Alternatively, you’ll have to switch to the Creative Cloud subscription service. The Creative Cloud has been very attractively priced, and it holds out the prospect of early updates and some nice bonus extras, such as Typekit fonts, but it has the disadvantage that once you stop paying, you can no longer use the software. I’ll leave it up to you to weigh up the pros and cons of the Creative Cloud. In this post, I’m going to concentrate on what’s new in Dreamweaver CS6 and what I think of it.

If I were to sum up this new version in a single word, I think that “evolutionary” is the most appropriate. The main focus is on CSS improvements, including:

• Web font management
• CSS transitions
• Multiple classes
• Fluid Grid Layout
• jQuery Mobile theming

The other main features are a complete overhaul of Dreamweaver’s FTP client, and integration with PhoneGap Build.

Video Training Courses

I have recorded two video training courses about Dreamweaver CS6. The first one is a New Features Workshop, which contains more than three hours of videos showing how to use all these new features. It should be available from video2brain later this week. The other video course is an in-depth treatment of web design and development with Dreamweaver CS6, aimed mainly at beginners and intermediate users. It will be published jointly by Adobe Press and video2brain sometime later. I’ll post more details when they’re available.

Web Font Management

The new Web Fonts Manager in Dreamweaver CS6 installs web fonts into your personal configuration folder, making them available in all your Dreamweaver sites. Installing a font is very simple. You just launch the Web Fonts Manager from the Modify menu, and click Add Font. In the dialog box that appears, click the folder icon to the right of one of the font fields, and select the font. Dreamweaver detects all formats of the font in the same folder, and automatically fills in all the remaining fields, as shown in the following screen shot.

Installing a web font makes it available in Dreamweaver’s code hints and dialog boxes. You can also build custom font stacks that incorporate fonts that you have installed. When you select a web font in the CSS Styles panel or CSS Rule Definition dialog box, Dreamweaver copies the font files to a new folder in your site root, and creates a style sheet with the necessary @font-face rule. Web fonts aren’t rendered in Design view, but they’re fully supported in Live view.

My only reservation about the way that Dreamweaver handles web fonts is that it uses a separate style sheet for each @font-face rule. However, it’s easy enough to cut and paste the rules into the top of your main style sheet.

CSS Transitions

Dreamweaver CS6 makes it easy to create CSS transitions—simple animations that smooth the transition from one state to another, for example if you scale up an image when hovering over it. The quickest and simplest way is to use the new CSS Transitions panel, which creates both the transition properties and the styles for the end state in a single operation. The CSS Rule Definition dialog box supports the creation of more complex transitions, such as those triggered on a nested element. Both methods generate not only the standard properties, but also browser-specific prefixed versions. This is a great time-saver because you need browser-specific prefixes for Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and WebKit-based browsers.

I like this feature a lot, but it seems odd that you need to use the CSS Rule Definition dialog box to create more advanced transitions. In my experience, advanced users rarely touch that dialog box. However, if a style rule already exists, you can just click the Edit Rule icon in the CSS Styles panel without having to go through the hassle of the New CSS Rule dialog box.

Multiple Classes

This is something that Dreamweaver users have been demanding for a long time—the ability to apply multiple classes to an element. Hallelujah, Adobe has finally listened. Just select the element in the Document window, and choose Apply Multiple Classes from the Class menu in the Property inspector to open the Multiclass Selection dialog box. This presents you with a list of all classes in your site, as shown in the following screen shot.

Select the check box alongside each class that you want to apply to the element. If you haven’t already defined the class, you can add it to the space-separated list in the field at the bottom of the dialog box. A long overdue, but nevertheless very welcome improvement.

Fluid Grid Layout

This should be the star attraction of Dreamweaver CS6. In some respects, it’s stunning, but it feels like a work in progress rather than a polished feature. Inspired by Ethan Marcotte’s Responsive Web Design, this feature allows you to specify three fluid grids for mobile, tablet, and desktop layout. Each grid can have 2–24 columns, and you can specify how wide the grid should spread across the screen, as shown in the following screen shot.

