Dreamweaver Is Dying

[Bloke]

I found this article and I find it amusing. Enjoy. (ps I don't agree)
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/03/05/dreamweaver-is-dying/

[JoeyD1978]

It's a stupid argument. Dreamweaver isn't a "content management system". It's not competing directly with Drupal.

[Snit]

Post by JoeyD1978
It's a stupid argument. Dreamweaver isn't a "content management system". It's
not competing directly with Drupal.

I think the idea is that content management systems are growing by leaps and
bounds and editors such as DW are fading.

Not that I buy it... but your counter does not refute it. :)

[Al Sparber - PVII]

Post by Bloke
I found this article and I find it amusing. Enjoy. (ps I don't agree)
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/03/05/dreamweaver-is-dying/

Sure it's dying. But not because of the reasons cited on that blog. I would
call it attempted suicide but I fully expect the patient to recover.

[Jon Spivey]

Post by Al Sparber - PVII
Sure it's dying. But not because of the reasons cited on that blog. I
would call it attempted suicide but I fully expect the patient to recover.

I don't think he's saying DW is dying because it's a crap program. Rather
the idea of a web designer throwing up static sites is dying, except for
very small companies wanting online business card sites. DW happens to be
the best tool to build a static site so it will survive a while - but it's
in pretty much the same position as the best maker of horse and carts when
the car started to become mainstream :-)

Cheers,
Jon

[David Powers]

Post by Jon Spivey
DW happens to be
the best tool to build a static site so it will survive a while - but it's
in pretty much the same position as the best maker of horse and carts when
the car started to become mainstream :-)

Unless, of course, it adapts and becomes a tool where you can customize
dynamic sites. Live view and the Related Files feature were the first
steps in that direction. It will be interesting to see whether the next
version of Dreamweaver continues in that direction.

[Jon Spivey]

Post by David Powers
Unless, of course, it adapts and becomes a tool where you can customize
dynamic sites. Live view and the Related Files feature were the first
steps in that direction. It will be interesting to see whether the next
version of Dreamweaver continues in that direction.

Not sure I'd agree with you. A decent sized company with a good budget
probably uses this sort of approach to build a website
1/ A designer comes up with a killer design. Probably using PhotoShop or
Fireworks
2/ A CSS guy takes this design and makes it into a viable basis for the
site. He's not using DW, at least not in design view
3/ A programmer adds the functionality. He's using Visual Studio or the
equivilant for PHP etc
4/ Those in the company that have a message to communicate to the outside
world add their content. They're certainly not using DW.

DW doesn't really fit into that workflow because there's no value it could
add at any stage of the chain. On the other side are small business owners
without that sort of budget but wanting to get their business online - so
they need to do it themselves. Should they knock themselves out learning DW,
and by extension needing to learn at least some HTML and CSS, or maybe
getting Wordpress might be easier and more effective? If they can find a
bit of budget hiring somebody to set them up with Drupal might be effective.
The only people that DW is perfect for are web developers selling a 5 page
website with a custom logo for $2000. As business gets more web savvy that
sort of offering might not work in the future.

The future is probably about letting people that have something to say get
their message online quickly and easily. Hard to see how DW could find a
useful role.

[David Powers]

Post by Jon Spivey
3/ A programmer adds the functionality. He's using Visual Studio or the
equivilant for PHP etc

You have obviously missed all those posts from ASP.NET developers who
use Visual Studio for the development side, but say Dreamweaver is still
essential when it comes to creating the finished look. I use Zend Studio
for Eclipse for serious PHP development, but it's useless for the
handling the design side of things.

[Jon Spivey]

Post by Jon Spivey
3/ A programmer adds the functionality. He's using Visual Studio or the
equivilant for PHP etc

You have obviously missed all those posts from ASP.NET developers who use
Visual Studio for the development side, but say Dreamweaver is still
essential when it comes to creating the finished look. I use Zend Studio
for Eclipse for serious PHP development, but it's useless for the handling
the design side of things.

