Studio MX 2004 with Flash

Rating:
Summary: Great upgrade, with one glaring exception
Review: All in all this upgrade is good, not tremendous.

The problem lies in the changes to the ActionScript Panel: The Normal mode has been removed. This means that you need to learn how to write all your ActionScript yourself, without the great aids that MX offered. There are still a few little helper menus you can use, but if you don't understand the syntax of ActionScript in detail they aren't much help. If you intend to use Flash without becoming a programmer, choose the MX version, not MX 2004.

Rating:
Summary: eH!
Review: As a package, this is probably the best one to buy out there!
As individual programs, there are better ones out there. Still a little pricy from Macromedia, but extremely good value as a web design package. It's best asset is the online tutorials, which make initially confusing programs, easier to deal with and more user friendly.


Rating:
Summary: Going downhill
Review: I have been using Macromedia Products since version 2 of Dreamweaver. I have a thorough knowledge of Dreamweaver and Fireworks. I have a bit less of Flash yet I do use it from time to time to create flash elements in sites that are primarily driven by html or xhtml code. I don't use Freehand because I think it is perhaps the most poorly implemented of all illustration programs bar none. I have always hoped that Macromedia would take Freehand seriously... and till this day I am still hoping.

Regarding the software...

Dreamweaver is by far the most popular web development software on the planet. In fact it has more users than all other web development platforms combined. This is a definite strength since you are able to find a tremendous amount of help around the Internet and in book stores.

Dreamweaver is still very good at what it does, however it has gone downhill with this most recent release (yes, I have installed the newest updater which does improve the software to a degree). The problems with the software are many. Macromedia has sacrificed a nice usable and professional interface for this 'flowery' looking gradient mess. Oh... it's pretty alright. The problem is I'm trying to get work done! The previous versions of the Studio have a much more professional interface. The program seems taxing to the system no matter how powerful your processor or how much ram you have. It also seems to have screen redraw issues. This is especially true when designing forms. Why that is... I have no idea. The way the program handles CSS is quirky at best. You need to basically go thru and make all these changes to the default behavior it is shipped with in order to get it to work and write CSS in an external style sheet else it will be written to the head of the current document (How stupid is that?). Macromedia should have used the Define Site Dialog box and asked developers if they wanted to create a CSS based site or used the older HTML methods. If a person chose CSS the program should have required them to enter the name of an external style sheet that all CSS would be written to by default. Then when using the property inspector, any changes to the design code would automatically be written to the external style sheet and not to the head or body of the document. It definately needs drastic improvement if it will ever be at the level of other Professional CSS coding software (think TopStyle Pro).

Another issue with Dreamweaver that I have is with its lack of ability to support a dual monitor configuration without major bugs, headaches, and screen redraw issues. I know many developers that have gone over to the dual monitor approach to development because of a tremendously improved work flow. YOu could have the design Window in one monitor and the code window in the other (Go to Window -- Code Inspector -- or hit F10). Once the code inspector is open, you can drag it over to the second monitor and thus develop both visually and with code. However, the newest DW version has some serious issues when you do this. First of all, you can't maximize the code window... so you have to manually drag one corner and size it yourself. The other is when you are between documents and have no current document open. The program seems like it just wants to crash, drawing and redrawing the entire interace. 'What in the world is going on here?' is the question that comes to mind minus profanities!

Flash has improved and is more powerful than previous version being more 'coder friendly' and allowing flash apps to be built using a forms based approach although I think they made a big mistake in making two versions of the software. It just confuses people and now is harder to share work within a team unless everybody is using the exact same version! Bad decision Macromedia.

Fireworks is probably the program in the group that deserves the highest honors. It is tops in the field of web graphics and functionality. I put it over Photoshop/ImageReady because it is specifically designed for the web whereas Photoshop is trying to be all things to all people. And to people who need that functionality, Photoshop is King! However, Fireworks is significantly easier to learn and use than PS. It will do anything you could possibly want in creating web graphics and eliminates all the functions that a print designer needs. Fireworks is for the web... not print. If that is acceptable for your work load.... use it!

