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]

Glad you like Muse, something Adobe likes to hear. Keep up the good work and please use the Muse forum if you run into trouble.

[Nancy OShea]

Most of the web designers I know began their careers in print and/or graphic design so they are very creative people.  That said, I don't know any serious web designers who use MU except for quick design comps.  The real coding is performed with other, more practical programing tools.  

MU might be all you need for a basic hobby or static site.  But it's not capable of producing a good responsive or dynamically driven site -- i.e. a blog, e-comm, CMS, etc...   Personally, I would rather have a root canal than work with MU generated code.  But if you like using it, be my guest. Just be prepared to use MU for the life of your site. 

Nancy O.

[MCQ_UK]

Truthfully?   I've been around this for 30+ years [as I'm sure you have] and I've met very few from print/graphic design.  Certainly from UK - which does have some print history!  What I have seen is a saturation of web designers, most "graduating" after a three week course in DW or other app, often located on the third floor of some serviced office building.   I think the term "web designer" is often a little misleading.  Website Technicians would be a more appropriate term - and they often do an OK job.  That said, they have for many years over-engineered their position in the real world and many companies have grown tired of being held to ransom. Distrust of web technicians is almost on par with politicians [that may be a little unfair - shall we say approaching...]  SEO - joke.  Roping in domain hosting, joke, add ons, minor edit charges, price lists that are often complex and designed to obfuscate commercial detail.  All of this to gain control of clients and make life less flexible for the people paying them!  Sure you can buy CMS, but you have to host with us, joke.  These tricks are common in all industries but technology is evolving and people are going to have to adjust.  

All we hear from those TRYING to discredit MUSE is: Code, Code, Code.  B O R I N G..   The real world doesn't care about code or bloated code  [the latter being a weak case when speaking of Muse], what it does care about is driving business and responding quickly to market conditions with beautiful content that sells their product/service. Does it scale, is it robust - for most SME's, it will never be a problem.  If things get complicated, e-commerce etc,  they can go to Web Techies.

To my mind, Adobe in empowering ALL creative people to overcome the barriers, delays and financial risks associated with paying web technicians.  Natural evolution.  We often have to re-invest and change what we do to protect our future.  Now might be a good time?

Nancy, I note that you've followed each positive Muse entry with a "Muse will never replace Dreamweaver" post.  Interesting.  Do you know the future of Muse? Are you a lead member of the commercial team running the development of Adobe products?  Have you travelled back in time to share something you have witnessed?  A very confident statement.....I would have thought Muse could easily absorb DW.  The market dictates that this would be an entirely sensible decision for Adobe.  Think of that revenue growth.  Maybe add a module for the code side of things or alter the development to reflect more DW elements.  Who knows?  I don't.  I'm not going to write anything off, just because it doesn't fit with my plan.  Adobe is full very bright people.

Adobe is pushing a future where the playing fields are level and the real talent can shine.  What a great mission.  I'm in.  GO ADOBE!!!!  & anyone else who dreams of making things better for everyone.

Mocq.

[Nancy OShea]

Dreamweaver appeals to a different user base than Muse.  That's all.  Different tools for different ways in which people work. Adobe has taken valiant steps recently to appeal to a much broader range of user grades which is really good for Adobe's sales.  However, I honestly don't believe MU is ever going to replace DW. 

I would like to see the Design View/Live View surface improved in DW.  I've been asking for it for years.  To that extent, MU has a pretty good design surface. So does Edge Reflow but I'm not sure where that is going.   Edge Code was discontinued and the work was enveloped into Adobe's open source project, Brackets.

So what's the future for MU?  Nobody can say for sure.  Beta testers must sign an NDA so they can't say anything even if they wanted to.  But look, you've found a tool you like.  That's wonderful.  Keep using it.  And if it goes by the wayside, then you'll find something new.

Nancy O.

[BenPleysier]

Adding to what Nancy has said, have a look at what Adobe says "When to Use Dreamweaver, Muse, Reflow, Animate, and Brackets"

In other words, if you are a graphics designer and do not have a clue on coding, then use Muse, but only on simple sites. The likes of the Adobe site would never be developed using Muse.

