Another step along march to web glory

By MATT MARTEL

Macromedia is promising the earth with its new software suite - Studio MX - and almost delivers it.

The US software giant has taken the smart step of updating four of its most popular software packages - Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash and Freehand - and releasing them in one box with the promise that it has "everything you need for the entire spectrum of web solutions".

It has also been generous enough to throw in its server solution, ColdFusion, which runs PC-only but means that for just NZ$1895 (plus GST), web developers have one of the most powerful sets of tools ever released.

Studio MX is aimed at the mid to upper-end of the market. It is too expensive and too feature-packed to be of interest to mum and dad looking to set up a homepage, but anyone serious about web development needs to consider Studio MX, or its component programs.

The New Zealand distributor, software firm Renaissance, suggests that anyone needing more than one of the component programs buys the whole studio. If you want to buy Flash MX and Dreamweaver the price is $2130, so Studio is a saving of $235.

For programmers working with large database-driven sites this upgrade is almost essential.

Flash MX and ColdFusion can now communicate at a level that will, over the next few years, greatly improve the way the web looks and works.

All four have common interface design (something companies such as Adobe have been doing for years) and the ability to communicate and do some of each other's functions.

For example, you can export Flash movies from Freehand, but it is a clunky operation and unnecessary when you have Flash anyway.

Each of the four programs has its distinct function, although there is some blurring of the lines.

There's Freehand for design, Fireworks for wizzy effects on those graphics and for tuning them up for the web, Flash for animations and clever things, and then there's Dreamweaver for putting it all together.

The package gets better when you work on a PC and can throw in ColdFusion, which works well with Dreamweaver and Flash. It allows for easier development of big sites with dynamic pages (you can also use the server software functions from a Mac, but the ColdFusion system needs to be elsewhere on a PC.)

Freehand has been around for the better part of a decade. There has been a series of improvements - and the occasional leap backward - but it has been more of a long march to glory. MX is another step along that path.

In general improvements, the pen tool is better, as are the brush-stroke features, and a contour gradients feature (first seen in Fireworks) allows better bevelling and other effects.

For a few years, Fireworks was the only program that could handle editable text with effects. It was great for exporting images to the web, and you could even do rollovers and so on. I'd also use it for doing pretty headlines for print jobs at high resolution, although it was dog slow at anything more than the 72dpi standard for the web.

Now, however, Photoshop can do all that and more, so if you have a relatively recent version, there's no need to buy Fireworks individually.

One great new feature is the ability to batch-process large numbers of graphics with only changes to text, pulled in from a database, such as for banner adverts or menu buttons.

Other improvements include a properties inspector, a better user interface, cool pop-up menu maker using Java scripts and on-screen text editing.

More than 400 million versions of the Flash Player have been downloaded, making Flash the industry standard.

In the MX version it now has predefined items such as buttons and scroll bars, and, finally, a properties inspector panel, giving infinitely more control for positioning and altering images.

A component-based authoring system allows users to drag and drop pre-defined components, such as menu bars.

Flash MX also supports dynamic loading, allowing bulky multimedia bits to be downloaded as it runs.

If you are using Flash as a developer, you'll love this version. There's a new, customisable action-script editor and it can be integrated with a range of application servers, particularly ColdFusion.

Dreamweaver is a superb web layout tool. It translates what I do as a layout into html that means something to most web browsers.

Dreamweaver MX, and version 4, sorted out its clunky handling of tables, the hard-grunting engine of web design, and the multitude of new features makes it the standard bearer.

If you are working with big, database-driven sites, Dreamweaver MX offers more than ever before, including working with technology such PHP, ASP, JSP and . NET - and all set up using a handy site-definition wizard.

I can write html nowadays, but not that well, and Dreamweaver will do it all for me. Now I reckon it would be possible to publish pretty big websites with no knowledge whatsoever of html.

A great plus for new webbies in MX is the large library of templates. You could have a static site up and running within a day.

Macromedia Studio MX