Freehand is dead at this point in my eyes. Illustrator and Coreldraw are both vastly superior in usability and power. Freehand is a clunky and bug ridden program that does poorly what Illustrator does masterfully! Evidently Freehand has also taken a back seat in the eyes of Macromedia too. Freehand has always been delivered much later than the rest of the Studio. Even to this day in June of 2004, Freehand is still one version behind the rest of the software even though the MX 2004 Studio has been released for nearly a year (August 2003)! Some have argued that Macromedia purposely delays Freehand so that they can make more money off the developers who have already bought the current Studio and then need to purchase an upgrade to the latest Freehand. So perhaps this is a marketing ploy used in order to make more money. My opinion is that they will make more money if they improve their software, eliminate bugs, drop the 'flowerly' interace, and release the Studio as one release for both Mac and Windows (This means no 'pro' and 'non-pro' versions, all version share the same name...MX 2004 or whatever). Another note, Mac users should not be considered second class web developers. This particular offering for Mac users is particularly bad because of the bugs and speed of the software.

The best I can rate this offering is two stars... hopefully things will change in the near future. All that being said, I still consider myself a fan of Macromedia software... and just think they had a major hickup here with this latest offering.

Rating:
Summary: Great products, weak upgrade for Mac owners
Review: I really like Macromedia software, in general. I do, however, find it slow on my (months old) Mac, under Panther. Both Adobe and Apple's recent product upgrades seemed to speed their software up greatly (hey, wow, upgrades can DO that???) but these new versions of Dreamweaver and Flash are an insult to Mac users.

The software is the slowest I use, even with plentiful memory in my computer. Even after Flash's belated patch that was released, the software is still unsatisfactory to me. There's no real reason for this software to be so incredibly slow and buggy! Often I have these programs quit for no reason, I can't think of one other piece of software I use on my Mac that does such things.

I haven't tried the MX 2004 Windows versions, but I haven't heard such complaints from Windows users. I wish that Macromedia would work a little harder on their Mac versions.

Sorry I'm not getting into too many specifics about the software. In general, you can't beat the features of Dreamweaver in its class (nor, obviously, Flash, who is alone in the field anymore) but it's not worth the time-consuming workarounds to get it all working well.

Rating:
Summary: The most useful suite I've ever used
Review: I've been in the computer game since I was 5, so I've had time to try out a lot of programs. From Adobe to Apple, Macromedia to Microsoft I've tried most of the creative suites out there.
I must say that of everything I've ever used, Studio MX 2004 is the best collection of programs you'll find (and it's worth the money if you can get an academic discount). I am a web designer by trade and I found every program in MX 2004 useful.

Flash is the recognized standard in online animation. With this program I created in 30 minutes a navbar which exceeds those of Apple and Microsoft for usability. In five minutes I created an animated advertisement (though not a very good one).

Fireworks is simply the best multipurpose image editor (photoshop is better at pure images, but not as versatile). Fireworks can do everything from having flames fly out of a friend's mouth to creating web animations that reach out to those who have not downloaded Flash Player.

Freehand is the least useful program in this suite. It has not changed at all since MX, so it is a bit behind in features and integration. Still, I used it for creating sketches of layouts or classic thoughtwebs.

Dreamweaver! Oh, what can I say about dreamweaver! Any web designer who does not praise this program is either a hard-core pure coder, or an imposter. With this new version it becomes a 10 second matter to change the font used on every page of my websites. Rather than going through 30 pages of html, I open up one css file and type a color, or font, or size change. It is a beautiful culmination of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) technology.

While most people will balk at the $999 price tag, I say look around until you find a academic copy (I got one for $199). At a $700 discount you can buy this and a new computer to serve your creations to the world. Either way I say anyone who is a job where they need to construct creative projects for the web or presentations needs to pick up a copy of Macromedia Studio MX 2004.

