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A
Anonymous
November 15, 2007
Answered

Is it just me or ....

  • November 15, 2007
  • 4 replies
  • 848 views
I have been working with DW CS3, PHP, and MySQL for the past few months. I'm not new to programming or tools, and have used many databases extensively in corporate environments. I am just finding that using DW is a very prickly affair. Any small tweak I make can break functionality. This is just a general observation and question. Maybe it's just the PHP environment in general, I don't know. I just felt I needed to see what others are seeing. My latest angst I just posted and still not seeing how adding a simple recordset is preventing pages from appearing (suddenly). Just when I think I can develop really fast with DW I get blindsided with small non-obvious things that cost days at a time. Arrggghhh.
This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Newsgroup_User
davidbarrackphoto wrote:
> David - Thank for your insight. When you use PhpEd, do you use it in
> conjunction with DW, meaning you do the design and prototyping and then move to
> PhpEd with the stubs from DW?

For one or two recordsets on a page, I stick with DW. For heavy duty PHP
coding, such as the creation or editing of classes, I use PhpED.

> I'm not sure why DW doesn't put most of their
> code in includes so it's clear what's their stuff versus added by others.

I think that the reason is probably historical. Originally, ASP, PHP,
and ColdFusion were regarded as a way of embedding a small amount of
dynamic functionality into a web page. The concept of separating the
business code from the presentation has spread more recently. Because of
the way that Dreamweaver has developed, splitting the two would involve
a lot of work. However, the XSL Transformation server behavior
introduced in DW8 does move most of the code into external files.

--
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/

4 replies

Angell EYE
Angell EYE
Inspiring
November 17, 2007
I used to work primarily with ASP and I now work with PHP. I have noticed that the PHP enviornment is much more "picky" than the ASP enviornment with DW. It's also a whole lot slower. When I'm working with pages that have insert behaviors or something like that, everytime I click on a form field it has to connect to the database and update. I find it quicker when I need to edit forms to remove the insert behavior, make all my changes, then re-add the behavior. Never had to do petty stuff like that on the ASP side.

As for blank pages I tend to get this sometimes but I've found that if you close the page and re-open it it's fine again. That can be a scary thing to do...just make sure you have a nice backup set on hand at all times. This is a good idea regardless.
N
Newsgroup_User
Inspiring
November 15, 2007
>I think Macromedia/Adobe are so busy adding "new" features that they lose
>site of what the core functions of DW are and don't bother to work on them
>(if at all) to improve them.

I think [most any large software corporation] are so busy adding "new"
features that they lose site of what the core functions of DW are and don't
bother to work on them (if at all) to improve them.

;o)

-Darrel


N
Newsgroup_User
Inspiring
November 15, 2007
davidbarrackphoto wrote:
> Any small tweak I make can break functionality. This is just a
> general observation and question. Maybe it's just the PHP environment in
> general, I don't know.

Dreamweaver makes extensive use of JavaScript in the background to
display values in the Property inspector and other panels. JavaScript is
also used to populate the Server Behaviors and Bindings panels. The
bigger and more complex your page, the more strain you put on that
JavaScript infrastructure.

I don't know if there's a physical limit to the number of lines of code
or elements that you can have on a page, but Dreamweaver isn't designed
as a coding environment for heavy duty applications. The server
behaviors are excellent for rapid prototyping or for building pages of
medium complexity. For anything more ambitious, you should either be
working in Code view or using a dedicated PHP IDE, such as PhpED or
EclipsePHP.

--
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/
A
Anonymous
November 15, 2007
Do you suggest to use one of the PHP IDEs you mention in conjunction with or in lieu of Dreamweaver? I have been picking up DW because I thought it could handle both the design and implementation of a web site. Even one that is fairly involved. I am finding that with DW I have to walk on eggshells and hope to X&*@ that some change I make will not result in a page showing up blank or getting a dreaded exclamation mark because I burped too loud or something.
N
Newsgroup_User
Inspiring
November 15, 2007
I think Macromedia/Adobe are so busy adding "new" features that they lose
site of what the core functions of DW are and don't bother to work on them
(if at all) to improve them.


"davidbarrackphoto" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:fhhvej$i69$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>I have been working with DW CS3, PHP, and MySQL for the past few months.
>I'm


A
Anonymous
November 15, 2007
So my feeling is not isolated to myself? Today, for some bizarre reason, any recordset I touch causes the page to display blank. I'm about to panic. I've finally almost completed this application and now this.
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