[ChadT]

I don't dislike Muse because it threatens my job as a coder (it doesn't at all), I dislike Muse because it makes life more difficult for me, and hence more expensive for the client when the client wants their site to grow beyond what Muse can offer. You can't just hire a techie to bolt on e-commerce, or custom database functionality to Muse, you have to throw the Muse site away completely and hire the techie to start from scratch. For that very reason Muse doesn't scale well, so its a waste of resources to build a site with Muse to begin with (unless as I said in previous posts you're building a throwaway site that will never need to grow).

As far as web designers holding people for "ransom", the only clients they can do that to are people who are naive and don't understand what they're buying. Its unfortunate that some people take unfair advantage of that, but don't confuse that with educated clients willing to pay well for a specialized skill that's in-demand.

There is absolutely a saturation of so called "web designers" graduating from a three week course, I'll agree with you there. THEY may be threatened by Muse, but skilled developers shouldn't be threatened by them, or Muse, or Wix, or any of the other dozens of half-baked web builders that came before it. I can't speak for anyone else, but my bread and butter income isn't in building basic 5 page static websites for Mom and Pop's bakery. I'm happy to let "Junior" in highschool do that with Muse, or a $50 Wordpress theme, or whatever. But if they come to me and they want me to add a feature they can't get on their own with Muse (even one as basic as a responsive layout), then they've wasted their time because I can't work with Muse code. THAT is why I'm against Muse as a professional solution. If you can't understand why those things are important, then you likely fall into the "naive" category. Code isn't going anywhere for a very long time, and knowing how to write GOOD code saves time and money down the line.

[Peter Villevoye]

I just ran into this energizing discussion

Most of the answers and advices here are right, albeit a bit polarized into Camp DW or Camp MU.

There're however some aspects untouched or misleading.

It's true that a Muse website can't grow into a more sizable website, built with a CMS and all. (Adobe Business Catalyst offers some integration, but for most Muse users it's not very common to take that road.) And the website's HTML/CSS/JS indeed can't be simply opened in or added to by other web tools. There's no seamless way to build onto what's already there.

But that warning is valid for probably all web projects, whether or not they've been produced with Muse. Most popular or home-grown frameworks being used for larger websites are also a lock-in. Apart from the 'raw' database, most scripts, queries, templates, often need to be rebuilt just as well when a client decides (maybe for other reasons than growth) to move to a different platform.

Since a typical Muse website won't be very large, rebuilding it completely in a CMS compliant framework shouldn't take too long either. I'm sure professionals like Nancy and Max8jake will gladly construct it from scratch, with just a relatively small share of time spent on recreating what was already available.

Most developers are not happy with someone else's code, and claim theirs smells like daisies. So when a couple of different professional web developers or agencies have been working on a website subsequently, the code gets messy anyway. At some point the client will be advised to do a complete overhaul.

Another important aspect is the fact that designing and building a website with Muse can be a one-man performance. Designing and building a larger website, with a CMS, some back-ends and front-ends, implementing all wishes and features, often requires (very rightfully) a team of specialists. Which is of course making the undertaking less dependent from a single individual (a good thing), but also creating extra workflow challenges like briefing, communication, co-working, etc. (an additional difficulty).

BTW: Muse is catching up with Responsive Web Design, making it possible again for a larger number of web designers to create a proper solution for their client's needs.

[Nancy OShea]

When I see Muse and Clients used in the same sentence, I shudder a little.  Here's why:

I had a prospective client show me the web site her former "web designer" created.  It was a poorly conceived Muse site.  The client was unable to edit it and wanted much, much more so she came to me for improvements. Given the long inventory of features the client requested from the start, MU was definitely not the right tool for this project.

Mind you, I am not putting blame on Muse.  I lay blame entirely on a clueless, so-called "web designer" who made some very foolish choices.   But here's the thing.  All that "ease of use" that MU provides is a double-edged sword.  It empowered this inexperienced, non-coder into thinking they had all the right tools (and talent) to build and SELL professional websites.  YIKES!   It takes a lot more than tools to build good websites.