Rating:
Summary: Studio MX 2004 - Macromedia Continues to Impress!
Review: If you are serious about working on the web whether novice or professional, you cannot get any better than the Macromedia products. I've owned the suite since the second version was out and, with the exception of Adobe PhotoShop, the Macromedia products are the ONLY thing I ever use.

Dreamweaver MX 2004 with Flash Pro continues the tradition of creating seamless code so you have to do very little tweeking - only if you know how and need to do so! It saves me so much time in coding and I can trust that it will not add extensions that are not viewable by all, such as the Frontpage product. It has roundtrip HTML, meaning you can easily add your own code, modify existing code, etc. without any problems at all.

The interface builds upon MX by making CSS much more powerful. You can view your CSS styles incase you forgot what it looked like very much as you would a font in Microsoft Word 2000. The pallets are more intuitive and takes a slight adjustment to get used to from MX. Dreamweaver MX 2004 also has more robust features with added internal extensions to make your code bank stronger. The simple drag and drop method makes it so easy to use. I've used the MX 2004 version for about a month now and am thoroughly impressed. It's a significant upgrade and worth the money.

Flash MX 2004 Pro and Fireworks MX Pro simply build more functionality and makes life much easier. Flash MX Pro has more powerful tools for backend developers, video streaming and WAP devices.

The interface for all of the products are very easy to learn. I am a professional now, but have used the products prior to becoming professional and it has helped me to make my transition from professional counselor to full-time web developer a dream come true! If I can use it, ANYONE can!!

Rating:
Summary: Still Number One
Review: Macromedia continues to improve on their ground-breaking Internet development suite of applications, bringing the MX versions to a completely new level of versatility and functionality with this release. While I found MX (the previous version) to be bug-ridden and slow, MX 2004 is a huge improvement not only in performance and stability but functionality as well. I've read reviews claiming that this is the most buggy version of the software to date, but they have all been for the Mac version. While I can't speak for that version, I can say that the Windows version of this software is far better than the previous release, and the built-in update feature of this software should ensure that it will offer the best features possible until the next upgrade.

Flash and Dreamweaver continue to be ground-breaking Web-development platforms, and this release is a huge step forward in making them accessible to both amateur and professional developers alike. I suggest that anyone serious about Web development consider this product.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Gateway to Advanced Website Programming
Review: Macromedia Dreamweaver is the first obvious starting point of this package. Dreamweaver is an excellent package that can be used to build full-featured websites. I would suggest anyone starting to use Dreamweaver to attend a course as the package can be overwhelming if you have no background in WSWG (what you see is what you get) software to build websites.

The next thing to learn would be Fireworks, which is a fairly web-centric graphics program. Fireworks can do many of the things that a full-blown graphics program like Adobe Photoshop can do, however it is more targeted at the web developer.

For those who are more daring, try the Flash product which can be used for animations among other functionality.

I really like Coldfusion. Coldfusion has many interesting "tags" that allow you to read and write databases, perform programming logic like "if's", "else's" and a myriad of other functionality like scripting, using Java, XML etc. There's no end to what you can do and keep discovering in Coldfusion. A great book is Sams Teach Yourself Coldfusion MX in 21 Days, which has all you need to know to build fairly significant Coldfusion applications.

The only drawback of Coldfusion, which is really the "endgame" of these products, is that it is not extensively used commercially by web developers. Time and time again I get chastised for not creating my web applications in more commercially acceptable PHP or Microsoft products that would make my products more universally hostable, supportable and acceptable.

We can only hope that a new version of Coldfusion is soon coming, with even more extensive and fun features to learn.

I would say, especially if you are a web programming hobbyist, and have access to some inexpensive courses to get you started, you won't be disappointed by joining the Macromedia way.





Rating:
Summary: Studio MX 2004 @ Bytesector.com
Review: Macromedia has shown their strength in web development applications over the past few years by introducing a line of amazing applications. The key applications are part of the Studio MX 2004 package which we will be exploring today. Macromedia has really outdone themselves this time by bringing out a package that delivers an all-in-one solution. Let's look at the great applications involved in developing the best web content there is from Macromedia!...full review @ Bytesector.com