Site Management

Both products offer significant improvements in terms of site management, with GoLive CS2 adding SFTP as well as FTP tunneled through SSH and over SSL, and Dreamweaver adding (at long last!) uploading of files in the background, so that updating the site no longer ties up the whole program until the update is finished.

Unfortunately, both also suffer from annoying site management bugs and shortcomings in usability. For example, my test copy of GoLive CS2 seemed pathologically prone to crashing when using the function to upload modified files to the web server, and using GoLive to accomplish simple tasks at the server end — such as deleting a couple of files — turned out to be so slow as to be nearly useless. It was far quicker simply to SSH to the web server separately and delete or rename files from the UNIX command line.

Having said that, in my view, GoLive remains the vastly superior product when it comes to handling site updates performed by a single author. (I cannot comment on the merits of either product for multi-user environments where different authors may be changing different parts of a site a the same time, simply because I haven’t had the opportunity to try it.) GoLive’s abilities to synchronize local and remote files, as well as basic functions like uploading modified files, work much more reliably than Dreamweaver’s (even accounting for the crashes).

And in terms of usability, Dreamweaver still suffers from what has become a real pet peeve of mine: an apparent inability simply to upload site files stripped of template tags or comments. Yes, it can be done, but it requires a circuitous journey of first exporting a template-free version of the site to a separate folder, and then separately uploading files from that exported version of the site to the actual web server Worse yet, the export function does not work reliably, sometimes inserting additional “notes” folders or other detritus into the exported version even when explicitly told not to do so, and sometimes exporting parts of the site that have not been modified since the last export, even when told not to do so.

By comparison, uploading without template tags or comments is a picture of simplicity with GoLive.

GoLive makes it easy to upload site files without template tags or comments.

A simple checkbox sets a preference — which can be site-specific or for all sites — to upload pages without template tags (“Adobe GoLive Elements”), comments, or even extraneous spaces (like those used to indent lines of code). What could be simpler! If this is ever something you need to do, GoLive makes it so simple you hardly even notice it, while Dreamweaver makes it a nightmare.

One other aspect of site management, re-usable code snippets — called ‘Library’ items by Dreamweaver and ‘Components’ by GoLive — deserves a mention in the nightmare department, especially on the GoLive side (even though I generally prefer the GoLive approach to components). Once upon a time, changing which component would appear throughout a whole set of GoLive documents within a site would actually update the contents of all those documents using that component. For example, suppose you wanted to change 100 pages from incorporating one piece of footer code to incorporating a different piece of footer code stored in a different component. Using the ‘In & Out Links’ pane, you can easily change all 100 pages to use the new component via a simple click and drag. Once upon a time, this move would both change the pointer within each of those 100 pages indicating which component should be used on that page and change the actual component code (in this case the footer code) being stored within those 100 pages. Now, however, changing the pointer updates all 100 pages to indicate that a different component should be used, but the old component code remains in place. The new footer code will not appear in all those files until you update the component itself and save it, requiring a second run-through of all 100 pages to get the updated code in place. Worse, if the new component is actually in use across the site more widely, then this action of updating the component to force the new code into the updated pages will update all those pages, even the ones which otherwise wouldn’t have needed updating. The tedium of going through this process to get component code updated properly is nothing compared to the bafflement caused by assuming CS2 works like previous GoLive versions and then finding all those bits of code you thought you changed actually haven’t changed at all!

Stability

Since both products have a history of being released in rather unstable form, and because it can be so infuriating to lose work as a result of a hard application crash, it’s worth mentioning stability explicitly.

The upshot is that both packages I tested (Dreamweaver 8.0.2 and GoLive CS2 8.0.1) are vastly more stable and reliable than their predecessors. Although I experienced more crashes with GoLive CS2 than with Dreamweaver 8, their frequency was far, far below that of crashes in either Dreamweaver MX 2004 or the previous GoLive CS.

Overall Assessment

If you need a site development package right now, and you need the power of a product like GoLive CS2 or Dreamweaver 8, I think both of these have a great deal to offer. Unfortunately, neither one works without real irritations and barriers to productivity; thus, there is no obvious ‘right’ answer. My overall purchasing recommendation depends on where you are right now with regard to your site development environment…

Serious Developers of Large Scale Sites

If you can afford it, and you plan to develop large scale sites, the clear solution in my view is actually to buy both packages: use Dreamweaver to edit visually and to create and debug CSS, but use GoLive for site management and updating. (It is easy enough to use both packages simultaneously on the same set of site files.)

