We are using Dreamweaver in different versions at our company and sometimes for us, Dreamweaver is more or less the best choice. But we are always missing some workflow-features. We have tried to implement an Eclipse-based solution (PDT, WDT, Subclipse, etc.) into our daily workflow, but this was no real alternative.

Next step was to put all of our code into a repository. But if you have to do quick changes(and this happens very often) and login with Remote-Desktop on the Production-Environment, you always will break the repository, because lack of time and the next day someone has to “Clean-Up” the mess. So we are falling back to the Check-In, Check-Out method, availabe in Dreamweaver since i know it (MX or so). But in comparison to an SVN-solution this is not very satisfying.

Next big issue we have is using CSS-based layouts and “Includes” in DW. It seems that till version CS3, DW is pratically only useable with static pages (except you use tables for some parts of the page, but i do not like this idea very much). For cases, where a CMS is not a solution, Dreamweaver is our best friend and so we have to do a lot of debugging with FF and Firebug, or IE and Developer Toolbar.

BUT

Dreamweaver CS4 will have some features that are targeting this 2 major problems we have. SVN integration into DW. Works great for me, but check your SVN-version, DW will not work with the current release of SVN(I hope a more  SVN client into DW will be replaced for the final release).

And, the new Live-View is wonderful. F.e. if you have a calendar-widget which is included like this

include("calendar.php");

you will never get the page correctly rendered. But if you have access to a testserver(Configured within Site-Manager), than you can use Live-View. Therefore Dreamweaver loads the site from the testserver and link the code from you to this live-perspective. So, you can jump between Code and Design perspective and edit your code.

We also like, that related documents are opened in “subtabs” and you can instantly work on these. We have discovered some bugs in Live-Mode and there are some feature requests we have.

• If you have Java-Script activated and you click on Design-View, you could never go back to any line in Code-View, because of a “marker” or so, DW is tries to jump all the time.
• If i edit a file in Live-View, the Webkit-rendered-presentation never get updated.

I have to restart DW after writing some messy HTML-code, because the Webkit-DW-Combo could not handle this. I have to do further testing to find out under which conditions this things are going to happen.

Finally, DW CS4 will be one of the most important releases in 10-years of development.