Adobe Creative Suite 2.3

On Sep 19, 2006, at 8:27 AM, Greg Swann wrote:

> Universal binary?

Not yet - the best guess I've seen (from Adam Pratt, Adobe's guy on
the GoLive discussion groups) is still 2nd quarter 2007, when (I
assume) CS3 would normally be expected to ship.

8-(

Maybe then I'll be able to buy a nice new MacBook Pro...

Roger Henriques
rdh at rhen dot com

On 9/19/06 07:27, "Greg Swann" <GregSwannBloodhoundRealty.com> wrote:

> Universal binary?

Only Acrobat 8

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

Glenn, Jeff, and Adam,

Thanks for your thorough coverage of this latest development in the Adobe Creative Suite. One quick question then a longer one meant to provoke further discussion:

1) Any word on whether any of the components of Creative Suite 2.3 will be universal binaries?

2) Regarding Web tools, I had just about decided that GoLive would be the best tool for me due to its site management features and more Mac-friendliness compared to Dreamweaver, so am now re-evaluating the whole website landscape from scratch.

Could we maybe expand the scope to a broader discussion of all available tools given Glenn's and Jeff's extensive experience in this area and TidBit's earlier excellent comparative review by Steve Sande http://db.tidbits.com/article/8565 in June perhaps tying the two articles and their authors together into a larger discussion?

As a novice website developer this is how it looks to me: though I understand that those with experience with the pro apps would want to stick with them, how about those just starting out? For newbies Dreamweaver & GoLive are looking long in the tooth. They're aging Carbon dinosaurs that are apparently bloated, slow, buggy, and crashy according to user reviews on VersionTracker & MacUpdate.

What do you guys think of the up and coming Cocoa apps such as iWeb, RapidWeaver, Sandvox, ShutterBug, GoodPage, etc.?

I know those are considered entry-level largely template apps not in the same category, but it seems we are right in the middle of this transition between older Carbonized OS 9 apps, more capable yet less integrated with OS X and less future-proof, and the newer Cocoa apps less capable yet more integrated and future-proof.

It seems the older apps have pretty much reached their limits with newer versions adding marginal improvements that just seem to add more bloat to already huge and aging code bases while the younger less capable Cocoa apps are gaining functionality at a rapid pace and may soon catch up and surpass today's big boys.

Which of these newer apps look the most promising and are more likely to offer dynamic/database functionality in the future according to your experience?

I think a lot of novices such as me are more inclined to grow with one of the newer Cocoa apps than to venture the learning curve of Dreamweaver, GoLive, or even Freeway—by the time a newbie becomes proficient on one of these, the newer Cocoa apps may just surpass them over the next year or two.

What do you think?

Thanks, Jeff

On Sep 19, 2006, at 8:27 AM, Greg Swann wrote:

> Universal binary?

I didn't see anything in the Adobe press release about Universal
Binary, but I did see this posted about the Universal Binary Creative
Suite 3 on a design list:

  http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2057

So I'm still waiting to upgrade our aging buy loyal 667 Powerbook to
an Intel model till CS 3 is released.

Marilyn

On Sep 20, 2006, at 6:21 AM, jeffnailen wrote:

> Glenn, Jeff, and Adam,
>
> Thanks for your thorough coverage of this latest development in the
> Adobe Creative Suite. One quick question then a longer one meant to
> provoke further discussion:
>
> 1) Any word on whether any of the components of Creative Suite 2.3
> will be universal binaries?
>
> 2) Regarding Web tools, I had just about decided that GoLive would
> be the best tool for me due to its site management features and
> more Mac-friendliness compared to Dreamweaver, so am now re-
> evaluating the whole website landscape from scratch.

I'll try to limit my rant about what a disaster the Macromedia MX
2004 Suite has been on my G5, esp. Dreamweaver, which turned out to
be the buggiest, pokiest, most crash prone app I've ever used since I
started using a Mac back in the days when System 7 was just released.
After I had just spent mega-bucks on the Macromedia Suite, I ended up
having to buy the whole Adobe Suite though I was just intending to
upgrade Photoshop, because I needed to complete a project by deadline
and Dreamweaver and Freehand wouldn't work.

I found that not only did the Adobe CS apps work fine, I prefer
GoLive's palettes and interface, and it integrates better with other
Adobe products. I became a GoLive convert and use Dreamweaver for one
client who requires it. And I found that Illustrator had far
surpassed Freehand in features, and that I preferred its palettes as
well.

