Adobe's powerhouse web editor enhances support for displaying your site on mobile devices
Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 is a powerful and professional web editor which comes with a host of new design and development features.
Top of the list has to be the new Fluid Grid Layout options, which Adobe calls "a system for designing adaptive websites". Essentially this provides three layouts, complete with typography presets - one for mobiles, one for tablets, one for PCs - and your page elements will then follow an invisible grid, automatically rearranging their position (according to your requirements) when your site is viewed on a particular device.
And how will you know it's working? A click on the enhanced Multiscreen Preview panel can display your site in various smartphone, tablet and desktop resolutions (and it can now help you check the rendering of HTML5 content, too).
Elsewhere, it's now possible to create new web effects by animating changes to CSS properties. A stack of high-end features include new integration with Adobe's Business Catalyst service, as well as updated support for jQuery Mobile and Adobe PhoneGap. And whatever you're creating, it should be online a little faster thanks to a revamped multithreaded FTP transfer engine.
Despite Adobe's claim that CS6 introduces "enhanced user interfaces that vastly simplify workflows", Dreamweaver remains bulky and complex: if your needs are simple then this probably isn't the HTML editor for you.
The enormous power on offer here means Dreamweaver CS6 will remain the choice of many professionals, though, and we wouldn't argue with that. There's a lot to like here, and it's well worth the upgrade.
Please note, the download here is for Adobe's Download Manager, which on launch will grab and install the trial version of Dreamweaver for you. This takes a while, though - we had to log in twice with our Adobe ID and password, and specifically tell the program to install the product - so you'll need to be patient.
Final Verdict: Dreamweaver has never been the easiest way to create a website, and the CS6 incarnation does nothing to change that, but some excellent additions and enhancements ensure the program also remains the most powerful and flexible web editor around today.
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