Worth getting Dreamweaver CS5.5 ?

To buy or not to buy

[samscribe]

I am thinking of buying a second hand copy of Adobe DreamWeaver CS5.5 on Amazon (£200).
My reasons are:

(1) I have an old web site built in some ancient long gone version of Macromedia Dreamweaver and I thought it may be the best way to maintain it.
(2) CS5.5 is the last version of Dreamweaver that you don't need to pay a monthly subscription for, it is compatible with Windows 10 (of so I read)
(3) It supports HTML5 / CSS3 and mobile devices.

Will this work?

Thanks
Jon

[tangor]

Probably ... but there is the fact that Dreamweaver is "bloated code" most of the time and is generally moving into a niche area of development. That said, older versions of just about anything still get the job done (I use Photoshop 5, for example from the 1990s).

As long as the underlying OS will run the application there is no reason to not use it for as long as possible.

But then again, I was never a Dreamweaver fan, though many have found it quite useful!

[Swanny007]

The simple answer is yes. I am still running CS 5.5 because I don't want to pay a monthly fee, maybe I'm old school that way. Yep it's bloated a bit, certainly for what I need it for. Eventually I will have to upgrade because MacOS keeps warning me that all my old apps will stop working with a future update. I'll probably subscribe and then have to for Office too by the looks of it.

Buying a second hand copy may or may not activate though?

[not2easy]

^{Note - slightly OT:}

Eventually I will have to upgrade because MacOS keeps warning me...

For MacOS, there is AffinityPhoto that does 99.9% of everything PS does/did - however it is not a Dreamweaver or CS replacement.

[Demaestro]

If it were me I would just buy the monthly license to use it. It's $20 USD/month. At that price you could use it for 2 years before you spent £200 and you would get all the latest greatest in upgrades/new releases, and if after a few months you decide you don't want it, you cancel and haven't spent much $$

Is there a specifc reason you don't want to do a subscription?

[adobe.com...]

[lucy24]

In the time that it takes you to earn £200--plus the time it takes you to follow this thread--you can learn basic HTML and CSS and do it for free. (That’s assuming the total time investment works out to more than an hour. If it’s less, pay someone else to maintain the site and let them worry about keeping up-to-date on their bloatware.)

[samscribe]

If it were me I would just buy the monthly license to use it. It's $20 USD/month. At that price you could use it for 2 years before you spent £200 and you would get all the latest greatest in upgrades/new releases, and if after a few months you decide you don't want it, you cancel and haven't spent much $$

You have a point there.

[samscribe]

Actually Dreamweaver was £40 a month ($50) last time I looked. A bit pricey. It may be cheaper in the US than in the UK.
So £200 would only buy me 5 months...

[tangor]

Kiddies ... there is a reason for the subscription model ... and it goes back to BIG IRON from the 1950s ...

Play the game if you like, but I won't be there. :)

Shades of Bell Telephone from 1912-breakup and beyond!

Pick and choose ... pick and choose!

Meanwhile, Linux and assort applications are the next best bet!

(You do know the subscriptions CONSTRAIN you, particularly the CLOUD parts ... what your biz in a third party's hands?)

Pick and choose ...

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I think CS6 may have been the most recent version. That's what I have on my PC.

[TorontoBoy]

I would not buy nor subscribe. I don't play their game. You should make a clean break and code html, css, js yourself. Use Notepad++ in win, or something else. There are so many open source packages that are really good out there, so there's no need for a subscription.

When I was on Win many years ago I used an old Photoshop version, which would probably still work for my simple needs. Now that I'm on Linux I use Gimp, which has a similar capability. There are alternatives to subscription services.

Dreamwaver back in the day was really bloated. Take a look at your code and see how much of the html you do not need. I abhore bloat, and would rather hand code. Now I use a CMS and concentrate on content. When required I hand-tweak themes instead.

[samscribe]

What do people think of Microsoft Expression Web 4 (free to download). My guess is that creates bloated code too?

[not2easy]

Isn't that their replacement for FrontPage? That was overbloated enough but I do not know whether they've continued that tradition or not - but what's wrong with keeping it simple?

I realize that plain and simple isn't for every site, but have you at least looked at anything like maybe w3schools to catch up on the how and why? It's free and you only have to spend a little free time to see whether it can help you out.

[tangor]

What do people think of Microsoft Expression Web 4 (free to download). My guess is that creates bloated code too?

Actually not that bad ... though it does tend to do the MS "smart tagging" more than I care for. Played with it, liked many aspects,but in the long run ditched it for something more direct: Notepad ++

Being 70 I guess I am irredeemably stuck in "old school".

But do give Expression Web a shot if you have not yet settled on an editor. Not half bad!

[Kendo]

Microsoft Sharepoint Designer is FREE and preferred to Dreamweaver but no later than version 2007. It's not ideal for CSS and you need to do that work in source view. Later versions only work on Sharepoint sites.

[vivalasvegas]

I too am still using CS5.5. I've been using Macromedia and then Adobe Dreamweaver just for some of its features (FIND and REPLACE is one I still find very helpful). For me it's just an advanced HTML editor and I only manually code in CS5.5.

[nomis5]

I use Microsoft Expression and it creates a fast loading site for me. Some bloat yes, but in comparison to including a few pictures on a page, that is not really anything to worry about.

I do know how to code and use css but the simplicity and speed of creating a webpage in MS is compelling.