Studio MX 2004

Rating:
Summary: Out of the Box tools to take Control of the Internet!
Review: For the Content creator who wants to reach users using tools that present rich media and content across the Internet, Studio MX 2004 is an exceptional Solution. Tools such as Flash MX 2004 present rich dynamic content in interactive ways, which makes information more lively and interesting to the audience.Features include adding effects to the timeline, making it possible to add interactions such as Blur, Drop Shadow, explode and many more. Dreamweaver MX 2004 focuses on making HTML code more stable and reliable while producing powerful webpages. To create a consistent HTML Style, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) comes to the rescue and to me is considered one of the central elements that make Dreamweaver MX 2004 powerful. The ability to designate the look of a web page and define the contents of a web page. So CSS adds to the power of this web editing tool allowing you to create very stable websites. Fireworks MX 2004 adds incremental improvements that only improve upon its ability to provide significant performance to web graphics, the interface is more intuitive and takes a more integrated approach with the other MX 2004 applications. Freehand MX is an essential part of the suite which provides the creation of content that seamlessly integrates with other MX 2004 applications, for Print and publishing easily to the Web. Overall, this suite offers a set of powerful applications that presents a deep learning curve. But experienced users who want to take the Web and show its full potential, Studio MX 2004 provides the answer to the Web Developers questions. For beginners to Web Design, who might want to take a shorter route to website creation and management, Macromedia offers an excellent alternative solution called Contribute 2.0. Its ease of use and intuitiveness, makes it an absolute choice for the beginner.

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: Choose which OS you register with carefully!
Review: I purchased Studio MX 2004 Educational version for use with building websites in a class I'm taking in college. It said it was for Mac and Windows, but it only allows you to register the product on ONE operating system. My problem is that I have both a PC (desktop) and a Mac (laptop), and I installed the software on my PC first, it told me to register it, so I did. BIG mistake, I tried to load and use the software on my Mac and I couldn't because I had already registered it on the PC. I called their Customer Service and their representative told me that my registation for the PC was for LIFE! She told me that I could move my SINGLE license to another Windows machine, but that I would never be able to switch it to the Mac. I'll NEVER buy anything from Macromedia again because of their STUPID registration policies.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Out There!
Review: If you are an amateur or professional web designer, don't already have Studio MX and are thinking of moving over from competing Web design packages or bundles from other vendors, buy it. Now. You won't regret it. Dreamweaver MX 2004 is the best web site editor available, and Flash MX 2004 is the best Flash graphics creation package available - though this isn't surprising since the Flash format was created by Macromedia.

Macromedia unleashes its MX2004 product suite of upgrades. And its a home run. The new Flash improvements, especially for Flash MX2004 Pro edition are great additions - considerably advancing Flash as a database server aware application viable for delivery of cross-platform, rich media experiences. Dreamweaver 2004 & Cold Fusion 6.1 are improvements while Fireworks 2004 and Freehand 2004 offer only mimimal improvements relative to the competition. But it is still worth the price tag, especially when considering the trash HTML other applications add to web pages. Nothing out there, in the way of suites, can do what this product does. Nothing. Your web pages and sites will reflect the quality and commitment all designers strive for.

Rating:
Summary: Poor Release, especially on a Mac
Review: There are a lot of neat-o features in this release, though unfortunately, they're overshadowed by the terrible sluggish performance on Mac OS X Panther (a very fast OS) and frankly, I'm shifting my web design over to Adobe software because of this poor release. Mac users - don't buy Macromedia software until they fix the terrible performance and many show-stopping bugs!

Rating:
Summary: Still Needs Some Improvement
Review: This product is definitely better than the previous versions and Macromedia Studio has proved itself to be one of the best web designing software tools on the market. Although this is a pretty handy product for web designers, it still needs improvement. For example, dreamweaver puts all those nasty tags that will be very difficult to debug later on if you get into problems with Mac Computers (Especially Mac IE). Also the price is pretty high although you can get a student version for cheap. Photoshop is still better than Macromedia's products for image processing. So should you buy or upgrade to this product? Upgrade yes, buy only if your company pays for it or if you don't want to spend too much time designing websites and don't care what they look like in Mac computers.