I think Macromedia/Adobe are so busy adding "new" features that they lose
site of what the core functions of DW are and don't bother to work on them
(if at all) to improve them.


"davidbarrackphoto" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:fhhvej$i69$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>I have been working with DW CS3, PHP, and MySQL for the past few months.
>I'm

davidbarrackphoto wrote:
> Any small tweak I make can break functionality. This is just a
> general observation and question. Maybe it's just the PHP environment in
> general, I don't know.

Dreamweaver makes extensive use of JavaScript in the background to
display values in the Property inspector and other panels. JavaScript is
also used to populate the Server Behaviors and Bindings panels. The
bigger and more complex your page, the more strain you put on that
JavaScript infrastructure.

I don't know if there's a physical limit to the number of lines of code
or elements that you can have on a page, but Dreamweaver isn't designed
as a coding environment for heavy duty applications. The server
behaviors are excellent for rapid prototyping or for building pages of
medium complexity. For anything more ambitious, you should either be
working in Code view or using a dedicated PHP IDE, such as PhpED or
EclipsePHP.

--
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/

davidbarrackphoto wrote:
> Do you suggest to use one of the PHP IDEs you mention in conjunction with or in
> lieu of Dreamweaver?

It depends entirely on what you want to do. One of the problems with
many people who use Dreamweaver is that they have the mistaken belief
that Dreamweaver "handles everything for you". Wrong. Dreamweaver is a
tool like a sculptor's chisel or a plasterer's trowel. Used well, it
works brilliantly. Used with insufficient knowledge, it can get you into
deep trouble.

That's not to say that Dreamweaver is perfect. There are definitely
things that could be improved. But if you understand the code that is
being created, you'll get far more out of it.

To get back to your original question, though, I use both Dreamweaver
and PhpED. Dreamweaver is ideal for working on projects where design is
the main focus. PhpED, on the other hand, is useless for design, but
it's brilliant for working with complex hand-coded applications.

Understand the tools you're working with, and choose the right one for
the job.

> I am finding that with DW I have to walk on eggshells and
> hope to X&*@ that some change I make will not result in a page showing up blank
> or getting a dreaded exclamation mark because I burped too loud or something.

It sounds as though you're relying too heavily on Dreamweaver's
automatic code generation. Interestingly, the Adobe Press book on
ColdFusion goes out of its way to teach readers *not* to use Dreamweaver
server behaviors. This isn't an admission by Adobe that there's a
problem with the automatically generated code. The point being made is
that you should understand the code that's being generated on your
behalf. Use the automatically generated code where appropriate, but hand
code where it makes more sense.

Probably not the response you were hoping for, but - as many have
pointed out here - the marketing hype about any software taking care of
everything for you is often misleading. It's like using an electronic
calculator. Without an understanding of basic mathematics, you have no
way of realizing that the answer is wrong if you accidentally hit the
wrong key.

--
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/

davidbarrackphoto wrote:
> David - Thank for your insight. When you use PhpEd, do you use it in
> conjunction with DW, meaning you do the design and prototyping and then move to
> PhpEd with the stubs from DW?

For one or two recordsets on a page, I stick with DW. For heavy duty PHP
coding, such as the creation or editing of classes, I use PhpED.

> I'm not sure why DW doesn't put most of their
> code in includes so it's clear what's their stuff versus added by others.

I think that the reason is probably historical. Originally, ASP, PHP,
and ColdFusion were regarded as a way of embedding a small amount of
dynamic functionality into a web page. The concept of separating the
business code from the presentation has spread more recently. Because of
the way that Dreamweaver has developed, splitting the two would involve
a lot of work. However, the XSL Transformation server behavior
introduced in DW8 does move most of the code into external files.

--
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/