>
>
> Could we maybe expand the scope to a broader discussion of all
> available tools given Glenn's and Jeff's extensive experience in
> this area and TidBit's earlier excellent comparative review by
> Steve Sande http://db.tidbits.com/article/8565 in June perhaps
> tying the two articles and their authors together into a larger
> discussion?

Great idea! And a few years ago Tonya wrote an outstanding and
extensive series of reviews of web development software. Maybe she'll
want to get in to the act.

>
>
> As a novice website developer this is how it looks to me: though I
> understand that those with experience with the pro apps would want
> to stick with them, how about those just starting out? For newbies
> Dreamweaver & GoLive are looking long in the tooth. They're aging
> Carbon dinosaurs that are apparently bloated, slow, buggy, and
> crashy according to user reviews on VersionTracker & MacUpdate.

I'm waiting for Adobe to release Creative Suite 3, at which point
we'll upgrade our aging 667 Powerbook to a MacBook Pro (I still think
it's a crappy name) - we do most of our work in the Adobe Suite. And
although I'm dwell longingly on the vanishing point feature in the
latest version of Photoshop, I haven't really missed not having it so
far.

IMHO, Dreamweaver is probably such a mess because Macromedia released
it without proper testing and development. I'm hoping that Adobe
won't fall in to this trap, and they do have a better long term
history of releasing software that's ready for prime time.

>
>
> What do you guys think of the up and coming Cocoa apps such as
> iWeb, RapidWeaver, Sandvox, ShutterBug, GoodPage, etc.?

Before you get started, it's a good idea to think long term about
what you plan to do with the software. Is it for personal use, or do
you want to go pro? Will you need or want an app that integrates well
with graphic applications Photoshop, Flash, or whatever? Do you
anticipate using Flash or Shockwave, etc. for application development
(this is becoming an increasingly popular platform)? If so, you might
want to consider a professional app.

>
>
> I know those are considered entry-level largely template apps not
> in the same category, but it seems we are right in the middle of
> this transition between older Carbonized OS 9 apps, more capable
> yet less integrated with OS X and less future-proof, and the newer
> Cocoa apps less capable yet more integrated and future-proof.

Quark Xpress 7 is now universal binary, and has been out for a few
months. Because we have only 1 client that requires we use Quark 5,
we haven't had any real reason to justify the expensive upgrade, but
I am salivating after seeing Quark 7 demos at trade events - it's got
web development tools built in that they claim rival Dreamweaver's
and write CSS that is at least as good as Dreamweaver's - even when
you convert Quark documents for the web. It will also convert images
to jpg, gif or png on the fly when converting print documents. The
interface was Dreamweaver like, and of course, very familiar to users
of page layout apps.

I've used Quark for many years, and inDesign for about 2, and though
there are many designers that get hysterical about one over the
other, I really consider them a toss up, as each has their
advantages. And if Quark's web development tools are all they are
cracked up to be, I'd gladly drop GoLive and/or Dreamweaver and have
one less app to worry about.

http://www.quark.com/

Though at the moment I'm not doing much print work, as a user, I much
prefer working in Quark or InDesign than any web development app I've
used. And I think that Adobe, which sells both Dreamweaver and
GoLive, is unlikely to drop either or both of these apps and build
web development features into InDesign.

>
>
> It seems the older apps have pretty much reached their limits with
> newer versions adding marginal improvements that just seem to add
> more bloat to already huge and aging code bases while the younger
> less capable Cocoa apps are gaining functionality at a rapid pace
> and may soon catch up and surpass today's big boys.

This depends on what and how you see yourself working in the future.
If you're just working on personal sites, then you don't have to
worry about what future employers or clients will be looking for on
your resume. And as new devices will actually enable web content to
be distributed to televisions and cell phones, you might want to
consider what will work well with multimedia.
>
>
> Which of these newer apps look the most promising and are more
> likely to offer dynamic/database functionality in the future
> according to your experience?

Databases will continue to be server side, and web development
platforms will be front end. Scripting apps, like Perl, Python and
the other stuff hotly debated in another thread, will continue to be
what tie the two together. And while a PC only app like Cold Fusion
was quite popular until the last few years, it still seems to be
loosing a lot of ground. If you want to learn database development,
you'll need to choose a database platform; you can do scripting in
BBEdit, and hand code web pages as well.

