© Macromedia.

I haven't used every single new web authoring tool on the market, and chances are I never will. I'm much too busy cheating at Duke Nukem. So, I honestly can't say that Macromedia's Dreamweaver version 1.2 is better than every other such program on the market. What I can say is that since I began using this product, I am hard pressed to find a reason why I would ever need or want to switch to another web page development program.

The program boasts a comprehensive array of features that let both novices and experts alike design and create professional looking web pages. The graphical user interface displays the right amount of information without being cumbersome, unwieldy or confusing. The window and palette layout is tight and functional without making me dizzy. No more tennis elbow moving everything around before I can actually use the program to do something. How novel.

A screen shot of the AWN home page being operated on with Dreamweaver.

Quickly Getting to Work
Several things about the program immediately impressed me. First, I was able to edit some pretty sophisticated pages in minutes, without glancing at the manual, clicking the help button, or calling our webmaster on the intercom. Creating several new pages, in this case some commerce catalog prototypes, was equally as easy. New tables can be inserted on the page quite easily, their placement, width, border size and other attributes configured from the Property Inspector palette in a snap. I popped on some graphic images and corresponding URL links just as quickly.

I'm the type of developer that would rather reformat old floppies than spend hours poring through documentation. When I get stuck, I go straight to the index, and work my way backwards through the manuals to find the reference materials I need. Dreamweaver's documentation is clearly written, and the on-line help is indeed helpful. The Macromedia web site is dedicated to support the Dreamweaver user and the developer community has proven extremely useful. For example, poring over several real-life code examples helped me understand some of the more advanced program features involving rollovers, where the user can program different "behaviors" to occur when a mouse passes over a certain section of the page.

Dreamweaver's interactive help pages.

Technical Support
It never ceases to amaze me how many software companies leave their users high and dry after purchase, providing web sites containing pitifully outdated and incomplete FAQs and expensive "incident" packages as the sole means of technical support. Is it any wonder that third-party technical "how-to" manuals now outsell low-fat cookbooks? Product purchase is only the beginning. If I'm going to invest hundreds of man hours and thousands of dollars of developer time in such a tool, the software developer should be as serious about the product as I am, especially web page design tools.

The browser battles with their Java tug-of-war, standards changes within the HTML and DHTML specifications, compounded by the varied and buggy versions of browsers that populate the bazillions of PCs around the world, make web site development a complex and often difficult task. Macromedia's Dreamweaver program is built and promoted as a professional tool that anyone can use, and their support site is ample evidence of their commitment to the developer base. I see no reason to doubt Macromedia's intention and capability to develop and upgrade Dreamweaver as the realities of development for the web shift in the near future.