that is, what you see is NOT always what you get. With all of the different browsers and platforms being used, the only way to make sure web pages appear as intended is to edit the source code. Both Dreamweaver and Dreamweaver 2 provide the user with an editable HTML window, but the programs are much more effective with the simple and powerful BBEdit 5.0. BBEdit works in conjunction with Dreamweaver allowing the designer to jump back and forth between the two programs with the changes being updated instantly. Another advantage of working with BBEdit is the program's ability to FTP pages directly to the server. All of this means that you can design your page in Dreamweaver and BBEdit, upload them to your server with Fetch and view your work on-line in a matter of seconds...a web designers dream! Macromedia made this even easier by including the latest versions of BBEdit, Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer on the Dreamweaver 2 installation CD.