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Legend
November 8, 2016
Question

Dreamweaver 2017 - A Waste Of Development Time

  • November 8, 2016
  • 9 replies
  • 7105 views

Please somebody tell me this:

Why has custom color coding been removed. I have been using my own customised colors.xml for YEARS and now it seems Adobe have in their infinite wisdom decided to take that ability away from me. UNBELIEVABLY ARROGANT !!!

Why has the ability to wrap a snippet been removed from the ui? - its BRAINLESS, ABSOLUTELY BRAINLESS, has nobody down at Adobe got a modicum of common sense?

I don't understand the point of the real-time preview, if I have a dev server set up http://localhost.dev/project/ for example how can I preview the files/site from within Dreamweaver as I normally would by accessing say http://localhost.dev/project/index.php for example and traverse an entire site? It seems I have to push the file to testing server, launch browser and enter address manually now if I want to preview the actual URL on the testing server?

The code view is buggy, sometimes the code dissapears

Code hints are bit flaky, when I was working on a CSS file the new code hint menu was bit jumpy and unresponsive/

I'm working on Windows 10 64 bit, desktop PC (i7 CPU 16GB RAM)

The whole point of Dreamweaver years ago was it's extensibility , I just don't think Adobe  really has much of a clue about Dreamweaver, the developers seem to be spending a lot of time stripping out useful features and removing some of its extensibility instead of adding useful/requested features. SVN integration has been broken forever and people have been crying out for GIT support instead Adobe screw with features that were perfectly OK anyway. I mean the snippets panel changes a re a bit of a joke really, aside from trigger keys which are useful, time seems to being wasted.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT SOME OF US HAVE BEEN USING DREAMWEAVER FOR A LONG TIME, I WELCOME GREAT NEW FEATURES BUT I DON;T REALLY KNOW WHERE ADOBE ARE GOING WITH THIS, THEY SEEM HELL BENT ON MAKING LONG TERM USERS OF DREAMWEAVER LIFE'S HARD WORK BY STRIPPING FEATURES THAT our WORKFLOW IS BUILT AROUND.

Do the developers have any consideration for long-time users of Dreamweaver?

All in all aside from the code view/brackets integration, I really think most of what's been done is a waste of time quite frankly!!!!

This topic has been closed for replies.

9 replies

Paul-MAuthor
Legend
October 27, 2017
  1. GIT supports seems to be working well  in the 2018 version and I for one think its a welcome addition, was overdue and it is very handy.
  2. Still prefer the old code editor before brackets engine was introduced, I would have preferred the old code editor with some additional features and still think it was a total waste of development time integrating Brackets, stuck with it now so moving forward have to either get used to it or ditch Dreamweaver completely.
  3. Just bring back an updated version of Server Behaviours and ADDT (or something similar) please. I mean Adobe, you bought Interakt, you could have developed the PHAKT extension that made use of the PHP ADODB class, it could have been updated and it would really help speed up workflow.
  4. I think people need to concentrate on tweaks, whats broken, buggy or incomplete, complaining about features you won't use  is counter-productive. I like the GIT integration, if you don't need it, keep the panel closed. There are a few features in Dreamweaver I never or hardly ever use but I'm sure other people will use them, I don't see any point in continually ripping out
  5. Any idea about splitting Dreamweaver into multiple programs is ludicrous and would destroy the essence of Dreamweaver, its an all-round tool. If you need a code editing environment primarily then brackets, sublime, atom etc might be better for you.
Paul-M - Community Expert
Participating Frequently
October 27, 2017

Thanks guys for the suggestions, I've been round the route of trying any and many others before but inevitably revert back to dreamweaver because familiarity and speed - usually in not having to redefine sites or find add-ons/extensions to achieve the desired setup! I'll have a look at brackets and have tried sublime once before.

I'd love to stick with dreamweaver it has all of the parts I need, and its funny when new developers look at me like I'm a dinosaur for using it. I laugh at the fact that they have to put their software together, then get reminded why I'm no better off for using a supported (hmmm) and established tool for the job.

The age old simple example being: If I FTP lots of files from filezilla it takes half the time the dreamweaver does, probably because under the hood dreamweaver is doing something that caters for someone elses workflow. Git now feels the same; Click the button and it just sits there as though nothing is happening, so you click again and 20 seconds later you get a success message and a error message - which is it?! Whereas if I use terminal or command prompt its done in 10 seconds!!

Please Adobe: Do Less Better!

Participating Frequently
October 26, 2017

Ok, I know that this is a relatively old post now; but nothing seems to have improved!

I've just started using the Git built into Dreamweaver and have come across this thread while searching for "Dreamweaver 2017 Git Buggy".