I can forgive the mistakes people make when building sites for personal/hobby use.  Afterall, that's the target MU user and it's their cross to bear if the website stinks.  But it's unforgivable when people sell dreck to unsuspecting clients.   Suffice it to say, the site I looked at had to be tossed out & rebuilt from ground up.  The client was none too happy to hear their first website investment had been all for naught.

Now you understand why I have an aversion to web designer's who use MU for client projects.  I'm sure some very talented designers can do amazing things with MU. But for me, it signals a red flag that something important is missing from their minimum skill-set otherwise they wouldn't be using MU.

Just my 2 cents.

Nancy O.

[Peter Villevoye]

Nancy, you're portraying the same kind of professional pretentions and attitude, I experienced when Desktop Publishing put an axe to the business of typesetters and lithographers. If some Muse users put out bad websites, just be happy for that ! You need this undertow of rubbish to let clients experience the difference. Besides, not every client needs a dynamic website, with a CMS, full-blown SEO, and lots of scripted bells and whistles. I wonder how many of those 18 million WordPress websites could just as well have been built as a static website, with Muse...

And although Muse is in its 4th year, it's still in an early phase of implementing or integrating more complicated technologies. At least it succeeds in keeping the interface completely visual, while holding onto some very crucial principles of HTML. And I think it takes less time to see more wishes and requests granted by new versions of Muse, than to wait for more designers to develop a coding skill set.

My 3 cents. 😉

[BenPleysier]

The problem is that, when the Muse users run into trouble or they wish to convert the site to be used with Dreamweaver, they come here to be bailed out.

[Ussnorway]

Nancy O. wrote:

When I see Muse and Clients used in the same sentence, I shudder a little.  Here's why:

I had a prospective client show me the web site her former "web designer" created.  It was a poorly conceived Muse site.  The client was unable to edit it and wanted much, much more so she came to me for improvements. Given the long inventory of features the client requested from the start, MU was definitely not the right tool for this project.

Mind you, I am not putting blame on Muse.  I lay blame entirely on a clueless, so-called "web designer" who made some very foolish choices.   But here's the thing.  All that "ease of use" that MU provides is a double-edged sword.  It empowered this inexperienced, non-coder into thinking they had all the right tools (and talent) to build and SELL professional websites.  YIKES!   It takes a lot more than tools to build good websites.

I can forgive the mistakes people make when building sites for personal/hobby use.  Afterall, that's the target MU user and it's their cross to bear if the website stinks.  But it's unforgivable when people sell dreck to unsuspecting clients.   Suffice it to say, the site I looked at had to be tossed out & rebuilt from ground up.  The client was none too happy to hear their first website investment had been all for naught.

Now you understand why I have an aversion to web designer's who use MU for client projects.  I'm sure some very talented designers can do amazing things with MU. But for me, it signals a red flag that something important is missing from their minimum skill-set otherwise they wouldn't be using MU.

Just my 2 cents.

Nancy O.

I can see a 50|50 but in your eyes the client was totally innocent and had no part in allowing that scenario to happen?

I've seen my share of bad sites both Muse and DW… hell I'm old enough to remember the good old days of Frontpage but I love seeing people like gizerd discover websites that they would have never attempted with DW so Muse is staying around and that’s a good thing.

------

Muse vs Dreameaver is the wrong approach imo… it's Muse & Dreameaver that has a future if Adobe can make it happen before someone else builds it instead.

[paulk7737514]

Peter Villevoye wrote:

I just ran into this energizing discussion

Most of the answers and advices here are right, albeit a bit polarized into Camp DW or Camp MU.

There're however some aspects untouched or misleading.

It's true that a Muse website can't grow into a more sizable website, built with a CMS and all. (Adobe Business Catalyst offers some integration, but for most Muse users it's not very common to take that road.) And the website's HTML/CSS/JS indeed can't be simply opened in or added to by other web tools. There's no seamless way to build onto what's already there.

But that warning is valid for probably all web projects, whether or not they've been produced with Muse. Most popular or home-grown frameworks being used for larger websites are also a lock-in. Apart from the 'raw' database, most scripts, queries, templates, often need to be rebuilt just as well when a client decides (maybe for other reasons than growth) to move to a different platform.