Current Users of Earlier Versions of Dreamweaver

I believe Dreamweaver 8 is a much more robust product than Dreamweaver MX 2004, so if you are using the immediately prior version, this is a worthwhile upgrade. However, if you’re using a lower-powered machine and find that an earlier version of Dreamweaver is starting to tax your machine, I would not recommend this upgrade: Dreamweaver 8 demands significantly more processing power, and as a result upgrading may yield an environment that slows to an unusable crawl.

Current Users of Earlier Versions of GoLive

Adobe GoLive users who skipped the upgrade from version 6 to CS on the grounds that the latter was too flaky to get real work done can rest assured that CS2 offers a much more stable environment; if you’re still using GoLive 6, I believe CS2 will be a hugely beneficial upgrade. If you’ve been getting by on GoLive CS, then the single most compelling reason to upgrade is simply stability. Although the feature set has been filled out somewhat, I don’t believe the new capabilities alone merit the upgrade price — but the features plus the stability just might.

Current Users of Other Site Development Environments

If you’re currently using one of the low-end or middle of the road tools for building web sites, I cannot recommend upgrading to either of these packages at this time: given the steep learning curve of moving to a new development environment, and the uncertainty of the products’ futures now that Adobe has acquired Macromedia, you would want to be absolutely sure you needed the more advanced capabilities before making that investment of time (and money).

Having said that, if you do decide that you need more advanced capabilities, and you can only select one package, I would recommend Dreamweaver 8 over GoLive CS2. The choice between them is not nearly as clear-cut as the larger market share of Dreamweaver might suggest — there are still several areas in which Dreamweaver is just plain annoying — but if you have to move to a new environment and you are not already familiar with how easy GoLive CS2 makes it to accomplish certain tasks (and so won’t find Dreamweaver as annoying as you otherwise might), I believe you would be better served by opting for the overall more capable Dreamweaver 8.

System Requirements, Pricing and Demos

Adobe GoLive CS2

You can learn more about Adobe GoLive CS2 at Adobe’s GoLive pages (where you can also download a free demo). The product retails for $399 on CD or via download; upgrades start at $169. It is also available as part of the full Adobe Creative Suite Premium, which goes for $1199. Alternatively, the Adobe Web Bundle, including both the Creative Suite Premium and Macromedia Studio 8, can be had for the eye-popping sum of $1899.

Windows System Requirements

• Intel® Pentium® III or 4 processor
• Microsoft® Windows® 2000 with Service Pack 3 or 4, or Windows XP with Service Pack 1 or 2
• 192MB of RAM (256MB recommended)
• 700MB of available hard-disk space
• 1,024×768 monitor resolution with 16-bit video card
• CD-ROM drive
• For Adobe® PostScript® printers: PostScript Level 2 or PostScript 3™
• QuickTime 6.5 required for multimedia features; QuickTime 3GPP component required for mobile authoring
• Internet or phone connection required for product activation
• Broadband Internet connection required for Adobe Stock Photos

Macintosh System Requirements

• PowerPC® G3, G4, or G5 processor (G4 or G5 recommended)
• Mac OS X v.10.2.8 through v.10.4 (10.3.4 through 10.4 recommended) with Java™ Runtime Environment
  1.4.1
• 192MB of RAM (256MB recommended)
• 700MB of available hard-disk space
• 1,024×768 monitor resolution with 16-bit video card
• CD-ROM drive
• For Adobe PostScript printers: PostScript Level 2 or PostScript 3
• QuickTime 6.5 required for multimedia features; QuickTime 3GPP component required for mobile authoring
• Internet or phone connection required for activation
• Broadband Internet connection required for Adobe Stock Photos

Macromedia Dreamweaver 8

You can learn more about Dreamweaver 8 at Adobe’s Dreamweaver pages (where you can also download a free demo). The product retails for $399 on CD or via download, with upgrades starting at $199. It is also available as part of the full Studio 8 package for $999 or as part of the Adobe Web Bundle, including both the Creative Suite Premium and Macromedia Studio 8, for $1899.

Windows System Requirements

• 800 MHz Intel Pentium III processor (or equivalent) and later
• Windows 2000, Windows XP
• 256 MB RAM (1 GB recommended to run more than one Studio 8 product simultaneously)
• 1024 x 768, 16-bit display (32-bit recommended)
• 650 MB available disk space

Macintosh System Requirements

• 600 MHz PowerPC G3 and later
• Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4
• 256 MB RAM (1 GB recommended to run more than one Studio 8 product simultaneously)
• 1024 x 768, thousands of colors display (millions of colors recommended)
• 300 MB available disk space