HOT TOPIC: Dreamweaver
Volume 3, Issue 8 - October 29, 2006"Over the past ten years, Dreamweaver has become the industry standard for web page design. Now in version 8, it is the application of choice for webmasters looking for a robust WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) application. Built to work in visual and html modes, there’s even a split screen option that allows you to watch the creation of code as you work in the visual interface – a great way to teach students basic html concepts as they learn to build their own sites.
First released in 1997 by Macromedia, Dreamweaver was a new player on the scene that vastly improved upon the previous generation of html editors, such as Netscape Composer, making the switch to using an editor more appealing to those who had been writing their own source code by hand. As dynamic html and cascading style sheets have become the standard, Dreamweaver has made it easier to keep up without continually having to learn new elements of html.
Unlike Microsoft products like Front Page and Word, Dreamweaver doesn’t add extraneous extensions into your web pages that complicate code and oftentimes compromise the integrity of your work as files corrupt and/or malfunction. For all of these reasons, Dreamweaver has become the application of choice.
The value of this product became even more obvious when Macromedia was purchased by Adobe in 2005, and Dreamweaver was the survivor in the merger, winning out over Adobe’s Go Live! which had been vying for its share of the html editor market. Like Go Live!, Dreamweaver integrates with a suite of powerful web authoring tools including Flash and Fireworks. In fact, you can but the entire suite named Adobe Studio for a pretty penny. Dreamweaver’s standalone academic pricing is much more practical for most schools.
All this having been said, consider this week’s offerings for making the most of Dreamweaver, from free downloads and templates to tutorials, troubleshooting and advanced hints, tips and tricks. Dreamweaver can help your students make a grand entrance onto the World Wide Web!"
