Issue with using Extensions and Add-Ons in DW

[ALsp]

If you rely on extensions or add-ons, DO NOT allow the Dreamweaver 19 update to occur.

[Jon Fritz]

It can still be installed separately from older versions (not as an overwriting update).

While installing, they just need to verify that the checkbox for "Remove Older Versions" is turned off under the Advanced tab (that may be the default now). I left both CC2015 and 2018 installed when adding 2019.

My CC 2015 extensions were unaffected by the new install.

[ALsp]

The problem is that the Dreamweaver team has seemingly become so incompetent that bugs and issues are not black an white. I, for instance, had the stated checkbox unchecked and yet... Dreamweaver 18 was overwritten, while only prior versions were preserved. I'm working on a solution to that now.

[Jon Fritz]

That's just weird...

On my Windows 7 machine, with the checkbox in the installation dialogue turned off, it left both CC2015 and 2018 installed. It did however make opening CC2018 take about 1/10th the time it used to, so "something" was changed by the installation.

Nothing else seems affected so far.

[pziecina]

The question is AL, has Dw completely stopped the instalation of 3rd party extensions, or is this just a temporary glitch whilst you work out how to get your extension manager to work with Dw 2019?

[ALsp]

Of course we can get an Extension Manager working. The problem is that even the App Store is affected. Despite their ineptitude I'm fairly certain the Dreamweaver team could not get away with screwing up the App Store connection. This is just another in a series of blunders, and it's getting really old. It's like the management of the Dreamweaver team is a ghost, a mute, or simply doesn't care enough about her customers to communicate.

[W_J_T]

Time to take control of your own destiny and make your own app ALsp​ , compete with both Dreamweaver and Wappler.

[ALsp]

LOL, you ca stick your tongue back into your mouth. Seriously, that's the last thing we want to do. We have a large market of users who use pre-CC versions of Dreamweaver, primarily to use our extensions. Heck, they even use some old DMX Zone and Web Assist extensions. What's gone down for us it new customers. Adobe has essentially killed the marker. But for some reason they don't know it. I can only attribute this to an intelligence problem. But we'll soldier on. There are enough users to sustain us.

We do not have the company overhead that would require us to do what George and company have done. I credit them, of course, but it's just not something we need to do. Besides, our level of perfectionism and support would likely give me an ulcer , which I really, really don't want.

No, what I'm most concerned about is Adobe's lack of caring for its customers. It's a shame.

[pziecina]

ALsp  wrote

No, what I'm most concerned about is Adobe's lack of caring for its customers. It's a shame.

Really AL?

I remember a number of people telling me to 'go away', (polite wording) when I complained about the Dw team not caring about Dw, and having no feedback from them, even on questions they asked in the Dw user voice, (by the Dw PM).

Maybe it's time for more people to complain, as the testing is being left to none coders, the team never replys, and those they rely upon to provide ideas, 'have no idea'.

[ALsp]

Yeah. They obviously don't care. But here's what I care about: I care about Dreamweaver--the legacy and its users, who are both my customers and Adobe's.

[W_J_T]

ALsp  wrote

We have a large market of users who use pre-CC versions of Dreamweaver, primarily to use our extensions. [...] What's gone down for us is new customers. Adobe has essentially killed the market. [...] But we'll soldier on. There are enough users to sustain us.

ALsp  wrote

They obviously don't care. But here's what I care about I care about Dreamweaver--the legacy and its users, who are both my customers and Adobe's.

Sadly the Dreamweaver legacy may be up to those like you, unless someone at Adobe proves they care or want to listen.

Fight on ALsp​.

[ALsp]

Thanks for the pep talk

[Preran]

Hi Al,

I have escalated this post to the product team. Meanwhile, can you provide me with the exact specifics of what's happening around extensions in the latest version? It will help me make my case.

Thanks,

Preran

[ALsp]

Hi Preran,

Give me a day or two. We're working to see if we can get our Extension Manager to work with 19, thought 19 seems to make alterations to 18 (as noted by Jon). I'll post here with some information you can run with.

[williamj31276244]

I've never had any issue with DMXzone extension manager. It works flawlessly with CC2019 as with any other update before that.

Also I have 38 dmxzone extensions installed in CC2018 which are also working perfectly after the installation of CC2019.