All I would like is a notepad with built in SFTP, Code collapse, and Git the rest is just fluff that I can live without. But I now get code prompts stuck on screen every time I open a bracket or tab and have to escape or click off the popup. Search has been moved from a separate window to a panel, except that panel doesn't include search selected files or local site... thats under CMD+SHIFT+F now! It's needless changes that just don't help me.

Selecting PHP variables by double clicking the word selects everything except the $, CMD+SHIFT+LEFT selects the whole word with the dollar, so is the dollar part of the word or not!?

I FTP'd a file the other day, realised there was a mistake, CMD+Z / CMD+S / CMD+SHIFT+U to undo and upload the original... Dreamweaver "file.php - same - not transferred"??? Had to make another change just to get it to stick!

Its crazy, sadly its getting to the point where I can't trust Dreamweaver to be doing what it's claiming its done, and merging Git branches - well thats what got me here!!!

BenPleysier
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 27, 2017
All I would like is a notepad with built in SFTP, Code collapse, and Git the rest is just fluff that I can live without.

A good solution for you is Brackets. There are many extensions that can be added to this simple editor such as

If you, like myself, prefer to stick with Dreamweaver, please start new a discussion and explain the problem one at a time.

It may be a point of interest that I am enjoying GIT, have a look at GitHub - ben-pleysier/Bootstrap-4-template

Wappler is the DMXzone-made Dreamweaver replacement and includes the best of their powerful extensions, as well as much more!
B i r n o u
Legend
October 27, 2017

Yep I agree with Ben, in a way of such a tool already exist and is really helpfull... but I want go for Bracket... but for SublimeText. I use it since sometimes now, and it is really a must when it is question of pure coding....

Participant
November 30, 2016

I concur with all of the negative comments about Dreamweaver CC 2017. This is a mess, the program has cost me untold hours of time to use, I am afraid to reinstall 2015 based on some of the comments, my consideration now is to move to a different platform rather than ride the Adobe train wreck which costs $80.00 a month which is a minor cost compared to the lost productivity. How can a major software company release such buggy junk. The program was in beta for months, how were none of the problems cleaned up before releasing the production version? They never thought to check a Windows 10 machine with a Hi DPI setting above 100%? Really? Editing code directly is so difficult that it takes three attempts to get it right. Selecting an location in design view split locates in code view at either the top or bottom of the code view almost off the page which takes time to locate. I should have waited for months to upgrade knowing how long CC 2015 took to fix.

Participating Frequently
November 29, 2016

And a follow up to my earlier post - the errors.

All the syntax errors of HTML capitalisation etc., it has reported so far have been added by previous versions of Dreamweaver! Therefore either this version's error finder is faulty or the the previous versions were generating faulty code.  Hardly an inspiring scenario, we use WYSIWYG software like Dreamweaver to avoid coding; this change is another big tick in my intention to change everything I can to Wordpress. I want to administer and update these website sites not become a coder. I switched to DW in the first place to avoid hand coding and editing HTML, this update 2 out of 10.

Nancy OShea
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 29, 2016

Then you're using the wrong software.

There's a great deal DW can do for you in Design view, but ultimately, it's your responsibility to ensure the code stays clean & consistent.  That's why you have the validation tools, code inspector, code error reporting, code hints and code auto completion features at your disposal.  DW is merely a tool.  It can't anticipate what you're thinking.  No code editor can.

Maybe you should look at Muse.

Nancy

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
Participating Frequently
November 29, 2016

You use what you are used to using and DW is no longer what it was and if changes force significant, unwanted, retraining costs (see earlier post ) it becomes unfit for purpose.  The changes in DW since CS5 have not helped me in any useful way but only hindered my productivity, unlike the changes in other elements of the overall CC package.

Re the comment on code if the beeping software writes auto generated coding (i.e. not me hand typing code) it should be correct. if lower case is the syntax it should add lower case code.

These changes in DW are a massive retrograde step and the 2017 update is to be deleted ASAP from my system.

mikes26367975
Participant
November 29, 2016

I will add that resetting the color coding by default and making it a huge pain to fix is a mind-blowingly awful decision.

Participating Frequently
November 29, 2016

Fully concur with the OP's statement.

Unnecessary and annoying changes. 2015 being reloaded until I have time to fathom out the unnecessary changes to the menu layout and design view options.

Tried to do a simple cell table split earlier today - have given up until (hopefully) I have got the 2015 or even my old CS5 from DVD version reloaded.

BenPleysier
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 29, 2016

Sorry that you had to give up. I have three versions of Dreamweaver installed, CS6 for some of my remaining Spry sites, CC2015 in case CC2017 does not do the job. So far I have not had to revert to CC2015.

