GoLive 9 and Dreamweaver CS3
Since I’ve been fairly involved in the GoLive community for the last few years, I’ve been asked more than a few times what I thought about the new GoLive 9, and how it compares to Dreamweaver CS3.
In the past, I’d always been a fan of GoLive - even preferring it to Dreamweaver for most projects. I like the site management features, the design view and tools, and the source code editing environment, among other things. There’s long been the stigma attached to GoLive that it was primarily a tool for designers, not coders. As a designer + coder hybrid, I’ll claim it’s only partially true because GoLive’s layout and design tools are easier for many designers, not because it was an inferior product for coding and development. Until version 9, at least.
There were some nice improvements to GoLive’s interface in version 9, but other changes (mostly related to auto-generated CSS) have crippled the app for my own use. Also, I don’t want my current or potential clients to think I’m using “entry level” software, and Adobe has made it fairly clear that they have re-purposed GoLive to be the “entry level” web application, with DreamWeaver recommended for pro users:
Adobe - Switching to Dreamweaver
Adobe - GoLive 9 : FAQ
So, I’ll be using Dreamweaver CS3 for most of my own work, in combination with other applications like BBEdit, Transmit, Coda and CSSEdit. I find myself more or less using only the source code editor in Dreamweaver, but it’s been fairly nice for that.
You may have noticed that I’ve stopped developing and selling GoLive actions (most are still available as free downloads). That has more to do with low sales and a lack of development time than the current direction of GoLive. I may or may not pick that project back up in the future, depending on what the next version of GoLive looks like (and if there is a next version). In the meantime, I will continue to be a GoLive forum host for Adobe’s User-to-User Forums.
Long story short, I’m not thrilled with the way things have turned out, but I’ll humbly comply and embrace Dreamweaver as my primary application, hoping that the next version of DW embraces some of the GoLive features I’ve been missing.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Update - I still haven’t gotten around to trying it, but there’s a new (currently free) 3rd party extension to disable what I’d consider the most troubling behavior in GoLive 9 - the auto-generated CSS. For now, the extension can be downloaded here: http://golive.werk01.de/DeforceCSS/
February 5th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
[...] my first blog post on this site, I posted a review of GoLive 9 and my intentions for moving future development to [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 2:17 am
I learned how to do web design with dreamweaver and it’s a fantastic programme once you get to use it. I’ve not used GoLive, is it just a more simplier version of dreamweaver?
Would you say that Dreamweaver is the broader, more professional web design tool?
April 14th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Hello Chris. No, up until version CS2, GoLive was Adobe’s pro-level web authoring application (so, comparable to Dreamweaver, but different manufacturer). After Adobe bought Macromedia and acquired Dreamweaver, GoLive 9 was demoted to the “entry level” web application and is now, IMO, inferior to Dreamweaver CS3 for pro use.