[ALsp]

Thanks, William, we know that, but it's not relevant to the issue DMX Zone built a thoroughly proprietary EM. We, use Adobe's ExMan library. That said, DMX Zone has had other issues, similar to ours, which is why they opted to create Wappler.

[Nayan_Kankariya]

Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. We are able to see this issue occur intermittently.

The issue we are noticing is that add-ons are not getting automatically migrated upon installation of Dreamweaver CC 2019.

We are working to isolate the issue, identify the root cause, and fix it as soon as possible or provide a workaround that will help you come unstuck.

Thanks,

The Adobe Dreamweaver Team

[BenPleysier]

Nayan_Kawa​, many moons ago, Al (PVII), George (DMXzone) and Ray (Webassist) were all having a problem because adobe suddenly discontinued the Extensions Manager, it was left up to the individual extension suppliers to create their own. Then all of a sudden there were huge changes in the Dreamweaver program that caused Ray's extensions to mal-function.

On many an occasion I said that Dreamweaver is a good product only because of its extensiblity. If these estensions do not work, Dreamweaver is no more than many other (much cheaper) solutions.

I was part of the pre-release program when Teodor of DMXzone was continually pleading with the Development Team to get his extensions to work on Dreamweaver. This continual battle without bi-partisan support has forced DMXzone to create their own solution, one that does not require Dreamweaver. Webassist have been reduced to a small clan of enthousiasts that are using outdated versions of Dreamweaver while Al of PVII now has a new battle on his hands. When will Adobe learn from past mistakes. When will Adobe approach the extension makers before make these irrational changes.

End of my rant and I did not even mention ........!

[pziecina]

BenPleysier  wrote

End of my rant and I did not even mention ........!

I will, it's called Wappler.

Your statement that -

BenPleysier  wrote

Dreamweaver is no more than many other (much cheaper) solutions.

is what I have been saying since the CC2013, (or was it 2014) pre-release. For me though I have moved to a much more expensive solution, (VS Pro), as I still maintain that serious developers are also willing to pay for a product that does what they require, even if that product costs much more.

At the moment every time I look at what each new version of Dw has to offer, I always see that those managing the Dw project have no idea, as it always stays behind even free product, and I for one cannot see any potential market for it among serious developers. Maybe as I have said previously, Dw should stop focusing on beginners, instructors and casual single site creators. Extensions can provide the features for those who do not wish to dive into being a fully blown web developer, but the basic product should be for the professional coder, that way every type of serious Dw user is catered for.

[W_J_T]

pziecina  wrote

At the moment every time I look at what each new version of Dw has to offer, I always see that those managing the Dw project have no idea, as it always stays behind even free product, and I for one cannot see any potential market for it among serious developers.

Astoundingly, Dreamweaver was not even mentioned in yesterdays news release about Adobe products regarding Adobe Max. I guess the new features are so underwhelming they chose to completely omit it entirely. I see the Wappler crowd is having a laugh.

[osgood_]

W_J_T  wrote

Astoundingly, Dreamweaver was not even mentioned in yesterdays news release about Adobe products regarding Adobe Max. I guess the new features are so underwhelming they chose to completely omit it entirely. I see the Wappler crowd is having a laugh.

As a direct result of the innovative update the forum doubled its daily posts yesterday from the usual 5 to 10

I blinked and almost missed the critical additions.

[pziecina]

W_J_T  wrote

Astoundingly, Dreamweaver was not even mentioned in yesterdays news release about Adobe products regarding Adobe Max. I guess the new features are so underwhelming they chose to completely omit it entirely. I see the Wappler crowd is having a laugh.

In some ways I feel sorry for the members of the Dw team and the support staff, as they can only do what adobe allows or says. The ones I do not feel sorry for are the adobe and Dw managment, as they should know why Dw is so behind even the free tools, they are responsible for what they have, (or have not) done, demonstrate constantly that they have no interest in finding out why Dw is so behind what is required for modern web development. They obviously do not have the managment skills required to find out what is wrong or do something about it, one way or another, (fix it, or put it out of its missery).

[BenPleysier]

pziecina​, I totally agree with your sentiment, I too feel that it is the management at fault. I have held off for a long time in my criticisms of Dreamweaver, all the while hoping that they (the Team) would be able to pull it together.

