Looking for alternative products

[davidb55476001]

Our experience with Dreamweaver has gotten worse and worse over the years, so much so that we'd drop it in a heartbeat if ever we could find an alternative product.

We are also considering giving up our Creative Cloud unlimited licenses plan 😞

Especialy witht he last two versions of Dreamweaver we have had all sort of problems:

- frequent (very frequent) crashes

- inaccurate copy&paste

- even Save command that doesn't save

Adobe has been inflating their products with all sort of new functionalities, while letting the core functionalities degrade unbearably.

We are presently running on a HP Windows 10 machine and on a MacBookPRO on MacOs 11.6

Any advice?

[BenPleysier]

This is an Adobe sponsored forum. If you want alternatives, then Google the subject.

Merry Chrismas and a Happy New Year.

[davidb55476001]

Mine is somewhat a provocation - thought it would be quite clear: above all, I'd like the products I pay good money for, to work properly. Is anybody able to help / so something / make them work properly?

Because we pay them as if they are good.

[ealanjones]

"This is an Adobe sponsored forum. If you want alternatives, then Google the subject."
The irony being, it's an Adobe sponsored forum and they don't seem to be paying attention. Until a few years ago, I wouldn't have contemplated changing from Dreamweaver. Heck, I beta tested version 1.X. 
But Adobe's decisions of late have me scratching my head. First they dropped support for ColdFusion in Dreamweaver, then they progressively stripped functionality leaving the app adrift, then deciding the sunset it.

It's as if Adobe is a family business where the parents have retired leaving their spoiled children to run it.

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

For Businesses:

Adobe Commerce - https://business.adobe.com/products/magento/magento-commerce.html

Adobe Experience Manager - https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-manager/adobe-experience-manager.html

CODE EDITORS:
-- Codespaces (free, browser-based) - https://github.com/features/codespaces
-- Nova (Mac only, formerly called Coda) - https://nova.app/
-- Pinegrow - https://pinegrow.com/
-- Sublime Text - http://www.sublimetext.com/
-- Visual Studio Code (free) - https://code.visualstudio.com/
-- Wappler ~ Visual Web App Builder - https://wappler.io/
============
ONLINE SITE BUILDERS:
-- Adobe Behance (free) - https://help.behance.net/hc/en-us/articles/204483894-Guide-Intro-to-Behance
-- Adobe Portfolio (free with a paid Creative Cloud Plan) - https://portfolio.adobe.com/
-- Squarespace - https://www.squarespace.com/
-- Webflow - https://webflow.com
-- Wix - https://www.wix.com/
-- WordPress (open source) - https://wordpress.org/

[osgood_]

Wappler, by DMXZone is a new product currently in beta trials but as l understand should reach public beta at some stage early next year.

I think you will find that most products out there have their ups and downs. DW, unless you are a pure coder is currently on a par with most.

For  coders

Atom, Sublime, VC Code,  Brackets , all are poor in my opinion especially if a simple way of producing reusable code snippets is a must have, they all bar none fail in this respect therefore to me they are all unusable. I dont quite know why they are so popular, maybe the free price tag is an attraction.

For non coders

Pinegrow is a wysiwyg editor , personally  l have never tried it but its one that is mentioned  from time to time as being a contender if a more visual experience is important.

Komodo, Ultra Edit, maybe Web Storm. There are dozens to try but few, if none, that actually deliver. Its a case of finding the best of a very poor bunch.

I understand your problem, l am currently undecided as to what editor to use as they all seem to be off the pace, redundant, bloated or just not updated frequently.

[rayek.elfin]

osgood_  wrote

For  coders

Atom, Sublime, VC Code,  Brackets , all are poor in my opinion especially if a simple way of producing reusable code snippets is a must have, they all bar none fail in this respect therefore to me they are all unusable. I dont quite know why they are so popular, maybe the free price tag is an attraction.

For non coders

Pinegrow is a wysiwyg editor , personally  l have never tried it but its one that is mentioned  from time to time as being a contender if a more visual experience is important.

Komodo, Ultra Edit, maybe Web Storm. There are dozens to try but few, if none, that actually deliver. Its a case of finding the best of a very poor bunch.

I understand your problem, l am currently undecided as to what editor to use as they all seem to be off the pace, redundant, bloated or just not updated frequently.

Atom has an Asteroids add-on, which must explain its popularity 😜

All joking aside, I think it has to do with that all of them cater to specific coder crowds, while DW is too neurotic for most nowadays. Adobe didn't exactly help either - they don't really seem to know what to do with DW and the roadmap seems up in the air.

Aside from that, DW just misses a lot of the functionality and customization options that other coding environments have on offer. So many different workflows out there nowadays, and Atom, Sublime, etc. have vibrant communities catering for all kinds of workflows. You could argue (web) development is made more complicated than it needs to be, of course. But at least the competitors allow for almost any kind of coding workflow, and automate it (for the most part).