My thinking is that web content will eventually become less browser
based, and though browsers will always be important for text focused
pages, the ability to build functionality in to Flash, Quicktime, and
whatever new is on the horizon, will make them increasingly popular
for development within a browser environment as browser independent
development platforms.

>
>
> I think a lot of novices such as me are more inclined to grow with
> one of the newer Cocoa apps than to venture the learning curve of
> Dreamweaver, GoLive, or even Freeway—by the time a newbie becomes
> proficient on one of these, the newer Cocoa apps may just surpass
> them over the next year or two.
>

Things are changing so rapidly that it's hard for anyone to guess
what's down the road over the next few years.

Marilyn

At 03:21 -0700 20/09/2006, jeffnailen wrote:
>What do you guys think of the up and coming Cocoa apps such as iWeb,
>RapidWeaver, Sandvox, ShutterBug, GoodPage, etc.?

One element in assessing any tool capable of creating web pages is
looking at its ability to create standards-based, accessible websites.

These factors may be unimportant if you're creating a personal site
for family members, but for anyone thinking of using such software to
create a site for their business or club those are important criteria.

I have a series running over at About This Particular Mac where I'm
looking at such tools to see how they stand up. It's not deep
investigation, but a few simple tests can show whether such a tool
may hinder, stay out of the way, or actually help.

So far I've looked at iWeb, Sandvox, and RapidWeaver, but more are
planned, including Nvu, SeaMonkey and PageSpinner.

http://www.atpm.com/

http://www.atpm.com/12.07/web-accessibility.shtml

http://www.atpm.com/12.08/web-accessibility.shtml

Cheers,

Miraz
--
Writer Web-Designer Learner
Latest book: WordPress 2 : Visual QuickStart Guide
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321450191

MacTips.Info: http://mactips.info
Blog, Mac Tips Archive, Learning Centre
iName: http://public.xdi.org/=miraz

On Sep 21, 2006, at 2:14 PM, Miraz Jordan wrote:

> One element in assessing any tool capable of creating web pages is
> looking at its ability to create standards-based, accessible websites.

Example in point: Adobe GoLive will claim something as standards-
compliant, valid XHTML when it's quite obviously not - GoLive
includes non-standard tags for its templates.

> These factors may be unimportant if you're creating a personal site
> for family members, but for anyone thinking of using such software to
> create a site for their business or club those are important criteria.

It's also relevant when you're working with software developers, or
in fact anyone who needs to deal with the code directly: if you can
keep the workflow *entirely* within the application, you're OK, but
as soon as you start dealing with the code -- for instance, because
you're developing dynamic database-backed web pages -- the web design
applications quickly become a liability rather than an asset.

Case in point: GoLive doesn't play nicely with ColdFusion code, and
plays worse with Perl HTML::Mason or PHP code. The designer creates
the web page, the developer makes it dynamic, and then when it's
edited again in GoLive, the added code is mangled.

In the end, I'd advise becoming familiar with HTML and CSS in and of
themselves -- not because you should necessarily do everything by
hand, but because if you start doing serious design for the web,
sooner or later, you're going to need to drop down to that level to
find out why things are getting screwed up.

Charlton


--
Charlton Wilbur
cwilburchromatico.net

On 9/21/06 8:39 PM, "Charlton Wilbur" <cwilburchromatico.net> cleverly
wrote:

>> One element in assessing any tool capable of creating web pages is
>> looking at its ability to create standards-based, accessible websites.
>
> Example in point: Adobe GoLive will claim something as standards-
> compliant, valid XHTML when it's quite obviously not - GoLive
> includes non-standard tags for its templates.

I switched to GoLive from Dreamweaver for similar reasons, compatibility
with Photoshop. I found its ftp synching was not as good as Dreamweaver, but
the ability to place text or pics on a page was simpler.

I've been using iWeb for a travel blog, and was pretty happy with it, except
that some of the features, people being able to comment themselves, worked
on some computers, but not on a lot of others. One it didn't work on was an
OSX/Safari combo. The look of the page varied widely, especially on Windows
machines. Not good, but that's my main complaint.

I'd like to be able to edit the templates a bit more easily, but haven't
gotten into the html of it to do so.