Even at my age I prefer to look forward rather than in the past. This does not mean that we should not learn from the lessons of the past. The turning point of Dreamweaver's demise was its removal of the Server Behaviours panels, instead of updating the code. Despite numerous promises, the functions have not returned. I fondly think back to your PDO extension as a warning to Dreamweaver to follow suit.

I favoured getting rid of Spry for jQuery, and Fluid Grids for of Bootstrap. At least we were assured that the open source frameworks would be maintained. Ok, not everyone is in favour of frameworks but it does remain a choice.

Another criticism I had, even in the days of CS, was the lack of speed when using Dreamweaver. Quite often I was typing three or four characters ahead of what was showing on screen and I am no speed typist. After opening Dreamweaver I often wander off to the coffee machine. I made a calculation which showed that it takes Dreamweaver 85 seconds to start up. At an average of 10 startups a week (kept low) and at my hourly rate of $60 (kept low), this works out to be $370. Compare that to the other program that I use which takes 5 seconds at a total cost of $22. Even if Dreamweaver was free of charge (which it isn't) and even if the extensions were free of charge (which they're not), we still have about $350 left to pay for a program that includes all of these extensions. I'm sorry to say that it is a no brainer.

In conclusion and putting it simplistically:

• Dreamweaver needs to be leaner
• Dreamweaver should include Server Behaviours.
• Dreamweaver should remain extensible (without the intervention of Adobe)

Is it all too late? Is Adobe fighting against the eight ball? For Al Sparber et al, I hope not.

[osgood_]

BenPleysier  wrote

Is it all too late? Is Adobe fighting against the eight ball? For Al Sparber et al, I hope not.

It is too late in my opinion. As you say DW lost its 'appeal' when its major selling point, the only web-editor on the market at the time, to offer a simple way for novices to connect to a database and do a few simple queries whch were enough given the demographic DW appealed to. Whoever made the decision not to update the SB behaviours killed DW instantly and its been in decline ever-since. Even I used DW server behaviours at one stage before they reached EOL. Thank goodness they were not replaced because my path forward may have been completely different. I had no option other than to learn code to query databases myself or buy into a couple of commercial extensions available. I chose to learn to code and have never looked back as it opens up endless possiblities which are not available in an extension driven workflow.

Im just annoyed that I didnt leave DW behind earlier rather than persist in using what became a  distinctly average web editor, even in comparrison to what was available at the time.

Sorry but for me DW is tainted now and few who are serious about forging a career in web-devlopment use it. For those who are not serious about forging a career in web-development there are far better options availble now.......so for me DW finds itself between a rock and a hard stone, directionless with declining interest.

Adobe if they are to maintain an interest in a serious main-stream web-development editor need to re-think, clear the desks and come up with something original but I fear in the face of competition they don't have the stomach for it.

[pziecina]

The problem with Dw is not necessarily the lack of SB's, or the inclusion of bootstrap. Bootstap is for those who want to use it, which for me does not present a problem, except when it is used by those who do not want to learn how to code, as I think it does require at least a reasonably understanding of html and css.

Advanced SB's can be replaced by 3rd party extensions, but Dw should be able to do basic CRUD functions which my PDO extension did allow, the only problem was that the old SB's were still available, and these would have to be removed in anything 'new'.

The next problem is Dw's brackets code editor, as the open source, (free) Brackets code editor is driving what is included in Dw, which is the wrong direction for a paid for product, it should be Dw's code editor adding features to the Brackets code editor, (everything in the 2019 versions code editor, was included in Brackets 6 months ago).

Then we come to the css pre/post-processors and git intergration. I have previously said all there is to say about the css pre/post-processors in Dw, so everyone should know my thoughs on the subject. As for git intergration, it shows a complete and utter lack of understand in why git is used by most. Git is primarily a team version control system, but no features are included that and team leader/manager can use to control both who and what is allowed to do something. Telling users to use git's command line to install 'other' necessary items is not the answer, and team leader/managment controls are completely missing anyway.

Dw has git, but it is based on the 'one man band' user, with nothing for teams.

As for extensions, the reply posted today clearly indicates that the Dw managment has no idea what we are complaining/talking about.

Then we come to css designer, and the assosiated panels. IT's a joke. ​I don't know who is responsible for it now, but whomever it is would have been 'let go' if they had worked for me. Get rid of it and replace it with something that works as it should, and with everything that modern css users require.