Dreamweaver, in the meantime, is sort-of stuck. At least, that is how I see it. None of my students or colleagues will even consider touching DW. It is either not taken seriously, or not even considered in the first place, or both. It's viewed as a "has-been". And when professionals deride DW in front of beginners, well... It doesn't help of course. I think Dreamweaver has a brand/reputation problem, and it's going to be tough to convince coders otherwise.

Yeah, the final nail in the coffin: the costly rental-only option doesn't help either. Why keep paying monthly for a code editor when (arguably superior)  IDEs and editors out there exist often for free? The re-usable snippet editor in DW is nice, but hardly enough to deter anyone from using other editors (which have snippet options as well - perhaps not as usable).

[davidb55476001]

Tried most (not all) of the suggested alternatives, with no much luck.

When the workflow is heavily code based, DW is utterly pointless. But there are cases, like when prepping newsletters, where a wysiwyg / graphic approach is after all more practical. So far I haven't found anything that could really replace DW for that, despite its many limitation.

Now however it's really working so badly for us that there is no more tradeoff

Maybe we should just go back a lot with versions. 2017 was constantly crashing on us.

[rayek.elfin]

Try Pinegrow. I use it for quick visual content updates in static websites. And Atom has a nice live connection to Pinegrow.

[osgood_]

rayek.elfin  wrote

Aside from that, DW just misses a lot of the functionality and customization options that other coding environments have on offer. So many different workflows out there nowadays, and Atom, Sublime, etc. have vibrant communities catering for all kinds of workflows. You could argue (web) development is made more complicated than it needs to be, of course. But at least the competitors allow for almost any kind of coding workflow, and automate it (for the most part).

Well I'm all for competition if its suitable but seriously how can any editor not have a good way of creating coding snippets? It just puzzles me. I know you can obtain individual snippet managment applications but why have a workflow that is fractured when it should be all contained in one program?

Lets take Atom and I think VC Code - I have to mess around coding a snippet in a single json file, that has to be a complete joke right, when in other programs - DW excels at creating snippets, as does Coda, you just dump the snippet of code in a file, save and name it, you're done. Open the dedicated snippets panel were they are all organised, in folders if you care whereas in Atom and VC Code they are just dumped in a seemingly random order and you're meant to call them back by either using the a 'trigger' key you allocated the snippet or calling up an endless list of entires to scroll through. No one can remember what they named their snippets so that is why a dedicated snippets panel, I would have thought, was a key factor for any tom, dick and harry that cares to try and produce a web-editor. Editors seem to have gone backward instead of forwards to me, BBedit, Textmate had the abilities to create snippets without jumping through hoops. Yes, todays editors look prettier for sure but somehow sanity has disappeared.

Sublime, Atom, VC Code, Brackets, even Coda have zero file/folder management tools unlike DW. If I re-purpose a file into another folder the program is intelligent enough to know its gone into another folder and will ask if the links should be updated, surely that too should be a prerequisite of any web-development program, yet seems void in more that it is present in.

I'm not a DW user (I used to be) but it gets a bit of a rough kicking, including from myself, but it's really no worse in reality than a lot of other editors out there in my opinion.

At the moment I'm flying from editor to editor because in my opinion they all lack in one area or another. Maybe one day someone will come up will an editor that is user friendly when it comes to addressing some of the more impotant fundamentals.

rayek.elfin  wrote

I think Dreamweaver has a brand/reputation problem, and it's going to be tough to convince coders otherwise.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. It's not that it's a bad editor, it just has a long time reputation for being a program that amatuers would use which has damaged its credibility and no serious coder or prospective developer wants to be associated with amatuers. I think it needs re-branding and repositioning.

Also it has to be a pricing issue. If you're teaching web-development then you have to take into account not all students will have the finances to buy into the product so these free ones are taking a ride on the back of that and education establishments look to cut costs anywhere they can.

rayek.elfin  wrote

Yeah, the final nail in the coffin: the costly rental-only option doesn't help either. Why keep paying monthly for a code editor when (arguably superior)  IDEs and editors out there exist often for free? The re-usable snippet editor in DW is nice, but hardly enough to deter anyone from using other editors (which have snippet options as well - perhaps not as usable).

Yes, I agree.

[davidb55476001]

I've jsut purchased Pinegrow after a a VERY satisfying trial period.

I've to thank the ones among you who suggested it - it's great!

Hopefully I will never have to touch Dreamweaver ever again

David

Il 17/01/18 13:29, Geek091 ha scritto:

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Looking for alternative products

Geek091

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[Nancy OShea]

As a fellow CC product user, my only advice is drop back to a previous version. 

I am currently using CC 2017 without major issues.   2018 had too many quirks.