Dreamweaver Code Editor for iPad

[finidev]

So here is the skinny. I love Adobe products. Since the NEW Illustrator and Photoshop for iPad solutions, I have been able to reply on my iPad Pro so much more for a lightweight all in one travel option! So since I am also a programmer I would love to see Dreamweaver as an app on my iPad then I don't have to rely on anything else but Adobe products for my entire business using exclusively my iPad only for traveling!!!

[Nancy OShea]

Nope.  Not possible.  Dreamweaver requires a desktop OS as do full scale Photoshop and Illustrator. 

- https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/system-requirements.html

- https://helpx.adobe.com/dreamweaver/system-requirements.ug.html

The iPad versions are incomplete and at best "companion apps" to be used alongside your desktop versions.

If you want to code on the road, get a code editing app specifically for your generation iPad.

- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/code-editor-by-panic/id500906297

- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/koder-code-editor/id1447489375

[Nancy OShea]

Feel free to submit Feature Requests to Uservoice from your Dreamweaver Help menu.

[Dan Rodney]

I don't think it will ever come to iPad, because I would not be surprised if Adobe discountinues Dreamwweaver entirely. I have no insider knowledge or anything, but I just don't see many professionals using Dreamweaver. They use other code editors such as Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Atom, etc.

[Nancy OShea]

"I don't think it will ever come to iPad, because I would not be surprised if Adobe discountinues Dreamwweaver entirely."

@Dan Rodney,

I agree that DW may never come to iPad because the visual interface would not work well on small screens.  But I don't agree with the 2nd half of your supposition. 

Adobe can't afford to disenfranchise any more product users than they already have with the EOL of Contribute, GoLive, Fireworks, Muse, Flash Player, etc.... Killing DW would mean they have to kill XD and Animate, too. That's not going to happen right away. Adobe needs at least one actively developed code editor in their product family.  And Brackets/Edge Code didn't make the cut.  Besides, straight code editors like VS Code, Sublime and Atom don't have the visual interface and site management features that DW users have come to expect.

Just my 2 cents.

[Dan Rodney]

@Nancy OShea 

• XD may be new, but is being used more widely and has a growing audience. From what I see, it's bigger than Dreamweaver or Animate.
• Dreamweaver is not nearly as widely used and from what I see only has a shrinking audience.
• Animate has a niche audience, so if Adobe is keeping it around maybe they'll keep Dreamweaver around too.

One example behind my reasoning is XD using Visual Studio Code and not Adobe's own Dreamweaver. https://letsxd.com/vscode 

Another example is ExtendScript as an add-on for Visual Studio Code instead of Adobe's own Dreamweaver. https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Adobe.extendscript-debug

I didn't say Adobe will kill Dreamweaver (I have no knowledge of their plans), just that I wouldn't be surprised if they do.

[Nancy OShea]

"Animate has a niche audience"

We don't have access to user stats.  But in terms of forum popularity based on number of discussions,

• Animate CC has 72K
• Dreamweaver has 22K
• Muse (which is EOL) has 8K
• XD has 7K

Animate's HTML5 Canvas is useless without an HTML document around it.  So Creative Cloud users need at least one code editor they can use to bridge the divide. 

Until XD can export truly usable, workable code, I think it's potential as an app will remain unrealized.  Meanwhile, DW can handle XD assets, Creative Cloud Libraries, etc...  We don't need VS Code for that. But it's there for VS Code users who want it.  Nothing wrong with that.

[BenPleysier]

Have a look at the workflow when using XD and VS. Takes 40 min to produce a page that takes 5 mins using Dreamweaver.

https://youtu.be/5MhfwvlGkfA

TLTW: This is the result:

[Dan Rodney]

@BenPleysier Dreamweaver and VS Code are code editors, not design apps. XD is a design app. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. 

[Dan Rodney]

@Nancy OShea I don't want to sidetrack this post and get too far off track, but comparing forums posts of apps does not indicate much. Some apps have been around longer (XD is the newest so it would naturally have fewer posts so far), some apps may have more problems therefore have more forums posts, etc.

I'm going based on what "I see" in use in the industry. I can't speak for others, and your experiences may differ from mine, but I speak from my experiences... which involve training many companies over the past 20+ years. I see many types of designers/developers and many workflows. I saw the Quark transition to InDesign (which I knew would happen the moment I saw InDesign), I recommeneded people stay away from Muse because it wasn't good (and it died), so I just call things as I see them. 

XD is NOT meant to be a coding app and I doubt it will every export code because it likely would not be good code (no developer would probably want to use it). I produces specs for developers (and some CSS that may be useful in some situations) which is what they need. In the design/development environments I have worked in and observed, designers use XD, and developers use a code editor (VS Code, Sublime Text, etc.) because the devs care about the quality of the code. Muse wrote horrible code and didn't work for developers (it was meant for designers only) which is why it never got very far. Not everyone uses an XD (or Sketch/Figma) to code workflow, but XD, Sketch, and Figma are super popular apps right now, and none of them produce code because developers do that. Dreamweaver isn't good at designing because it's a code editor, so it competes with VS Code, Sublime Text, etc.