You then add fluid grid layout div elements to build the structure of your page in the mobile layout. Next comes the brilliant part—you can resize the elements and snap them to the grid, and move elements to sit alongside each other. All this is done in Design view or Live view, and Dreamweaver automatically calculates the width of elements and margins to four decimal places. The CSS uses percentage widths and floats, so it produces layouts that adapt to any screen size. It’s most definitely not a throwback to the bad old days of Dreamweaver’s Layout mode. The styles are constructed on the basis of “mobile first”, and work even in browsers that don’t understand media queries.

Where the Fluid Grid Layout feature falls down is in Dreamweaver’s inability to indicate which media query controls a particular style rule. Another problem is that it doesn’t support nesting elements to create more complex layouts. It’s to be hoped that these shortcomings will be addressed in an updater. One of the ideas behind the Creative Cloud subscription setup is that new features or improvements to existing ones can be added as soon as they’re ready without needing to wait for the next major release.

jQuery Mobile Theming

The integrated version of jQuery Mobile in Dreamweaver CS6 has been updated to the 1.0 stable version (not 1.1). There’s also a new jQuery Mobile Swatches panel that’s designed to make it easy to change the look of individual elements (see screen shot).

Multichannel FTP

Let’s be honest. In the past, Dreamweaver’s FTP client was a dog. Not any more. It now supports multichannel transfers, and can even download at the same time as uploading. Orange arrows indicate items queued for transfer. When the transfer begins, the arrow turns green. And if you’re transferring a large item, hovering over the filename displays a tooltip of how much of the file has been transferred. With Dreamweaver CS5.5, it took more than 90 minutes to  upload a WordPress site on my internet connection. Now, it’s more than ten times faster.

The FTP error messages are also more meaningful. No one is likely to buy Dreamweaver CS6 for its FTP client alone, but this is a major improvement to the program.

PhoneGap Build Integration

The way that Dreamweaver CS6 supports building native apps for iOS, Android, and other mobile operating systems using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the PhoneGap framework has changed completely. It no longer installs the Android software development kit (SDK) and emulator. Nor can the Mac version hook directly into Xcode and the iOS simulator. Instead, there’s a new panel that uploads your files to PhoneGap Build, an online service that automatically packages applications for iOS, Android, webOS, Symbian, and BlackBerry. Using PhoneGap Build is much easier than working with a simulator, because the Dreamweaver panel displays a QR code that lets you load the app directly onto your testing device. However, you need to build the configuration file manually in XML, and there’s no longer any code hinting in Dreamweaver for PhoneGap plugins. So, although the integration of PhoneGap Build is a definite improvement, it feels as though the engineering team didn’t have time to polish some important details.

You can now build an app for iOS on either Mac or Windows, but in order to compile it, you need to create a valid signing key and upload it to PhoneGap Build. The signing key must be created on a Mac. You also need to register with Apple as an iOS developer and pay an annual fee.

Conclusion

I like the new features in Dreamweaver CS6, but I have to admit that they don’t have me jumping up and down with excitement. Maybe that’s because I felt CS5 and CS5.5 were such strong releases, and I was hoping for a similar performance this time. The Fluid Grid Layout and PhoneGap Build features had the potential to be outstanding, but fell slightly short of the mark. As a result, I’d give Dreamweaver CS6 only 7 or 8 out of 10. It’s good, but it could have been so much better.

In fairness to the Adobe engineering team, I understand that a huge amount of work was devoted to solving the long-standing problems with FTP and to converting the Mac version of Dreamweaver to run on Cocoa, the native application programming interface (API) for Mac OS X. The conversion to Cocoa should result in a more stable experience on a Mac, combined with the knowledge that Dreamweaver CS6 won’t suddenly stop working when Carbon is deprecated in Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion). However, the conversion work means that less time was available to develop or polish other features.

