Is there any way to display the Design View in fluid grid pages?

[Ron Kurtus]

After upgrading to the newest version of DW CC 2014, I noticed that the Design View is disabled in Fluid Grid pages. You can only use the Live View to edit those pages. The Design/Live button displays on non-fluid pages.

I'm wondering if there is a work-around to allow Design View editing on fluid pages. It is a major hassle to try to edit some things in the Live View. It would nice to have a choice.

[Ron Kurtus]

In a previous post, on Oct 9th, I stated that I simply deleted the hidden "Dreamweaver Fluid Grid Properties" from the CSS file. The Responsive pages now seem to work fine, and the Design/Live button works, as does spell-check.

This seems like the easiest work-around for existing DW responsive pages.

[rjerz · Accepted solution]

@Ron

Ron, thanks for your idea.  I just tried this to my fluid grid css file, and it worked!  The odd thing (at least in my mind) is that the code (shown below) is commented out.  So, even though my web pages ignore this commented out code, Dreamweaver does not... it uses it to control how the Dreamweaver program operates. Well, I guess that this can happen.  This code acts like a "directive" to the Dreamweaver program.

One noticeable change is that in Live view I no longer see the grey strips showing the fluid grid columns, but I can live with this.

This is my novice way of looking at the situation.  But now I am happy.

Here's my exact code (that I deleted) from my css file.  Maybe others can try this and see if it fixes the problem.

/*

  Dreamweaver Fluid Grid Properties

  ----------------------------------

  dw-num-cols-mobile: 4;

  dw-num-cols-tablet: 8;

  dw-num-cols-desktop: 12;

  dw-gutter-percentage: 15;

  Inspiration from "Responsive Web Design" by Ethan Marcotte

  http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design

  and Golden Grid System by Joni Korpi

  http://goldengridsystem.com/

*/

[Vernon_Benjafield]

The only problem with this workaround is that it also disables the editing boxes. I appreciate that I can duplicate divs or move them around in code view but resizing them, for example, isn't so simple.

The simple fact is that removing design view from the fluid grid pages was ill conceived and obviously not thought through properly. I have a client site with several pages that have thumbnail images linked to larger versions that pop up in a new div - it's nigh on impossible to easily edit these in live view since, when I click on the thumbnail it immediately shows me the larger version. It's also a pain having to close the slide down "cookies in use warning" every single time I try to open a page to work on it! The inability to run spell check in live view simply beggars belief - this cannot be deliberate surely? I could go on - frankly it's a mess.

I've reverted to Dreamweaver version 13.

[subhadeep_banerjee]

@Vernon,

Thank you for reporting the issues that you're facing.

All,

We are closely following the discussions on this thread & taking note of the problems that you're facing.

Newer age responsive layouts use HTML5 elements that would not get rendered accurately in design view. There is really no option but to move to Live View.

We are working on making Live View editing as easy as possible for you. Please list down the workflows/functionalities you find missing in Live View.

-Subhadeep

[GA_]

I don't pretend to be the worlds best programmer, which is why I use DW. The WYSIWYG properties are what sold DW in the first place - designing what you SEE and letting DW do the coding.

I can't see how designing is possible without the ability to turn-off Live View.

EXAMPLE:

I have a simple members-only section. So I have

1) login.php  -  lets the user sign in

2) welcome.php - CHECKS if the user is logged in, in they're not it sends them back to login.php, else displays the members page.

BUT in Live View, when trying to update welcome.php all I see is login.php - because DW reads the php and reroutes the display to show what a un-signed-in-user would see.

In 2014.0 this was easy - just work in Design View - but as 2014.1 has no working design view for responsive layout and as the plan to eventually scrap design view altogether, life just became harder for me as I will have to add or delete some php code just to get Live View to see the actual page I'm working on.

In short - if you cannot turn off Live View, DW is less useful. It's a step backwards!

[bradm44645584]

This reminds me when DW CC in July 2013 was released and Ajax Spry was removed.. Now spry had issues with mobile device and Jquery works better. This makes sense, however there was no replacement for creating menus in Jquery.

So it was suggested by a Adobe staff member to use Advanced CSS Menu Light which had its its own issues which in fairness the vendor resolved.

