muse vs dreameaver

[inquestflash]

greetings dreamweavers.

i recently went to the adobe roadshow and was introduced to a new application of muse.

they instructors were going on about how cool it is,that you can do your website with no what so ever coding etc etc.

so if you can then do websites in muse,what is dreamwevaer then needed for?is it an applicaiton of adobe soon to be extinct?

thank you.

[BenPleysier]

iWeb is a also a very nice web tool as was Frontpage.

But seriously, would you consider a tool for amateurs a replacement for DW?

After a short trial, I removed it from my system.

Gramps

[büro_exit]

Hi,

I use Muse not as a replacement for Dreamweaver, the others have describted why it is not clever.

I use Muse more like InDesign for designing webpages. Muse is actually not perfect for this but better than Illustrator or InDesign him self.

BR

[benboe]

Hi guys i want to get into proper webdesigning i have been doing it for a little while in flash with action script, but the problem i have is when clients want things like shopping carts updating info and photos and various plugins. So i want to start using dreamweaver with HTML and css now my question is this! Is adobe muse useful for real world practical websites? what i mean by that is like can you show a simpleton (clients designated person, usually secretary or such person), how to easily update info pictures etc with Muse sites? And is it easy to put online forms forums buying online shopping carts ordering etc the kind of stuff that people generally want there websites to be capable ofon a muse site.

As sites like flash are really annoying with that. Ive looked through some of the muse sites and they dont seem good for that kind of stuff. Sorry for the long post but im trying to figure if muse is even worthwhile for  me to start using short term while i learn HTML and css thanks.

[KevinB9]

Hi. Happy New Year to all from frigid Cambridge, Massachusetts

I recently "graduated" from iWeb to Dreamweaver so I thought I would weigh in on this subject.

With iWeb I was up and running in about two days. With Dreamweaver it was about two months (of frustration) and I still have a long way to go. Compared to Dreamweaver iWeb is like playing tennis with the net down. It sounds like Muse is similar to iWeb.

I would definitely not invest any money in Dreamweaver - use the trial version - until you get a sense of the cost (in time and money) and benefit.

Dreamweaver is for someone who rides code at LL Bean, not for someone like me who just wants to make a personal website. I should have hired someone else to author my website.

Good luck

Kevin

[austin-79611743]

Honestly it sounds like you need to create a dynamic site rather than hand-code a static site. You might look into using a CMS as this would also cater to your desire for GUI based development. Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpress are the big three, but there are many option out there both free and not. I personally use Drupal with Visual Studio as my coding IDE. Hope this helps

[AZ Guy]

Can Muse be used to create complete custom Wordpress layouts with the same ability to easily jump into and out of custom code that I'm writing?

Many of the new sites I'm building all want Wordpress so Dreamweaver works very nicely for this however if there is something that will shorten my build times, I would be willing to try it.

However, after looking at Muse, I don't see how it could. Maybe I just didn't spend enough time with it?

[BenPleysier]

You'll get a better reply on the Muse forum Help with using Adobe Muse CC

[Nancy OShea]

AZ Guy wrote:

Can Muse be used to create complete custom Wordpress layouts...

WP requires server-side technologies -- php, mysql database connections, server-side includes, etc... And your WP theme must be constructed to strict coding specifications or it won't work with WP's core code framework.    DW supports these technologies but MU does not.  IMO, MU generated code would hamper not help your workflow.  MU is for simple static HTML sites only.

If you want easy dynamic site development, look at Business Catalyst. 

Nancy O.

[John Waller]

inquestflash wrote:
so if you can then do websites in muse,what is dreamwevaer then needed for?is it an applicaiton of adobe soon to be extinct?

Dreamweaver and Muse are two different products for two different markets of end users.

They have little in common other than they're both developed by Adobe and they both produce websites.

Muse is more akin to iWeb or InDesign than Dreamweaver.

Muse is a point and click product for visually oriented designers. It has its uses but the websites it can create are limited.

Dreamweaver - a tool for professionals -  is not going anywhere. Adobe is still testing the waters with Muse.

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/16/adobes-muse-a-middle-ground-between-iweb-and-dreamweaver/

http://www.netmagazine.com/features/developers-respond-adobe-muse

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

Muse will never replace Dreamweaver.