I’ve long felt that the idea of releasing more than a dozen complex programs according to a rigid timetable was impracticable. Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks effectively sat out of the last upgrade cycle, which gave them 24 months to prepare for CS6. Dreamweaver hasn’t had that luxury. As a result, the Fluid Grid Layout and PhoneGap Build integration have some rough edges that could probably have been eliminated with more time. The message that I keep hearing from my contacts in Adobe is that moving to the Creative Cloud subscription model means that new features and improvements to individual programs can be released as soon as they’re ready. The problem is that to benefit from the updates, you need to switch to the subscription model. Anyone buying a perpetual licence will have to wait for the next full version to get the new features.

Getting new features as soon as they’re ready makes a lot of sense in the light of the speed at which the web is changing. What’s far from clear is how successful Adobe will be in persuading Creative Suite users to switch to the subscription model. It’s a big gamble for Adobe.

I haven’t had time to test the new extension in Dreamweaver CS5.5, but I have used PhoneGap Build on many occasions. It’s simple to use and seems to be very reliable.

You can grab hold of the PhoneGap Build extension for Dreamweaver CS5.5 and read how to use it on the Adobe website. To use the extension, you need to create an account on the  PhoneGap Build site. A basic account is free, but if you’re a serious developer, you’ll need to choose one of the paid-for accounts.

Note that the extension works only with Dreamweaver CS5.5. It won’t work with earlier versions of Dreamweaver.

[Update: 4 April 2012] Adobe has withdrawn the extension for “technical reasons”. From what I understand, there should be no problem using the extension if you have already installed it. As the Adobe blog says, “The functionality of the extension, which integrates PhoneGap Build with Dreamweaver, will be available in the upcoming version of Dreamweaver CS6.” Adobe has started releasing sneak previews of various CS6 features, as well as announcing that anyone buying CS5.5 now will qualify for a free upgrade. So, it can be safely assumed that CS6 is getting very close.

Never heard of video2brain? It’s an Austrian company that has been providing video training in German, French, and Spanish for the past decade. It started creating courses in English in 2009, and now has more than 500 hours of English-language instruction on Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, and many other aspects of digital media. The videos have been created by some of the top names in their fields, including Rufus Deuchler, Tom Green, Angie Taylor, Todd Kopriva—not to mention me. The company has also created a large number of videos for Peachpit, one of the best known names in computer technology publishing. So, it’s no fly-by-night company.

As a video2brain author, I’m able to offer a substantial discount on the already competitive prices for the new subscription service. There are three levels of subscription:

• Standard—$129 a year or $12.99 a month (normally $149/$14.99). This gives you unlimited access to all English courses streamed online.
• Gold—$179 a year or $17.99 a month (normally $199/$19.99). In addition to the courses, you also get access to all project files and PDF books.
• Platinum—$279 a year (normally $299). In addition to the the project files and PDF books, you can download the courses to view them offline.

Students and teachers can purchase the academic version of the standard subscription for $99 a year.

If you subscribe during the introductory period, video2brain says it will lock the subscription price for three years. And as the collection of courses grows, you’ll get immediate access to all new titles. It’s planned to add at least four new courses each month. So, if you’re looking to brush up your digital skills and keep abreast of the latest developments, you can do so for as little as 35 cents a day. Many of the courses have sample videos that you can view free of charge, so you can judge the quality for yourself before committing your hard-earned cash.

I have to admit that I’m far from being an expert in JavaScript. I’ve used it for about eight years, but it’s never come as easy to me as PHP. So, earlier this month, I headed down to Brighton for the third Full Frontal JavaScript Conference organized by JavaScript whiz kid, Remy Sharp. I had attended Remy’s Node.js workshop in London in May, and realized he was not only knowledgeable, but also well organized. That gave me high hopes for the conference, although I was a little concerned about immersing myself for a full day in a series of talks about different aspects of JavaScript. Unlike a dedicated workshop, you can’t raise your hand and get the speaker to go over a point you didn’t quite understand. Well, you could, if you wanted to make a fool of yourself in front of 300 people, most of whom were likely to be pretty hot on JavaScript.