Splitting or merging cells is easy peasy as per

Me thinks that there are only a couple of reasons not to use CC2017, namely if you have

  • HTML entities in JavaScript files
  • Hi-density monitor with text size set at more than 100%
Wappler is the DMXzone-made Dreamweaver replacement and includes the best of their powerful extensions, as well as much more!
Paul-MAuthor
Legend
November 29, 2016

If you look though the forums you will see a lot of people do NOT agree with you.

Adobe need to look at at the number of people who are NOT happy and not at a small number of regular posters on here who keep trying to force feed the rest of us a message that all is well Dreamweaver when it's been going in the wrong direction for years. This latest update is only for fans of Brackets and in reality it's a lazy/messed up integration of Brackets, plus we've seen more solid DW features removed that we've been using for years!!

Paul-M - Community Expert
ALsp
Legend
November 8, 2016

Adobe, and most of the people who post on this forum, think that Brackets is actually a good code editor. Sometimes you just have bend with the wind. You can still revert to CS6. In my opinion, there is no reason to even use Dreamweaver CC.

Known Participant
November 8, 2016

Adobe, and most of the people who post on this forum, think that Brackets is actually a good code editor. Sometimes you just have bend with the wind. You can still revert to CS6. In my opinion, there is no reason to even use Dreamweaver CC.

+1 Al

If PVII, DMXzone and WebAssist don't develop more for Dreamweaver, it's dead!

Photoshop, Premier Pro, After Effects etc. are great tools because have great extensions/effects that allow to the graphic/video users to go beyond their abilities. In the last version of Dreamweaver the big features is the awful dark theme and new unuseful find replace...

P.S. Al (PVII) please move your extensions to another editor (coda, sublime text, etc.), should be a good starting point to make it clear to Adobe the right direction for the future.

BenPleysier
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 8, 2016

Why has custom colour coding been removed. I have been using my own customised colors.xml for YEARS and now it seems Adobe have in their infinite wisdom decided to take that ability away from me. UNBELIEVABLY ARROGANT !!!

See Re: Code colouring in dreamweaver 2017

Why has the ability to wrap a snippet been removed from the ui? - its BRAINLESS, ABSOLUTELY BRAINLESS, has nobody down at Adobe got a modicum of common sense?

Good point, click the Help > Submit Bug/Feature Request

I don't understand the point of the real-time preview, if I have a dev server set up http://localhost.dev/project/ for example how can I preview the files/site from within Dreamweaver as I normally would by accessing sayhttp://localhost.dev/project/index.php for example and traverse an entire site? It seems I have to push the file to testing server, launch browser and enter address manually now if I want to preview the actual URL on the testing server?

Hit F12 or alternatively, right-click the file name and choose the browser you want to use.

The code view is buggy, sometimes the code dissapears

Code hints are bit flaky, when I was working on a CSS file the new code hint menu was bit jumpy and unresponsive/

Click the Help > Submit Bug/Feature Request

The whole point of Dreamweaver years ago was it's extensibility , I just don't think Adobe  really has much of a clue about Dreamweaver, the developers seem to be spending a lot of time stripping out useful features and removing some of its extensibility instead of adding useful/requested features. SVN integration has been broken forever and people have been crying out for GIT support instead Adobe screw with features that were perfectly OK anyway. I mean the snippets panel changes a re a bit of a joke really, aside from trigger keys which are useful, time seems to being wasted.

Not sure what extensibility has been removed, but please see my answer above regarding Feature Request. GIT support is being worked on as we speak.

All in all aside from the code view/brackets integration, I really think most of what's been done is a waste of time quite frankly!!!!

You hit the nail on its head, the real improvements to Dreamweaver are are being overlooked. In contrast to the past, the current Dreamweaver team is listening to us and taking action to rectify the bugs and to introduce tools that will make Dreamweaver to what it should be. Using strong adjectives and shouting will not help the cause.

EDIT:

To add strength to what I said in the last paragraph, have a look at New features summary

Wappler is the DMXzone-made Dreamweaver replacement and includes the best of their powerful extensions, as well as much more!
Known Participant
November 8, 2016
In contrast to the past, the current Dreamweaver team is listening to us and taking action to rectify the bugs and to introduce tools that will make Dreamweaver to what it should be

Are you sure? I've only seen the message "report in the bugs page" but nothing else (from several years).

BenPleysier
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 8, 2016

IronADDT wrote:

In contrast to the past, the current Dreamweaver team is listening to us and taking action to rectify the bugs and to introduce tools that will make Dreamweaver to what it should be

Are you sure? I've only seen the message "report in the bugs page" but nothing else (from several years).

Is that all you managed to extract from my reply? In that case I can answer with a robust 'Yes'.

Wappler is the DMXzone-made Dreamweaver replacement and includes the best of their powerful extensions, as well as much more!