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This article is part of the Joy Gems series which originally appeared in The Joy Gems Newsletter and/or The Home Page Helper Network on ryze.com, a business networking community. |
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A couple of weeks ago I took the plunge and decided to update a bunch of old friends - Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Acrobat. I purchased Adobe's Creative Suite 3 which was fresh off the shelves (or whatever they say these days).
As I opened each new application in the suite, I was amazed at how my favorite tools had changed and sort of grown up. What interested me most was DW (still think of it as Macromedia's baby) and how it now helps - or hinders - the development of web pages for those wishing to follow web page design standards. Would DW be the breakthrough tool to allow designer and content creators the ability to use standards without becoming a code warrior like me? We've always heard that DW is the gentlest one when it comes to generating least offensive page code. Would the program continue in that direction?
Let me get the easy questions out of the way. "What's the best web page making application?" The answer is still DW. "Have I tried and tested its competitors recently?" No, and I won't until I see a reason why I should be using something else. The other question, "Should you use DW?" That answer is still "yes" because, even if you can make web pages "by hand," a little help from a friend is the way to go for most people.
In the manner in which only a fair and balanced observer like myself could do, I give you my top things that still bother me. Remember, I'm a veteran DW user but I've only been working with the newest version for a few weeks, so these are the most disappointing things.
Disappointment No. 1
They're Still Using the <FONT> Tag
They're still encouraging page creators to use outdated code. Shame on them for that. Exhibit A? You can still all too easily use the html font tag to set up your fonts.
Can we kill <FONT> for once and for all? Using CSS to define font properties is one of the easier things to do. So why does DW still make it way too easy for people to do the wrong thing?
Disappointment No. 2
They're Still Not Giving Us Enough Space To Write Good Alt Text
You be the judge. Do you think there's enough room in that tiny box to type in an alternative text description that conveys meaningful information about an image? DW isn't doing a real good job here to encourage people to use alt for their images (a web page design standard).
Not real sure about what the alt attribute does? Read this good stuff from a post at killersites.com I found this morning.
Disappointment No. 3
They're Still Screwing Up The Style Option
Under a menu option called "Style," they're still giving you choices to tags such as "Code," "Citation," "Variable," and others. These are XHTML/HTML tags that have NOTHING to do with Style. Can't they improve DW so that - at minimum - it does not mis-educate its users? DW surely screws up the ill-informed when it does things like indicate that the Citation tag is a style. It sure isn't.
What's The Big Deal?
If we are interested in creating a better web, we need tools that will allow us to do this without having to become code junkies. Dreamweaver still has a ways to go.