I needn’t have worried. Remy had invited an excellent mix of speakers, and each talk was limited to 40 minutes. As a result, even the technical presentations by Jeremy Ashkenas (about CoffeeScript) and Marijn Haverbeke (about code editing in the browser with Code Mirror) served more to inspire than to fill me with dread. In fact, that’s the main thing I took away from the conference—inspiration at the incredible ways you can use JavaScript. Glenn Jones demonstrated some really cool uses of the new drag and drop API in HTML5. Nicholas Zakas’s talk was more theoretical, emphasizing the value of building applications in loose coupled modules—something that applies to most programming languages.

Two of the most inspiring talks came from Brendan Dawes and Marcin Wichary. Brendan presented a witty tour-de-force that somehow got from his obsession with pencils to a fascinating series of demonstrations of visual navigation systems that encourage exploration. With a background in Flash development, Brendan’s showing that—with skill and imagination—you can do visually amazing things with JavaScript. Equally amazing things are done by Marcin Wichary, who unveiled some of the secrets of Google doodles. What really impressed me was the length he goes to in order to ensure that even users of older browsers get a similar, if not equal experience.

JavaScript is becoming easier thanks to libraries such as jQuery and Microsoft’s decision to follow the World Wide Web Consortium’s Document Object Model (W3C DOM) since Internet Explorer 8. The HTML5-related APIs are also adding lots of new functionality to browsers, but there’s a danger of slipping back to the days of animated GIFs if designers/developers add new bells and whistles to their sites “just because they can”. So, Phil Hawksworth’s witty presentation was timely, warning against shizzle for the sake of shizzle.

All in all, a good day out. Any regrets? Yes, Brighton is only an hour’s train ride from London, so I decided to make it a day trip. But I had to get up so early to make it to the venue in time that I was dog tired and began nodding off in the afternoon. I was also too tired to go to the after-conference party—and missed all the free beer! Next time, I’ll book myself into a local hotel.

The invitation to review the rival book came from the marketing department of Packt, the company that published it. I sent a polite reply saying that I didn’t think it would be appropriate for me to review a book that had an almost identical title to mine. I thought that would be the end of it. However, I received an email from Packt saying they knew I had written a book with an identical title, and that’s why I would be the perfect person to write an honest review.

At first I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or horrified. It’s nice to think that I have such a great reputation for fairness that I would write a glowing review of a book that’s in direct competition with mine. Of course, there’s always the temptation to savage the book in public, but I would never want to do that to a fellow author. I know how much a bad review hurts. Since my book was published three months earlier (and was available even before that as Rough Cuts in the Safari Online Library), Packt can have no excuse for not knowing the title of its rival book was almost identical. I’ve no idea if the title was chosen as a deliberate spoiler, but asking me to review Packt’s book is rather like asking Coca Cola to endorse Pepsi’s latest offering.

I haven’t read the Packt book, which is written by David Karlins, an established and respected author. What I have read is David’s “Thoughts from the author” on Amazon.com. In it, he says you don’t need to know HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. In fact, you don’t even need to know what they are. That immediately tells me that our books take completely different approaches to the same subject. I think it’s a pity his new publisher has decided to muddy the waters with the confusing titles.

I firmly believe that to build a website, you need to have at least a basic understanding of the underlying technologies. Website development is becoming increasingly complex. Dreamweaver helps speed up development through dialog boxes, prepackaged widgets, and code hints; but if you rely solely on point-and-click or copy-and-paste techniques, you’ll remain severely limited in what you can achieve. My book is aimed at readers who aren’t afraid to dig into a bit of code. In fact, you’ll need to do so if you want to access features such as geolocation and web storage on mobile devices. I guide you through the code, explaining what it does so that you can adapt it to your own needs.

So, if you’re looking for a book on developing for mobile with Dreawmeaver CS5.5 with jQuery, HTML5, and CSS, make sure you choose the one that’s right for you. Don’t be confused by the titles. Oh, and as small bonus, my book is in full colour, even though it’s the same length and the same cover price ($39.99) as the one published by Packt.