I asked if a Jquery menu function would be added, I was told by a staff member that it would followed up with a product team and the last update was " We definitely have a plan to integrate jQuery menu widget in Dreamweaver, but we are still working on a date for this one."  Well we are approaching 2015 and still no update. to add insult to injury.. the latest DW update has broken the AJATIX menu for at least one person.

So at the risk of sounding rude, when you say "We are working on making Live View editing as easy as possible for you. " I question if that will really happen. Fool me once.. shame on you.. fool me twice.. shame on me. Even more so considering what we pay a premium for these applications and there are some (like myself) who are BC partners and we make money for Adobe.

The past thread I am talking about is here.

For this customer.. Adobes trustworthiness is in question...  I hope it is restored quickly.

[rsinkler]

Thisi may be a little late, but Ajatix products only work for the current version of DW when they sold thier products.  At least that is what they told me when I told the that their products aren't responsive in DWCC as they were in CS6.  Their software, at least my version, only works in 32 bit versions of DW.  If you want to work in CC (64 bit)  You have to shell out the money to re-purchase their products.  I'm just taking the time to really get good at making my own CSS menus.  I am so disapointed in DWCC (it really sucks in my opinion, and would never recommend it to anyone), that I still use CS6.  CC didn't give me anything I needed that was not in CC.  In fact, as mentioned, they are taking things away.  They need to replace the whole DW design team with people who actually care about their products, and customers.  Or just sell DWCC to Microsoft, where we expect crappy software.

[rjerz]

Subhadeep, I will provide you my brief list.

In Live view, 1) Spell check and many of the other features of the "Commands" menu are unavailable. 

2) In Live view, Find/Replace (command/control -F) does not work.

3) In Live view, it is nearly impossible to left-drag through a webpage in order to copy/paste into another webpage.

Here are the Commands features in Design View

Here is the reduced list in Live View.  Is it not obvious what is missing?

[dlipscombe]

It's like a Christmas miracle. It fixed it for me too!

[matthew stuart]

Part of what I do is promote Adobe products to design companies and encourage these companies that I work with to upgrade to the latest versions of software. An issue I keep coming across with potential 'upgraders' is the links in live view are 'live' and act just like they would do in a browser. So, if I try to  click to select a button in a jQuery slider, or in a navigation bar made from an unordered list, it acts like a link and therefore I am unable to add further content in design view. Slideshows are particularly difficult to edit. it leads to frustration and ultimately abandonment of the new software.

Further frustration is if a PHP page requires a database, but the database isn't available to connect to or Apache and MySQL aren't installed, you get 'No database selected' or 'Cannot connect to the server' instead of a designed layout… there's a beautiful view of the fluid grid guides though! If connection to the database is successful, invariably there will be a repeat region which slows the page redraw down MASSIVELY, and even then, if the repeated region is a div that has been enclosed in  href tags, then the whole div and all of its contents become an active button, thus making it difficult to click into and edit… and just to reiterate what others have said, if you try to work on a password protected page, you get the login page displayed instead of what you're trying to work on… that's been quite embarrassing to justify, in fact, I can't!

In the short while this upgrade has been available, I am now having trouble convincing companies to upgrade. These issues are not conducive to improved workflow and ultimately impact on profit. If you're actively forcing users to work in code view, then you're discouraging DW customers - the visual users - to move to the next version of software. There are a number of excellent text editors out there like Sublime Text, but that's not what DW users want. I still see a large number of companies using boxed versions of CS6, and such confusing deprecation of functions is proving to be a hard sell, especially when digital content is being produced in greater volumes now than it ever has been before.

Anyway, I'm sure some of you have figured this out, but in order to retain the commented fluid grid properties in the CSS file, and disable the default live view, you can simply add a character to the commented code… it seems any character will do:

/*

  Dreamweaver Fluid Grid Properties

  ----------------------------------

  dw-num-cols-mobile:  X  4;

  dw-num-cols-tablet:    8;

  dw-num-cols-desktop:    12;

  dw-gutter-percentage:    30;

This 'X' or whatever you use breaks the code and activates the design view, but lets you retain the code should you wish to revert back in order to use the new features.

Anyway, bring back design view!

[subhadeep_banerjee]

Hello matthew,

The issues you mentioned were really insightful. This type of descriptive information helps us understand the exact issue & in creating actionable items.

While I cannot commit that Design View will be back, we are definitely looking at improving responsive workflows for the next major release.

Rest assured that all the problems listed by users here have been jotted down & are being worked upon.

