I got an email earlier that Macromedia has just announced Macromedia Studio 8. I'm been a big user of Fireworks & Dreamweaver since version 2 of each. Well version 2 of Dreamweaver. It adds a few new perks mostly making PDFs from flash files, a stronger code editor in Dreamweaver, & being able to save to other formats from Fireworks. I'm still not sure how they think of their numbering schemes They went from Dream Weaver to DreamWeaver 2, I think there was a DW 3, then 4 Then DW MX, then DW MX 2004, & now Dreamweaver 8. I'm not sure this might be the eight version of Dreamweaver but I hope they keep consistent with the naming. http://www.macromedia.com/software/studio/ I'm using Studio MX 2004 Professional & probably won't upgrade right away. It's good to upgrade if you are doing client projects because they started to include Contribute in the Package.
*checking out the new features* GREAT i thought they'd wait 'till the whole adobe merge to launch the new products
They probably wanted to squeeze out one final Macromedia Suite before Adobe start messing around with it all It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this merge. What will stay, what will go, which will be combined. I'm guessing there are going to be some serious changes in some of the apps. Clearly Fireworks will go if it comes down to dumping one of the Graphics apps. People say its better than fireworks but the quality of what you create from it is nowhere near as nice as what I can get out of Photoshop. Even the incredibly basic stuff like Outer Glow looks far FAR superior if done through Photoshop BUT this isn't the place to start debating SO rock on Macromedia, and I look forward to seeing what you come out with
I'm looking forward to trying it out. I've always liked Dreamweaver. The biggest problem I get is slowness when I have a lot of sites or files within a site. I hope they have improved the speed.
can't wait to try DW 8 / Flash Pro 8 (I think they get their "Studio 8" numbering from flash 8, not dreamweaver, btw) Looks like they're already dumping apps. Don't see any mention of Freehand, and from what i can see on Macromedia's press releases, they are basically offering "no comment" as to future plans of developing this program. Too bad, it's a good proggy, but i'm sure the answer to that question is one word: "Illustrator". Lets hope Fireworks doesn't follow suit. VG
Out of the major players in both companies I see it going as follows. Web Design Dreamweaver | GoLive Graphic Design Fireworks | Photoshop 'Vector' Design Freehand | Illustrator Now, for my thoughts on another situation they face. Documents Acrobat | FlashPaper Before anyone roll's their eyes and immediatly proclaims Adobe's PDF format to be the world saviour, lets think about the statistics. More people have FlashPlayer installed than they do Adobe Acrobat. its a smaller download and way faster at loading. Although currently the feature-set within FlashPaper is pretty low, consisting of basically a Search, Zoom, Print and Text Selection 'suite' of tools, compared to Acrobats shed-loads-more, it could be improved drastically, and due to the ease of being able to display a document within your website without having to have a seperate window in which to launch Acrobat is a bonus. I could go on for a while on this topic, but I won't Lets face it. With the PDF following that Adobe has, I don't see it going anywhere. Next up is the GoLive / Dreamweaver situation. Technically (at their current releases, GoLive CS2 and Dreamweaver MX2004) GoLive is the more advanced of the two, offering such things as standards compliant Templates, and its über CSS orientated compared to Dreamweaver, BUT, Dreamweaver is by far the more popular of the two. I have tried GoLive and gave up on it, but thats probably because I've used Dreamweaver since Version 2 and HATE change lol. Whether they'll keep Dreamweaver because of its following, but incorporate a shed-load of GoLive functions is a different matter, but I hope, i HOPE, they won't completley change Dreamweaver if they did, especially with their 'ugh' interface. Palettes everywhere. I much prefer the all-in-one feel to the newer Dreamweaver interface. Easier to use, less clutter etc, but I guess that depends on the user. I guess we'll have to see what Macromedia come up with when the new version of Dreamweaver is released. I would expect them to angle more towards standards compliancy, and to focus more on CSS. We'll have to wait 'n' see. Anyway, there are my thoughts on the Merge and what I think'll happen to the major applications. Hope I havn't rabbled on for too long
great to see dreamweaver 8 but can't buy it coz it needs lots of money and currently i havn't enough.
And Studio 8 wil be £699 in the UK and $999 in the US... by today's conversion rates that means Americans can get it for about £140 cheaper
I guess it depends if you need the entire suite. If you do, then I guess you can justify buying it, but if your like me, and need, say, only Dreamweaver, then it works out much better
Do you use Fireworks, Freehand and Coldfusion as well? If you do then you would, but if not then you may as well just get the two things you need. Save yerself some money. No point in 'well its more worthwhile to buy the whole lot' if your never going to use half of it
lol. I read up on a review of it last night and I'll forget what I said about the fact that if you use say Dreamweaver, then you may as well just buy Dreamweaver considering that buying an individiaul component costs about half of the suite lol.
I think its definitly going to be the last version but is that such a bad thing? At least all the Fireworks Users will be able to realise the full potential of Photoshop
I read that they have an upgrade price and the upgrade price goes back to version 3 of Flash, if I remember correctly. Apparently, again if I remember correctly, to get the upgrade price on the entire new suite you could just buy a used single license of Flash 3 off of eBay for ~$30 and save yourself a load cash. Of course I could be wrong... I just checked their site before I hit submit here, and on their Upgrade Eligibility page it says any product in the suite of any earlier version will get you the $399 US upgrade price. example: You Own You Want You Pay Dreamweaver MX 2004 or earlier version Studio 8 $399 Fireworks MX 2004 or earlier version Studio 8 $399 So as long as you're legit now, you only have to buy the upgrade. Seems a little too good to be true for the slackers out there that haven't upgraded their software for years, I would call them first just to confirm.