If you planning to develop sites for multiple platforms, you’ll learn about CSS media queries and how to use the new features in Dreamweaver CS5.5, including setting up a site-wide media queries file. There’s a chapter on making sites available offline, and the download files contain a Dreamweaver extension that automatically builds a manifest file ready for editing. The chapters on jQuery Mobile contain extensive analysis of custom data attributes that control the look and functionality of a jQuery Mobile site.

Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis (@stefsull) had a sneak preview of the book. Her verdict: “David’s clarity and ability to explain complex subjects clearly makes this a book not to be missed.”

Things didn’t go quite to plan. I had lined up a series of quick demos to show off the way Dreamweaver handles media queries and the creation of rounded corners with the CSS3 border-radius property. Unfortunately, the connection to the projector switched the resolution on my laptop to something crazy like 640 x 480, making it impossible to see the full workspace and preventing me from accessing the document tabs to switch between the demo pages I had prepared. Since I had only a five-minute slot, I decided—perhaps foolishly—to soldier on rather than waste valuable time trying to find a resolution compatible with the projector.

What I did manage to demonstrate was Dreamweaver CS5.5′s support for web fonts, creating and adjusting CSS3 drop shadows visually, jQuery code hinting, and PhoneGap integration. While demonstrating the support for web fonts, I was able to show how you can work in the underlying code and view the result in Live view without needing to save the document or round-trip to a browser.

I got the feeling that the audience remained sceptical about Dreamweaver, but they listened to what I had to say. And with plenty of questions, my original five minutes extended beyond ten. Matt Lucht has given a good summary of what I had to say (together with comments about the main speakers). Matt makes the comment “I’m not sure what value it gave over say a browser plugin such as Firebug.” It’s a fair point. Dreamweaver is an IDE for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and other web-related languages, all of which are open standards. Therefore, there are plenty of authoring tools around—some free, others commercial.

What I think Dreamweaver has to offer is the way in which it brings the various web technologies together. I use Firebug and similar tools, such as the Web Inspector in Safari. They’re great, but you need to switch from your IDE and back to use them. Each time you switch is time wasted. Dreamweaver gives me most of the tools I need in a single workspace. Working recently with a jQuery Mobile project, I found Dreamweaver’s Live Code one of the most useful features. It lets you inspect the dynamically generated code inside the Document window, which is essential for dealing with pages generated through DOM manipulation. Yes, I can get the same information by right-clicking in Safari or Chrome and selecting Inspect Element, but it takes me longer to do so. Live Code also lets me inspect what’s happening in response to different events by highlighing all changes in a different colour.

Judging by comments from the audience and in conversation afterwards, there seem to be two main barriers to acceptance of Dreamweaver among professional web developers/designers. The main complaint is the price. I can’t do anything about that, although I have told Adobe on more than one occasion that I think the price differential—between what you pay in dollars in North America and what you pay in pounds or euros in Europe—is totally unjustifiable, particularly for a product that is delivered electronically. Adobe is not alone in charging a premium outside the USA, but it builds up resentment and damages sales. Still, buying software is a business expense. Business must be really bad if you can’t afford the tools for the job.

That brings me to the other main barrier—many web professionals don’t think Dreamweaver is the right tool for the job they’re doing. Maybe they’re right. Far be it from me to question how another person does his or her job. But several people in the audience admitted that they hadn’t used Dreamweaver for a long time. I have used it consistently since Dreamweaver 3 (about 11 years). The Dreamweaver of yesteryear is not the program it is today.