Since a typical Muse website won't be very large, rebuilding it completely in a CMS compliant framework shouldn't take too long either. I'm sure professionals like Nancy and Max8jake will gladly construct it from scratch, with just a relatively small share of time spent on recreating what was already available.

Most developers are not happy with someone else's code, and claim theirs smells like daisies. So when a couple of different professional web developers or agencies have been working on a website subsequently, the code gets messy anyway. At some point the client will be advised to do a complete overhaul.

Another important aspect is the fact that designing and building a website with Muse can be a one-man performance. Designing and building a larger website, with a CMS, some back-ends and front-ends, implementing all wishes and features, often requires (very rightfully) a team of specialists. Which is of course making the undertaking less dependent from a single individual (a good thing), but also creating extra workflow challenges like briefing, communication, co-working, etc. (an additional difficulty).

BTW: Muse is catching up with Responsive Web Design, making it possible again for a larger number of web designers to create a proper solution for their client's needs.

Nonsense, all the regular contributors to this forum can do a complex website with a CMS in little to no time. That is because they've either been coding for so long that they have developed their own customized CMS or have moved on to professional open source CMS like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal.

As for a website slapped together with Mu not being expandable, I have never known a client who did not return with new upgrade ideas for their site.

[Peter Villevoye]

Hi Paul, could you please describe which part of my response is "nonsense" ? All of it, or anything specific ? And to some extent your response is fitting exactly into my perception: "they have developed their own customized CMS". With its own quirks and features, and its very own syntax. Will another developer be able (and willing) to get a grip on that ? I wonder...

[max8jake]

Hi All.

I have read through everyones opinions.

Muse...

Quick and easy to get going with. Build a site in no time. Lots of cool features. However, heavy on the coding etc.

Dreamweaver...

To use dreamweaver... don't learn dreamweaver... learn HTML, CSS and Jquery... then dreamweaver starts to make sense.

I have been in the print trade for over 20 years and have been using trainsimple recently to learn new skills as print has changed so much.

I have produced an ibook with interactive quizzes for One Direction (Never published in the end because of licensing issues world wide).

I have produces an ibook for a presentation for McDonalds via the same company... which they loved.

They both had all the drag and drop games. crosswords, word searches etc... and all because I started using adobe edge animate. (I was informed by someone very high up in the pushing industry that what I have done is not possible in ebooks and they were amazed in what I achieved).

I also use adobe BC. I have created sites using muse and Dreamweaver and made them work with a lot of functions with adobe BC.

One programme can't do it all (if it does then there is a lot of work involved)

Combine them and use the right programme for the right job.  Thats what I do.

We are all up against the "free" do it your self websites... (Which are heavy in code but are still good)

So...

You hard core HTML CSS coders... play around with Muse and things like adobe edge.

And you inspirational designers... Start learning some Coding.

There is some amazing stuff coming in the next few years... So don't get left behind and learn new programmes. Just look at the progresion of muse and dreamweaver over the last couple of years.

[donc50030956]

Hi all...Just starting out...Have played with DR and happy that it meets most of my needs. What is dissappointing is the lack of what we could call "standard" tools such as a slideshow builder. I am sure there are plug ins and I need to spend some time digging around this area. Fact is I only need to do it once or twice for now and Muse seems to have the ability to build something fairly nice and slick which I guess I could then copy the files into my site.

Is this a practical solution? Or do you guys suggest something else....and for the record....I am not JS conversant 😞 but it is on my radar.

Regards

Don

[Jon Fritz]

jQuery Cycle 2 is about the easiest to implement javascript slideshow I've come across...

Cycle2

I've used it a few times.

[Nancy OShea]

If you build your site with MU, be prepared to use it for the life of your site.  Once an  MU site is exported to HTML, it can not be imported back into MU for further editing.  More importantly, the code MU generates is not going to render very well in DW's Design View.  These are 2 different products aimed at very different user levels. 

My advice is keep using DW and learn how to use jQuery plugins.  This will open up a world of possibilities to you. See link below for details.

Alt-Web Design & Publishing: Primer for Using jQuery Plug-Ins

Nancy O.