Bruce

On Sep 21, 2006, at 1:14 PM, Marilyn Matty wrote:

> My thinking is that web content will eventually become less browser
> based, and though browsers will always be important for text focused
> pages, the ability to build functionality in to Flash, Quicktime, and
> whatever new is on the horizon, will make them increasingly popular
> for development within a browser environment as browser independent
> development platforms.

This is interesting to me because as a host provider, I've notice
over the past year that for those sites heavily into RSS-styled
content (iTunes, included) stats show that in more and more cases, IE/
Mozilla/Safari/Other browsers are dropping below the RSS and iTunes
agents both in hits and bytes. In some cases recently, the
traditional browser agents combined for around 40% of client access
agents, and this for sites with many pages of content, but even more
in RSS fed file updates (PDFs), Podcasts, and photo galleries (also
with RSS built in). It seems that users are starting to grasp ways to
access content through other means when it is made available to them.

On the topic, I am looking forward to CS3, as well, because I use PS,
ID, and Acrobat frequently, and Illustrator from time to time. I used
DreamWeaver up to version 3, but then GoLive, and now neither. Most
web design gets done in PS/ILL and then hand coded into templates for
various CMS engines. So the workflow tends to go from PS to BBEdit,
although there are rare situations where a plug-in for DW or an
extension for GoLive will provide a way to translate a mock-up into a
particular CMS template. Personally, I'd be fine with a PS+LightRoom/
Ill combo product and I'd drop the DW/GL for my needs and upgrade
InDesign as needed. Since Quark 7 has added some interesting cross-
publishing tools, it seems to me Adobe should combine GoLive features
with InDesign for general publishing needs, and move DW into a
specific web dev tool for power-users and more media-rich development
(flash, etc.).

Jeffrey

On Oct 6, 2006, at 2:49 PM, Jeffrey McPheeters wrote:

> On Sep 21, 2006, at 1:14 PM, Marilyn Matty wrote:
>
>> My thinking is that web content will eventually become less browser
>> based, and though browsers will always be important for text focused
>> pages, the ability to build functionality in to Flash, Quicktime, and
>> whatever new is on the horizon, will make them increasingly popular
>> for development within a browser environment as browser independent
>> development platforms.
>
> This is interesting to me because as a host provider, I've notice
> over the past year that for those sites heavily into RSS-styled
> content (iTunes, included) stats show that in more and more cases, IE/
> Mozilla/Safari/Other browsers are dropping below the RSS and iTunes
> agents both in hits and bytes. In some cases recently, the
> traditional browser agents combined for around 40% of client access
> agents, and this for sites with many pages of content, but even more
> in RSS fed file updates (PDFs), Podcasts, and photo galleries (also
> with RSS built in). It seems that users are starting to grasp ways to
> access content through other means when it is made available to them.

Is it possible to keep an eye on the % from online gaming? It's
another browser independent channel that's been hugely popular.

Video instant messaging is likely to grow in the near term as the
technology is refined, which I think will be huge once it's available.

 From what I've been reading in the trade press this past week about
mobile phone strategies cable providers are considering to counter
the threat of quadruple plays (cable TV, internet, landline and
mobile phones) the phone companies are rolling out, I think that the
trend away from browser based content will accelerate even faster.
The cable companies are looking into mobile offerings, and adding on
applications that will enable video recording on mobile phones that
can be immediately relayed by IP to cable TVs and other devices.

BTW, I just got a video iPod for my birthday, and I love it. I'm
looking forward to more video podcasts being available. I'm also very
interested in seeing how content created for big screens will be
translated to handhelds.

>
> On the topic, I am looking forward to CS3, as well, because I use PS,
> ID, and Acrobat frequently, and Illustrator from time to time. I used
> DreamWeaver up to version 3, but then GoLive, and now neither. Most
> web design gets done in PS/ILL and then hand coded into templates for
> various CMS engines. So the workflow tends to go from PS to BBEdit,
> although there are rare situations where a plug-in for DW or an
> extension for GoLive will provide a way to translate a mock-up into a
> particular CMS template. Personally, I'd be fine with a PS+LightRoom/
> Ill combo product and I'd drop the DW/GL for my needs and upgrade
> InDesign as needed. Since Quark 7 has added some interesting cross-
> publishing tools, it seems to me Adobe should combine GoLive features
> with InDesign for general publishing needs, and move DW into a
> specific web dev tool for power-users and more media-rich development
> (flash, etc.).

This is exactly what I was thinking would be the best strategy for
Adobe.

Marilyn