In 2001, the Web Standards Project (WaSP), led at the time by such people as Jeffrey Zeldman, formed a task force to pressure Macromedia (the original creators of Dreamweaver) to improve the standards compliance and accessibility of pages created with Dreamweaver. The initial result was the release of Dreamweaver MX 2004, which produced much cleaner code. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close. The main problem was Layout Mode, a WYSIWYG tool that produced the most horrendous table-based spaghetti code. Another problem was the use of “layers”—absolutely positioned elements with inline styles. With the help of others, I privately lobbied Macromedia and then Adobe to get rid of Layout Mode. Partial success was achieved with the release of Dreamweaver CS3 in 2007, when access to Layout Mode was deliberately hidden. Then, in 2008, Layout Mode was finally killed off in Dreamweaver CS4. Layers also disappeared. You can still create absolutely positioned elements, but they no longer have inline styles.

The WaSP Adobe Task Force was wound up in 2009, but Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis still acts as WaSP Industry Evangelist to Adobe. I know from my participation in private Adobe forums that she gives the Dreamweaver engineering team a tough time, pressuring them constantly to improve standards. Dreamweaver certainly hasn’t stood still. It has full code hinting support for HTML5 and for CSS3 modules that have reached a reasonable degree of stability. Its support for PHP and JavaScript code introspection has greatly improved its usefulness to developers.

As I see it, Dreamweaver’s main problem is one of perception. It gained a reputation (deservedly so) for producing bad code and for being a WYSIWYG tool. The WYSIWYG image is completely wrong. Most Dreamweaver users that I know work in Split view with the code on the left of the screen, and a visual representation of the page in Design view on the right. If you’re working in Design view, you can keep an eye on the code that’s being generated. But it gets better if you switch into Live view, which renders the page using the WebKit browser engine. You can continue working in the code, and your changes are immediately reflected in Live view by pressing F5 or clicking the refresh icon. What’s more, the Related Files toolbar gives you access to all linked files in Code view. So, I can work in an external JavaScript file while keeping the web page visible on the right of the screen.

If you haven’t used Dreamweaver for a long time, give it a try when CS5.5 is released in May. There will be a 30-day free trial. As long as you’re willing to explore its features, I think you might find there’s a lot to like. If it doesn’t match your needs, fine. But at least I hope you’ll get the chance to see that it’s not Dreamweaver that produces bad code. It’s bad designers/developers who do.

(Disclosure: I’m not an Adobe employee, but I am an Adobe Community Professional, a sort of unpaid evangelist for Dreamweaver. I write books about Dreamweaver and answer questions in the Dreamweaver Help pages. I also teach Dreamweaver and write books about PHP.)

I answer a lot of questions in the Dreamweaver forums, and realized that a lot of the solutions I was coming up with for people weren’t easy to find after a couple of days. So, rather than letting them disappear into cyberoblivion, I decided to add any of general interest to the cookbook when I had a few spare moments. The Dreamweaver Cookbook is intended for code samples, and doesn’t have the capability of including screenshots, so I’ll continue posting longer tutorials on my own site. But I hope you’ll find my contributions to the cookbook useful.

Here are direct links to some of the articles I have added to the Dreamweaver Cookbook:

• Create nested lists from a recordset
• Set a time limit on a login session
• Registration system that requires the user to validate the email address (in two parts)
• Alternate colours for table rows (using PHP, Spry, or jQuery)
• Upload image to website
• Format date for insertion into MySQL
• Formatting dates stored in MySQL

The Dreamweaver Cookbook is open to anyone to either request recipes or contribute recipes of their own. It could turn into a very useful resource if people start using it regularly. Check it out!

That’s a shame, because Bridge has some very useful features. I use it frequently for batch renumbering my photos and for selecting photos to use in websites. The thumbnail images can be resized, making light work of choosing the best photo to zap into Photoshop and optimize for a web page. The other great feature in Bridge is what is called the Adobe Output Module. Among other things, this creates Flash-based web galleries of your visual assets. It’s incredibly easy to use, and produces really nice results.

The only problem is that the HTML file generated by Bridge makes the Flash movie fill the entire browser window, making it impossible to incorporate the gallery into an existing website. Well, it’s not really impossible. All it needs is a little editing of the HTML and JavaScript. I have created a new tutorial with step-by-step instructions to show how to incorporate an Adobe Bridge web gallery into a website. I hope you find it useful.