[gizerd]

I thought I'd give an opinion from a complete newb:

It was recommended to me, after I had started to learn a bit of html and css, that I try out Muse as a way to instantly create websites using my artistic creativity and layout experience. Then, when I've learned more code, I can transition to Dreamweaver or plain code using Muse as a layout editor that gets basic site functionality up quickly to show clients.

So obviously I have not started that transition yet but:

I will say that in my first few experiences with Muse, as a complete beginner and as an artist it has been amazing. I was able to create a basic website layout and publish it to my domain host to see my work within just a few hours. While my website is rudimentary thus far and I can't speak to the concerned coders complaining on this forum, it honestly looks beautiful despite not knowing a thing about Muse or hosting prior to today. I would, like one of the responders, highly recommend Muse in the very least for true beginners who are learning code and want something tangible to keep them from getting discouraged.

-giz

[Nancy OShea]

I think for what you describe, MU is a great tool.  And a lot of people use it just for prototyping.   Problems only arise when the site owner decides they need more than MU can provide.

[thomasg86829915]

Gizerd - well said.

Okay – coders...thanks for your contributions here. Its obvious Muse isn't a (developer) level tool. While I appreciate the expertise of all the coders out there, I have no desire to be one.

As a graphic designer, Muse has been very liberating and so much fun to learn. With the help of Lynda.com, I've been able to ease into Muse.

Let's not underestimate what Adobe can do, and the possible future of Muse. The recent February 2016 update, incorporates the ability to control content for responsive design.

Adobe - thanks for this wonderful application. I look forward to what's next.

[oles6577265]

The suggestion that MU & DW is the best advice. The right tool & skill set for the right budget.

[JosephBarone]

As a creative director that needs to effectively communicate intent to both developers AND designers, I'll offer my rationale for using Muse in a professional capacity.

My designers and I have limited coding experience, so being able to QUICKLY brainstorm functions and general aesthetics of a client's site internally is very important. I use Muse with my designers to build a functioning mock-up, while my developers hand code the site based on those specifications. For me, Muse is for creating the scale model, an application like Dreamweaver is for constructing the actual building. (For what it's worth, my developers refuse to use any WYSIWYG program, they are hand-coders all the way and prefer Coda or Atom to build sites. Masochists, but perfectionists to say the least.)

So, as an internal visualization tool, Muse excels at quickly creating functional test sites, but in the end is never used to develop the final product for client work or more robust sites where clean code and editing capabilities are key.

[David_Powers]

JosephBarone wrote:

So, as an internal visualization tool, Muse excels at quickly creating functional test sites, but in the end is never used to develop the final product for client work or more robust sites where clean code and editing capabilities are key.

That sounds like an excellent rationale for using Muse. Unfortunately, a lot of people believe that once they have created their masterpiece in Muse that's the end of the story.

The same situation applies with the now deprecated Dreamweaver server behaviors. Many years ago, the then Dreamweaver product manager told me that server behaviors were intended as quick prototyping tools that shouldn't be used in a production environment. In spite of that, many people still rely on them and seem blissfully unaware that the code won't work in the current version of PHP.

Both Muse and Dreamweaver server behaviors suffer from the same problem: automatically generated code. It's fine for quick prototyping, but not for use in a real application.

[Peter Villevoye]

I always get this uneasy feeling when people talk about "real" solutions, "real" products, and "real" applications, for "real" people...

And beware, AuthorWare is still in use by some "real" developers !

In this quickly evaporating digital world, only a few out of a thousands of achievements need to last longer than a pack of cigarettes. And what defines a "real" website anyway ? One that is so crammed with dozens or even hundreds of useful "real" SEO scripts, that it's screaming for Google AMP just to get across ? Apart from some technically and visually pristine web creatures, the web is an ocean of stuff that moves, changes, comes, and goes.

I don't regard Adobe Muse as the ultimate solution, but it gets a lot of jobs done, in a reasonably easy way.

BTW JosephBarone‌

I adore your expression about developers:

"Masochists, but perfectionists to say the least."

[paulk7737514]

Do you have a degree in "media studies"?...