Apologies. I don't spend much time here so probably have missed all those
posts. That said you obviously missed this bit in my post today
<quote>
1/ A designer comes up with a killer design. Probably using PhotoShop or
Fireworks
2/ A CSS guy takes this design and makes it into a viable basis for the
site. He's not using DW, at least not in design view
</quote>

Point is design is different to programming. Do your clients tend to have
asp.net developers concerned with the look of something?

[David Powers]

Post by Jon Spivey
Point is design is different to programming.

Of course it is, but a lot of independent developers also handle the
design side of things. Hence the value of a development environment that
also handles design.

[Al Sparber - PVII]

Post by Jon Spivey

Post by Al Sparber - PVII
Sure it's dying. But not because of the reasons cited on that blog. I
would call it attempted suicide but I fully expect the patient to recover.

I don't think he's saying DW is dying because it's a crap program. Rather
the idea of a web designer throwing up static sites is dying, except for
very small companies wanting online business card sites. DW happens to be
the best tool to build a static site so it will survive a while - but it's
in pretty much the same position as the best maker of horse and carts when
the car started to become mainstream :-)

I knew what he was saying, Jon. All Adobe needs to do is support blog
management and mainstream CMS. If we didn't think Adobe had this in their
plans we'd have already written the extensions to do it. It's not difficult.

[Jon Spivey]

Post by Al Sparber - PVII
I knew what he was saying, Jon. All Adobe needs to do is support blog
management and mainstream CMS. If we didn't think Adobe had this in their
plans we'd have already written the extensions to do it. It's not difficult.

Interesting. If DW has value to add in that area then they could have a
great future. I realise you probably know about more about their plans than
the average guy, without giving anything away what kind of value add are
they looking for? Are you saying they're going to integrate with say
Wordpress/Drupal, or come up with a rival solution?

It might be a tad difficult for you to produce, and support, an extension
that integrates with a server, as a blog/cms has to do. In any event if you
could do a better job at 1 task people would pay - anyone can make a menu in
DW today without buying an extension :-)

[Al Sparber - PVII]

Post by Jon Spivey

Post by Al Sparber - PVII
I knew what he was saying, Jon. All Adobe needs to do is support blog
management and mainstream CMS. If we didn't think Adobe had this in their
plans we'd have already written the extensions to do it. It's not difficult.

Interesting. If DW has value to add in that area then they could have a
great future. I realise you probably know about more about their plans
than the average guy, without giving anything away what kind of value add
are they looking for? Are you saying they're going to integrate with say
Wordpress/Drupal, or come up with a rival solution?

I have no idea and I'm not privy to any information from inside Adobe. As
David noted, however, the indicators are there. My feelings assume that
Adobe is smart. We'll see what happens.

Post by Jon Spivey
It might be a tad difficult for you to produce, and support, an extension
that integrates with a server, as a blog/cms has to do. In any event if
you could do a better job at 1 task people would pay - anyone can make a
menu in DW today without buying an extension :-)

Well, the reason why PVII sales have increased each year, since our founding
in 1998, could be that we do a better job at menus and widgets than quite a
few folks can do in Dreamweaver. I think you're bright enough to realize
that it would be a lot easier to simply extend Dreamweaver's built-in
widgets than it is to write our own from the ground up. If Adobe reaches the
quality and accessibility standards that we set then we shift gears. It's
that simple.

As for writing an extension to support WordPress customization, for example,
it would really not be difficult as we're talking about a single server
model and Dreamweaver has all the necessary hooks. Any company selling such
a tool would likely generate enough income to far exceed the levels of
support provided in the open source community - if they wanted to.

[Jon Spivey]

Post by Al Sparber - PVII
As for writing an extension to support WordPress customization, for
example, it would really not be difficult as we're talking about a single
server model and Dreamweaver has all the necessary hooks. Any company
selling such a tool would likely generate enough income to far exceed the
levels of support provided in the open source community - if they wanted
to.

What would the tool do? Something that added value to WordPress for around
the $100 price point would sell. If the guy has to have DW to use the
extension then maybe not - 90% of the market has gone. WordPress is very
well covered in terms of paid and free server side add ons to improve it's
funtionality, most of them focused on a very specific tasks. Of course
there's a huge market for themes which somebody with your design flair could
throw out in their sleep.