Muse = consumer level software mainly for amateurs & hobbyists who have little or no coding experience. The code Muse produces is bloated and often difficult to edit in anything but Muse.  So if you ever drop your subscription to Muse (Creative Cloud), you may have a hard time updating your site.

Dreamweaver = professional level software for developers of commercial/enterprise level web sites. The code DW produces is web standards compliant and can be edited in almost any HTML/plain text editor. 

Very different products aimed at very different users.

Nancy O.

[brian_thomas2]

Muse is built for professional web designers who want to create websites without needing to write code. The code Muse produces is web standards compliant and works across all common browsers and devices - not just modern browsers. We spend a lot of time improving the code Muse produces while still supporting older browsers. If you want to dig deeper into our code check out our engineering blog: Adobe Muse CC Engineering Team

Dreamweaver is built for professional web developers who want to hand-code the websites they create. If you're comfortable writing HTML/CSS/JS then it's the tool for you.

If you happen to fall somewhere in the middle, where you want to design websites without code in Muse but need to add some functionality Muse doesn't yet support, then we have extensibility for writing code that can be used in Muse. Read about it here: MuCow Documentation

Brian Thomas

Product Manager - Adobe Muse

[ahazen1419]

Thanks for the clification. I myself was a print specialist for over 20 years and am getting back into the industry, trying to decide where to pick up with web design from print. Seems to me that a good segway might be to start with Muse since

I'm familiar with InDesign and then "graduate" to Dreamweaver: does this make sense.

[brian_thomas2]

Professional designers trust Muse every day. Check out this gallery for evidence of what can be done with Muse: http://muse.adobe.com/site-of-the-day. No need to "graduate" - just pick the tool that best matches the way you want to build websites.

[ChadT]

ahazen I think there are probably better products to start learning with, since you can't see the code in Muse it won't really help you learn what you need to. I'm assuming you already have decent design skills, I'd suggest picking up a book or take some online courses on HTML/CSS. I myself started with WYSIWYG designers and they didn't help me learn much because they produced bad code and also shielded me from learning the fundamentals. Learning fundamental HTML/CSS is essential otherwise you'll be stuck in WYSIWYG land building bad sites that don't perform well and developers will hate.

[ahazen1419]

Thanks. It really helps hearing everyone's opinion about this product. I've been in print design for decades so I want to use my time wisely as i make tyne change over to web design.

Alex

[ChadT]

MAYBE Muse creates web standards code, but its certainly not clean code.

I just finished writing some PHP code for a small 2 page site a client did in Muse. They also wanted me to turn it into a responsive site.  The Muse code was so messy with endless nested Divs and randomly generated id's and class names, it was basically impossible to sort out the CSS enough to convert it to a responsive design. I decided it was easier to rewrite it from scratch. Long story short, my hand-coded site totaled 360 lines of HTML/CSS/JS/PHP.  The original Muse site, to accomplish the same thing was 1350 lines by my most conservative count (there were about a half dozen other .js files that I didn't take the time to figure out what they were supposed to do). That's at minimum a 400% bloat!

Muse probably has a niche helping people make personal sites or MAYBE small time designers create small websites. Don't tell me its a professional solution though. Next time I see something written in Muse I'll have to double my rate or just turn down the project.

[Nancy OShea]

Well said, Chad.  Those are my exact sentiments, too.

Nancy O.

[brian_thomas2]

The code Muse generates is not intended to be edited by a developer later on. Any edits to the code are not represented in the original Muse file, so the designer looses the ability to update the site. Instead, Muse is committed to providing designer-developer workflows that allow developers to extend the capability of Muse without squashing the designer's ability to continue doing free-form design.

As for the code size I agree that Muse could be much better, but I challenge "lines of code" as the best metric for evaluating quality code. We prioritize preserving design fidelity across browsers and devices. Even an expert developer is going to struggle to make a modern design look good in IE8 (it's a horror), yet Muse does this instantly. Similarly, doing parallax scrolling effects on mobile devices is extremely difficult, yet Muse does it instantly. We prioritize use of CSS features rather than using images. We prioritize performance of the site in browsers. We will continue to find ways of reducing the size of our code with every release, but it will always be in the context of maintaining the many other benefits of the code we produce.

