Opinions on GoLive CS2

Looks like an excellent CSS dev. tool

[Storyman]

I teethed on Dreamweaver 4 and remained current with every upgrade of DW. Currently DW MX 2004, along with TopStyle Pro 3.0, is loaded. Nearly every site is developed in CSS.

After reading several reviews of Adobe's GoLive CS2, I downloaded the trial version and purchsed Pratt & Grillo's, "Adobe GoLive CS2 - Tips and Tricks." Although only to chapter four, I'm giving serious consideration to making GoLive CS2 my main web dev. program.

The main reason is how it handles CSS. For example, it'll immediately warn you about bugs in your code, it gives an outline of all of the page's elements (id, class, html, etc.), and it indicates missing tags (like closing DIVs).

[One thing I haven't figured out is how to get the program to write css elements to an external stylesheet. Is it possible? If you know would you mind sharing the secret?]

If you've used GoLive CS2 please provide the rest of us of what you feel are the pros & cons to GL-CS2. What do you love most? What do you hate most?

[drhowarddrfine]

Firefox Developer extension will do that, too, and for free. Not knocking GoLive because I haven't used it but those things don't seem to be a reason to buy it.

[Storyman]

As one radio host says, "Stay tune for the rest of the story."

By no means is that the only reason I'm looking seriously into GoLive CS2. There are too many reasons to list here--besides, I'm just learning the program.

[Storyman]

One thing about GoLive CS2 that is a real plus is the outlines mentioned earlier. Maybe, I don't understand the FireFox outlines that well, but they don't appear to be as robust as GL's.

For one thing when first opened the outline mode shows the tags as well as how they are nested. You can also drag the individual tags to a new location. If you've made an error it will indicate that there is something wrong and take you right to the problem area.

My description really doesn't do it justice. It is really cool.

Another feature that is helpful are the themes. Let's say you are looking at source code and want to find all of the comments. By selecting the 'comment' theme everything is grayed out except for comments. Same with the CSS theme.

The more I learn about GoLive CS2 the more I like it.

I hope others will download it and give it a try.

[ORBiTrus]

I tried GoLive in the past (my Win32 days...), and watched the GoLive 2 demo.

And all I have to say is, Meh.

Personally, I've used Quanta+ ever since, well, I started using it. (Although I still use Bluefish for JavaScript).

I don't think that a Program should do CSS. A Program should simplify repetitive and/or trivial tasks (such as updating content). There's only so many <p>...</p> you can type before it gets boring (ok, even one is boring). CSS differs with every design, hence is non-repetitive. For some people CSS may be a trivial (defn: Nothing New About It) activity, but...

CSS can be too fickle to be trusted to a machine. As for checking you're markup, well... I don't make mistakes [running Linux instead of Windows means I don't get a chance to test IE before I upload, so I know the bugs that will influence me well].

After all, any Software Development class will tell you that you want to spend ~60% time in initial development, and ~40% of the time in maintenance. If you use a program, you lock into an upgrade cycle and high maintenance costs.

[Storyman]

ORBRiTus,

Things are a changing. Check out the GL-CS2 demo.