How about this, just for the sake of argument. DW is a great container for
extensions and is now free, anyone can produce an extension but they pay a %
to Adobe :-)

[Al Sparber - PVII]

Post by Jon Spivey

Post by Al Sparber - PVII
As for writing an extension to support WordPress customization, for
example, it would really not be difficult as we're talking about a single
server model and Dreamweaver has all the necessary hooks. Any company
selling such a tool would likely generate enough income to far exceed the
levels of support provided in the open source community - if they wanted
to.

What would the tool do? Something that added value to WordPress for around
the $100 price point would sell. If the guy has to have DW to use the
extension then maybe not - 90% of the market has gone.

Our numbers don't indicate that at all. Not even close. Sales of Studio CS4
are way off. But that simply means users have stuck with CS3 or Studio 8. I
think you might be over-analyzing this, Jon.

Post by Jon Spivey
WordPress is very well covered in terms of paid and free server side add
ons to improve it's funtionality, most of them focused on a very specific
tasks. Of course there's a huge market for themes which somebody with your
design flair could throw out in their sleep.

A lot of folks don't realize how dangerous (or at least financially risky)
making commercial WordPress plugins is. Perhaps these links might be
enlightening:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/158777
http://codefusionlab.co.cc/untold-truth-about-commercial-wordpress-plugins/

Post by Jon Spivey
How about this, just for the sake of argument. DW is a great container for
extensions and is now free, anyone can produce an extension but they pay a
% to Adobe :-)

That's possible. It would be our cue to roll out free-standing applications,
but the little developers would probably buy into it.

[Jon Spivey]

Post by Al Sparber - PVII

Post by Jon Spivey
What would the tool do? Something that added value to WordPress for around
the $100 price point would sell. If the guy has to have DW to use the
extension then maybe not - 90% of the market has gone.

Our numbers don't indicate that at all. Not even close. Sales of Studio
CS4 are way off. But that simply means users have stuck with CS3 or Studio
8. I think you might be over-analyzing this, Jon.

If I was to analyse this it would be obviously be from different data - at a
guess though most WordPress users don't own DW. This was just a question out
of interest, what could a tool on top of DW and Wordpress do?

Post by Al Sparber - PVII
A lot of folks don't realize how dangerous (or at least financially risky)
making commercial WordPress plugins is. Perhaps these links might be
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/158777
http://codefusionlab.co.cc/untold-truth-about-commercial-wordpress-plugins/

I like those kind of posts, maybe not for the same reaons as you. Funny
thing is I'll have a Wordpress plugin rolling out in the next couple of
weeks - it's revenue model will be quite different. A lot of theme
developers have come unstuck rolling out free themes in exchange for a link
back then finding out the blog owner deletes the link. Do you feel that
there's no market for anything commercial that sits on top of WP?

[Al Sparber - PVII]

Post by Jon Spivey
If I was to analyse this it would be obviously be from different data - at
a guess though most WordPress users don't own DW. This was just a question
out of interest, what could a tool on top of DW and Wordpress do?

A lot of Dreamweaver users are web designers that do WordPress blogs for
their clients. One of our most frequently asked questions in email and phone
support is can our Page Packs be made into WordPress themes. The answer, of
course, is yes. But given the licensing arrangement and the mindset of
WordPress's CEO, doing WP themes would be tantamount to giving them away as
anyone would be able to take it, change a color or 2 and repackage it, for
free - and we wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on.

Post by Jon Spivey

Post by Al Sparber - PVII
A lot of folks don't realize how dangerous (or at least financially
risky) making commercial WordPress plugins is. Perhaps these links might
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/158777
http://codefusionlab.co.cc/untold-truth-about-commercial-wordpress-plugins/

I like those kind of posts, maybe not for the same reaons as you. Funny
thing is I'll have a Wordpress plugin rolling out in the next couple of
weeks - it's revenue model will be quite different. A lot of theme
developers have come unstuck rolling out free themes in exchange for a
link back then finding out the blog owner deletes the link.

Our revenue model is painfully simple. It needs to sell :-)

Post by Jon Spivey
Do you feel that there's no market for anything commercial that sits on
top of WP?