Thanks,

Subhadeep

[Tropical Soul]

SUbhadeep,

While  I do understand that you can't commit that design view won't be back, can you indicate whether live view will be greatly improved to the point that it actually works!

Can you tell us if it will be as good as or better than Pinegrow or Macaw in terms of the performance with no lag in rendering? Will we be able to select elements for editing easily with out the spinning ball like you can with these much cheaper alternatives? Will dreamweaver be fast like a hare like it used to be or will it get slower than a tortoise like it is now?

These guys obviously don't have the rescourses Adobe has but they seem to have achieved something on a shoe string budget that works and has great development potential. That is a live view that works!!

[bradm44645584]

Given the uproar over the removal of design view.. I find it disconcerting to read "While I cannot commit that Design View will be back" ( I assume he meant to say 'comment') I would think that such concerns would be the number one importance.

[Joshbiz]

Well, their development team must be aware of the issues for everyday users of DW following this discussion. But we'll see...

Adobe's revenue from CC has dropped a lot lately so they really ought to be listening to us, the users. See Dark clouds for Adobe as profits slide by 46% | News | PC Pro

If Design View is screwed up, removed or not replaced with something similar, for me personally, it might be the defining moment that I cancel my subscription (which is a significant cost) and switch to new software alternatives for everything I do. I could buy a copy of PS Elements to replace PS for instance. So lets hope they're listening.

[bradm44645584]

I know that Adobe was expecting a drop in revenue as some wouldn't be interested into going to a subscription model. But from the looks of it they are getting hit far harder then they expected.

I have begun to make contingency plans to move off of the Adobe platform (including my business catalyst clients) if design view or an alternative which functions the same is not brought back. Right now Microsoft Visual Studio hosted on Azure is under strong consideration. Now as RR456 commented about how a CC subscription is 'null and void' if we have to use a prior version. As I touched on before it doesn't bother me the least that Adobe did something that pissed off its customers. Its how they are handling it that bothers me. I challenge Adobe to do the following:

1. Acknowledge this update failed in standards and wasn't properly tested prior to release. (I refuse to believe that properly tested software would created this much backlash. If you feel it was, then fire your quality control team)
2. Make a commitment that design view will return or something of extremely similar function will be added to the next release. (where DW is meant for a more advanced level of web developer, design view helps those with lesser code skills to produce quality products of the advance level developer. For the code snobs who feel DV is not needed my suggestion for you is... don't use it
3. If you seek our input and want us to participate in meetings about Adobe products, or expect us to send you our work to help you troubleshoot, you better make it worth our while. Pay us, discounted (better yet free) software.. something. Asking us for such in depth assistance for something WE pay YOU to fix tells me you are stalling and have no serious intention on fixing the issue. If you can't do that, then this form is your only source of feedback you are going to get.

Make a commitment to right this wrong, once you make a promise then stand by it... Then you will find a lot of forgiveness from yours.. until then.. Don't act surprised by your bottom line dropping so hard.

[davidmacpherson]

I just want to add my frustration at the loss of Design View (amongst other things) - there have been many good points made in this thread (I don't particularly want to get involved with negative views, but understand where they are coming from).  I just want to add my voice to the cause in the hope Adobe will hear us - I have been using Dreamweaver since it was a Macromedia product (however long ago that was, I forget now!!!) and have long supported it (and Adobe), but this latest release has left me scratching my head.  I was initially excited by the prospect of some of the changes, but that quickly turned to dread as I realised what a mess it is to work with.  I would gladly sign petitions, vote for change or whatever is necessary, but really don't know where to do that most effectively.  I have completed the survey form I could find in the hope some of that feedback may be heard, but still fear my (our) voice may be lost in the enormousness of the Internet and the unknown internal processes of Adobe customer relations/product development & customer feedback.

I've only just scratched the surface here, but there seem to be so many things affected by this one feature - for instance I can't even seem to visually see the Title element of the page - I have to go into code view to update that!  Not a massive thing, but just begs the question, where the hell did it go, and more importantly why???

These all seem to be little indicators that all add up and point to a scary possibility that maybe there has been a shift in the development team for Dreamweaver that obviously have not been using the product for as long as most of the end-users.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for change and progress and new technologies/ideas will require new tools, but that doesn't mean you need to destroy the old tools.