[osgood_]

I think the majority of DW users these days must be graphic designers or school kids with access to Creative Cloud and use it because its part of the Cloud family. In their somewhat blinkered eyes, Dreamweaver MUST be the go to web-editor because they are likely to be using InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop etc which are generally regarded as the best in their field, why should Dreamweaver be any different. Adobe are hiding a poorish attempt at producing a modern web-program behind some very good programs, like the ones I formerly mentioned (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop) and 'fooling' those who don't have much experience in web-developement. I was 'fooled' for years.

I'm in total argeement with you, very few who are serious web-developers or wanting to be serious web-developers would choose to use Dreamweaver. Is it because its a poor editor, well no, its ok, if a bit behind the curve, well a lot behind the curve actually. Is it a poor editor in terms of cost, almost definitely, yes, compared to other editors which offer a lot more for generally a lot less or even free. Adobe can afford to give Dreamweaver away (free) to those with a full Creative Cloud subscription but I can't see many buying Dreamweaver as a stand-alone program. It would be interesting to see what the usage of Dreamweaver would be if it wasnt supported by being part of the Cloud. I suspect it would disappear pretty fast.

As for XD or Figma, waste of time in my opinion unless youre a designer who has no code ability. If you have coding skills then just code a real example, not a predominately static example with a few minor interactions.

[Dan Rodney]

Going direct to code limits creativity and takes way longer than quickly designing something in XD. Most designers don't code, and even though I do code, I still find XD useful to quickly work through ideas, iterate with clients, test on users, before spending the time to write code. Many things in life are designed first, and then built... I think the same goes for websites/apps. Also, if you know exactly what you're going to build, the code will be cleaner rather than going through edit after edit, which can end up creating spaghetti code.

[osgood_]

I think that depends on your skill levels. I happen to have both skills in graphic design and coding, which makes it easy for me to bypass wire-framing completely. If you are not that confident (a designer perhaps or you dont come from a design background at all) then using something like XD or Figma will be of benefit as its more controllable for those 'who cant think on their feet' or don't have an execptional understanding of coding. Spaghetti coding is not something which I entertain, I leave that to those who use front end frameworks and plugins.

I beg to differ because you will always change your design and tweak it as you build it and go forward, although I appreciate a lot feel better getting something static down on 'paper' first. That was my workflow many years ago (Fireworks) when we produced static websites but since mobile I dont want to waste time coming up with 3 or 4 largely static designs for different devices when I can change a html structure quickly using a few media queries and still have a lot of functionally, which I have found in the past helps sell the concept.

[Dan Rodney]

Even the best/fastest coder can't create and iterate on designs as fast as you can in XD. When going back and forth with coworkers and clients to get approvals, I just don't see going direct to code as working well. Have I updated designs with code, absolutely. But I think starting off a new design from scratch with code is harder, more limiting, and more time consuming (it's faster in a design app) and I'm a designer/coder who's very comfortable with both. I learned both early on and have been designing/developing for 20+ years.

And beacuse tone is hard to get across through the internet, pelase don't take this the wrong way. If you have a workflow that works for you, great. We all have to find a way that works best for us, our design team, clients, and developers. I just have a different perspective and think XD is very valuable for a lot of designers, so I don't want people reading this to think XD is not worth learning/using.

[osgood_]

That's the beauty about being a freelance developer/designer I dont have to work with annoying teams or persue any ridged workflow, which personally I find to be time consuming and constrictive.

I prefer to give clients a concept which will have a lot of functionality, over and above what you can achieve in XD or Figma - it becomes an easy sell, rather than sitting around just talking about what will happen when you click this button or that button.

As you say whatever works best for your circumstances. I just get in there and get it done.

[Nancy OShea]

"Going direct to code limits creativity and takes way longer than quickly designing something in XD"

That's not my experience. And I've talked with other ACPS who feel as I do about XD -- fun to use but not essential.  How did we succeed before XD?

When it comes to tools, there are no hard & fast rules. Everyone has their personal preferences.  As long as you and your clients are happy with the results, use whatever works best.

[anissa_thompson]

Excellent points all. And as a graphic designer, web developer and instructor for over 30 years, I've seen everything you all have. As much as it grieves me to admit, being a diehard DW/Fireworks fan and all, we simply cannot execute large scale agile projects in today's environment without finding ways to iterate quickly and work collaboratively with multiple technologies and platforms, above and beyond what DW and Fw could handle smoothly "back in the day".

XD is a God-send for UX teams (notice, I didn't say development teams); developers need above and beyond what Dw is currently offering, and I've relegated it to an introductory-level tool consequently. Anyone can see that Adobe has shifted to AI-driven digital marketing interests, and left the development realm; the DW team works diligently to keep things moving on, but it seems they don't have the support they need to innovate and move to the forefront. Unless an integration with XD comes along soon (and XD already has one with VS), I would expect DW will see the same shelving that Fw did.

[osgood_]

As a case example, whilst I resect this Youtuber and his channel for his excellent abilites and skills, which far, far exceed mine, what has he actually achieved in 40 minutes, which you couldn't code with more functionality in 20 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnpsOtIcfbo&t=2120s 

I saw another Youtuber only yesterday, with over 500,000 followers using gsap.js to produce a hugely simple fly-out navigation....which could be produced in about 7 lines of simple javascript. The mind simply boggle as to what is being taught to those who know no better. Its NOT all good examples of where to best deploy workflows and these ridiculous, complex and sometimes more time-consuming workflows are appearing more and more in  everyday use.