I was really hoping that in this version of Dreamweaver, Macromedia would greatly improve its handling of JavaScript coding. Currently there really isn't a good integrated IDE for developing JavaScript scripts. I would like to see Dreamweaver offer code completion for JavaScript, integrated debugging, and a better JavaScript help section. The current layout of the Reference panel makes it really a pain to use. Nusphere's phped IDE got it right. They give you a searchable list of functions, and you can click to see a full page article on the chosen function in the editor window. This is a huge help.

Dreamweaver also does this strange thing with JavaScript where the color coding preferences only work if the JavaScript is in a separate .js file. If you are writing JavaScript in an HTML page, your color coding preferences don't work. Since most JavaScript is identified as such in the script tag it shouldn’t be that hard to provide this.

Additionally, Homesite allowed you to split the code screen into two different sections, so you can work on one piece of code at the top of your page, while having access to code in another part of the page. This was really helpful. I wish Dreamweaver could have this feature.

Overall, my impression is that Dreamweaver is an awesome, very polished IDE, but it caters more to the visual developer than it does to hand coder, which was fine when Homesite was available, but now, it is clear that Macromedia is phasing Homesite out. As a result, I have been using tools like TopStyle Pro to write my XHTML and CSS. If TopStyle offered better(any) JavaScript support, I don't think I would use Dreamweaver anymore. Alas, creator Nick Bradburry says he has no plans to get involved with JavaScript. Too bad.

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