Not with a WP GPL license. Anyone could "re-distribute, modify and/or sell
them". That's why an extension inside Dreamweaver that allows Dreamweaver
users to customize the default WP theme is fully insulated - and would be
under our license agreement - not WordPress's

[Dooza]

Post by Jon Spivey

Post by Al Sparber - PVII
I knew what he was saying, Jon. All Adobe needs to do is support blog
management and mainstream CMS. If we didn't think Adobe had this in their
plans we'd have already written the extensions to do it. It's not difficult.

Interesting. If DW has value to add in that area then they could have a
great future. I realise you probably know about more about their plans than
the average guy, without giving anything away what kind of value add are
they looking for? Are you saying they're going to integrate with say
Wordpress/Drupal, or come up with a rival solution?
It might be a tad difficult for you to produce, and support, an extension
that integrates with a server, as a blog/cms has to do. In any event if you
could do a better job at 1 task people would pay - anyone can make a menu in
DW today without buying an extension :-)

Jon, have you seen this: http://www.themedreamer.com/

Dooza

[Paevo Kelley]

I generally agree; I tested tools like the Developer Toolbox before finally
ditching them in favor of an all-out attempt to master Joomla. I would rather
spend hours investing in a ready-made CMS which will continue to be supported
for the next several years at the very least (too much money to be made), than
spend hours trying to comprehend a poorly documented mishmash of programming
nonsense that has most likely seen its last upgrade... As there are many small
businesses which do not need the capabilities of a Joomla-based site, I will
continue to use DW in conjunction with a PHP-based plugin CMS (assuming they
will pay a bit extra, which is not even always the case). I'd like to believe
that the static site is finished, but I don't think the penny-pinchers out
there will ever allow it to happen...

[David Powers]

Post by Paevo Kelley
I generally agree; I tested tools like the Developer Toolbox before finally
ditching them in favor of an all-out attempt to master Joomla.

ADDT is NOT Dreamweaver. It is simply a rebranded extension that was a
brave, but in my view misguided attempt to make server-side development
"easy". Its main problem is that it locked the developer into a
straightjacket. I haven't tried Joomla, but I do have experience with
both WordPress and Drupal. They're excellent, but also have their
limitations. There's still an important role for the developer who knows
the underlying technology and creates original code.

[Paevo Kelley]

"The only people that DW is perfect for are web developers selling a 5 page
website with a custom logo for $2000. As business gets more web savvy that
sort of offering might not work in the future."

You speak as if there weren't hundreds of extensions which offer dynamic
capability to be integrated into DW. I think there will always be a threshold
beyond which it becomes cost-prohibitive to use a full-fledged CMS such as
Joomla; this doesn't mean, however, that a site with dynamic apps can't be
built in DW for more than $2,000...

[Paevo Kelley]

Like this one? http://www.themedreamer.com/

[Paevo Kelley]

"There's still an important role for the developer who knows
the underlying technology and creates original code."

Of course there is; I download their work all the time at minimal cost...

[geschenk]

-------
Its main problem is that it locked the developer into a straightjacket
------

well, even I do agree to this, probably unexpected ;-) But then again, this
appears to be the underlying problem when using any kind of "application
development framework" which forces the developer to use its custom classes and
functions, so itŽs IMO not an issue which is specific to ADDT only.

However, ADDTŽs straightjackets can - in many ways - get unlocked by more or
less experienced developers, because it provides a Custom Trigger engine which
allows to execute custom PHP at various points during a transaction. This is a
(more or less hidden) gem, and quite some users have built wicked stuff with
this despite the admittedly poor documentation.

[Paevo Kelley]

"Jon, have you seen this: http://www.themedreamer.com/"

I pointed this out twenty posts ago!

[Dooza]

Post by Paevo Kelley
"Jon, have you seen this: http://www.themedreamer.com/"
I pointed this out twenty posts ago!

Yes, I realised that once I read your post, but in a threaded NNTP view
it didn't appear until much more reading was done. I often reply as I
read a post, rather than reading all the posts then forgetting what I
was going to say, or not find the post that I was going to reply to.
This may not be optimal, but its the way it is.

Dooza