[Chepe Nicoli]

madwebllc wrote:

Given the uproar over the removal of design view.. I find it disconcerting to read "While I cannot commit that Design View will be back" ( I assume he meant to say 'comment') I would think that such concerns would be the number one importance.

Many of us will be disappointed.

[Mark.Kirkeby]

I find it amusing that you think you would get any answer of substance from Subhadeep, he has no answers , and no information, and does little to give us any hint that Adobe even cares about it's end users.

His first reply in this thread was to ask the OP to beta test this software

*****

Hello Ron,

We understand that it is always difficult to work with new features, but once you get used to it we assure you that you'd never want to go back.

The older Fluid Grid framework used to rely on an outdated browser engine. This time we have replaced it with the Chromium Embedded Framework.

What it means for you is that, you'll get the same rendering in Live View as you'd expect in Chrome or Safari. So, you'll be spending less time switching between the browser & DW.

If you can list down the workflows you are trying while editing in Live View & the issues you are facing in doing so, it will help us understand what is amiss & suggest alternative workflows to do the same.

Let us know !

-Subhadeep

*****

Anyone paying monthly fees should be absolutely enraged by that, seriously, The devs broke the software , and we are paying for the privilege to give beta feedback, seriouslyh ,anyone running the current version should be getting thier dues for free,

things seem backwards here to me.

our next remark from Subhadeep besically says suck it, and deal with it... his response does nothing to deal with the issues that web developers using the Adobe Fluid Grid issues ..... they are making live view easier for us,

So I guess we just take it lying down keep paying for broken software, never has there been any feedback of positive reinforcement of what the devs are doing...

More rage~~

****************

@Vernon,

Thank you for reporting the issues that you're facing.

All,

We are closely following the discussions on this thread & taking note of the problems that you're facing.

Newer age responsive layouts use HTML5 elements that would not get rendered accurately in design view. There is really no option but to move to Live View.

We are working on making Live View editing as easy as possible for you. Please list down the workflows/functionalities you find missing in Live View.

-Subhadeep

*****

Our next response from Subhadeep  was to thank Ray for Beta feedback

****

Thank you for listing down your problems Ray.

-Subhadeep

***

This thread is full of people that have reported the issue to support only to have thier cases closed with no support feedback,

in these Adobe forums we have Subhadeep to give us null answers and keep the masses calm

WELL I AM NOT CALM , I AM RAGING MAD

Next response from Subhadeep  was to once again ask for beta help, the simple thing that we have all experienced , and this thread has been about was fluid grids and live view and Subhadeep  is asking for files for something easily recreated in a lab

environment.... none of the bitching that we do even goes to the devs, I find it highly unlikely that anyone with any juice at all reads or receives feedback from this forum , no all we have is  Subhadeep to give us NON answers, this level of support is horrific, I would expect this from some third world dev company , I do not expect it from Adobe

so on to our next official response from Subhadeep, something that was actually off topic, but still pertinent to end users~

once again a request for something that is easily recreated, and this issue falls in more forum threads than just this one,

Dreamweaver is seriously broken, but the end users should tell you what to fix rather than debugging the app

*****************

Ron,

If you have files which are particularly slow to load in Live VIew, can you just mail them across to me at subbaner_@_adobe.com.

We are investigating issues related to slow loading and would appreciate if others can also send their files related to slowness in Live View.

Thanks,

Subhadeep

*********************

RAGE

If we are to beta test , make it worth our while ,

or just fix the issues~ but dont make use pay you to debug the software

[Beezoid]

In looking through all the comments in this thread it seems that no one is 'annoyed', unlike me, that whereas previously I could switch from design to live with a single 'click', now I have to make 2 clicks - firstly to activate the arrow-head selector then secondly to actually make the selection. My arithmetic makes that a 100% increase in effort.

Given the acreage that I now have on my 'document' toolbar (and why move the upload/download button all the way to the right anyway) combining the previously independent buttons makes even less sense.

Also I think the earlier observation (by vernon) that removing the grid comments is relevant as it seems doing so also de-activate all the editing short menu of a right-click - at least that appears to be happening to me this afternoon as I get the arrow-head but no menu (Other options not affected). So it is now not possible to duplicate a file only to create a copy by opening it and saving under a new name (but which will not work for any graphics files I believe). A copy is not universally recognised as a duplicate is it? Creating a duplicate makes it safer to meddle with code etc as one can always get back to a steady state even after numerous changes that may not have had the desired effect.