Rather than spending time fighting with Muse code, have you considered putting your programming talents toward selling add-ons that your Muse clients can use?

https://creative.adobe.com/addons

[ChadT]

The code not being intended to be edited by a developer later is exactly what excludes Muse from a professional grade product in my opinion, because it limits the potential of the website to only the things Muse or a plugin is capable of doing.

I checked out the Muse site-of-the-day page earlier.  The major glaring thing I noticed was that none of the sites were responsive. Having to create separate desktop/tablet/mobile sites is a poor alternative.

I think there may be a place for software like this for amateur designers or when a quick "throwaway" site needs to slapped together, but for anyone calling their self a professional designer/developer, passing off the product it produces as a professional solution is doing a disservice to their clients in my opinion. Just because people are doing it doesn't make it the best solution.  As professionals we have a responsibility to strive to produce websites that are portable, maintainable, expandable, optimized, and robust. As you mentioned Muse may have the robust category nailed, but it fails in the other areas.

Anyway thanks for your responses, I realize there are many schools of thought, this is just mine.

[osgood_]

ChadT wrote:

I think there may be a place for software like this

Yeah, the trash can comes to mind.

[brian_thomas2]

Before you consider the potential of Muse limited by the ability of our plug-ins, check out this widget creator: http://www.qooqee.com/. You may be surprised by just how powerful the widgets built by a skilled developer can be. We see incredible collaboration between developers and designers using this system - the possibilities are limitless. The Muse team is dedicated to creating a tool that enables professional-grade web design without needing to write code.

One of my favorite examples of developer-designer collaboration using Muse is here:

http://ajinteractive.businesscatalyst.com/srilanka/index.html

Future of Storytelling |   Beyond the Beach

This remarkable piece is not a "throwaway" site. It's a deep and moving story created by some top-notch professionals.

I too appreciate the discussion! Thoughtful critique from skilled developers always helps us improve Muse.

[ChadT]

You can't honestly say that bloated, non SEO, unmaintainable code and fixed width, "print style" layouts qualifies as professional grade, can you? Many of the "site of the day websites" I looked at didn't even render properly on my tablet with offset headers, cut off edges, and horizontal scrolling! It would be downright embarrasing if I delivered something like that to a client. And supposedly this is the best Muse has to offer.

I really think you should call it what it is, so designers can at least realize that if they want to move into developing truly professional, larger, or dynamic websites, they do in fact need to "graduate" from Muse and learn to code.

[osgood_]

Muse sites are what they are really. They all look pretty much the same with the same limited functionality. Probably all right if you have a specific product to promote, a small company site with limited information. The big drawback at the moment is it offers no 'responsive' solution and there is no guarantee that it will (I'm sure the Muse developers are working frantically to make this a viable option) until then (even if I were a graphic/visual designer) would I spend time learning a product which is already way behind the curve in terms of what is required for a website today. It really comes down to the website that is needed at the end of the day. A simple clean site with basic functionality which works at desktop level then you could possible get away with using Muse as an option but in reality you are short changing not only the client but yourself.

I guess there is room for all sorts of solutions but this definitely should not be viewed as 'professional grade' as one of the posters referred to. This will be a very short term venture and will be kicked into touch much like other Adobe programs/solutions once their shelf life comes to an end.

[MCQ UK]

Truth be told, there are undoubtedly many web "developers" who are keen for Muse to fail.  It is in their interest.  Read any forum threads and you will soon get a taste for how panicked they are.  Defensive and aggressive attacks on what is actually a very decent product.  All rather pointless.  Horses for courses, as you say, but the Muse footprint will grow, trust me.  It bridges the gap and will make a dent in the pockets of dev's.  Many are poor imitations of good coders.  Many rely on "where there is mystery, there is margin", overselling SEO and overcharging for poor websites - plus 90% of them lack any design flare whatsoever.  Code is one thing - a site that is attractive and sells product is something quite different.  Devs are typically commercially useless and rarely creative - facts they will never come to terms with.

Hat off to Adobe.