[Tropical Soul]

@Beezold

I am annoyed  that design view is gone for fluid grid. What annoys me is that I see hints that it will also be discontinued generally and no confirmation officially that this is the case and even worse no denial either.

I use DW because of its capabilities and design view is a major part of that and it would be a disater if I lost that. I use Bootstap from DWXzone for responsive sites but again I work in design view and would like to keep it that way.

Maybe some one from the Adobe team would like to detail exactly the companies position on this and state clearly if the eventual scheme of things is to remove design view completely or commit to it being retained?

Maybe after all this fluid grid design view removal in 2014.1 is an error but it would be good for Adobe to step up to the plate and explain this officially for us all.

[Nancy OShea]

Nobody who is under NDA can comment about Adobe's  "future plans" until Adobe makes an official announcement.

I can say from many year's experience on these forums that long-time users of DW are not satisfied with the current Design View model.  It worked well when Macromedia designed it back when table-based layouts were common place.  But Design View has suffered greatly over the years with advancements in CSS & HTML5.  It just hasn't been able to keep pace with the ever-changing W3C standards. 

If Live View were improved sufficiently to render well, perform well, and edit well, would that be such a bad thing?

Just my 2 cents,

Nancy O.

[Tropical Soul]

Nancy it is not a bad thing at all as long as it works and I don't see where Adobe cant give a brief outline of plans. Many larger corporations than Adobe do just that - it shows good faith with their clients and can go a long way to bolstering confidence and though comment and disscussion engineers can also learn what is really relevant rather than what they or marketing trends dictate.

If Live view is set to be the replacement for Design view fine but why take it away for fluid grids when the replacement is still not up to the task - the comments above certainly back that up.

Adobe of late seem intent on this course taking away before the replacements or better alternatives are in place.

With regard to design view not keeping pace with CSS & HTML5 - would it not be fair to say that DW engineers have just simply ignored it somewhat over the years - We have all known for years which direction CSS and HTML5 are going as I am sure the good folk at Adobe have as well.

[Preran]

Hi all,

We are actively monitoring this discussion to collect all inputs you have on the changes. We will share this information with the product team to see how best these concerns can be addressed.

Thanks,

Preran

[B. Carson]

Thank you Preran,

Design View as an essential tool and is the basis for using Dreamweaver!  This is especially true for working with fluid grids, PHP files, and other frameworks. Live View is fine as an extra, but I can't see it ever reproducing the workflow that is possible in Design View.  Ok, it's great that Live View uses Chromium for better page rendering.  So great, we can preview more accurately within the Dreamweaver environment, but please let us switch back to Design View where we can get our work done.

(reverting back to DW CC as I type)

[GA_]

Yes, thank you Preran,

But surely the question is, WHY ARE WE HAVING TO DO THIS?

DW is not a new product and many would argue it to be an industry standard tool. Thus it's easy to imagine that DW is developed by people that actually build websites. Yet everything I'm reading above makes me question if this is actually the case. I don't see ANYONE above saying, "Display View? Pile of crap! Don't need it," and yet I am seeing many people essentially saying, "Live View? Pile of crap! Don't need it."

Personally I never use Live View. If I want to see how the page will perform on the web, I use a Browser. Actually I use the top 5 browsers!

But coming back to my point, if DW was built by people who actually build websites, then they either live in a Matrix-like world and see everything as line code, therefore never using Design View, or their designs are so poor that seeing what it looks like really doesn't matter. We mere mortals like to "see" our designs. And as we've been encouraged in the past by Adobe to use the benefits of Responsive Layout, we want to continue to be able to see our designs.

I found 2014.1 extremely slow. Editing in live view for me simply DID NOT work, and I mean that literally. It failed to function. I spent a week back and forth with support staff Akshay M to correct the matter whilst I had to try and build / maintain clients' sites using code view only - no easy task. But Akshay was vague, insisted Live View was working, even though in a screen share I proved it was, and he eventually gave up with the comment, "Fluid grid documents now open directly in Live View. You cannot view or edit fluid grid documents in Design View any more."

Thus I uninstalled and went back to 2014.0 because I have to earn a living. At some point I dare say 2014.0 will become inoperable and if DW will not allow me to work in design view by then, I will seek an alternative product.

So again, why are we having to do this? Why didn't Adobe test properly - with real web designers?