Unfortunately, the first edition (much like Flash 1) seemed very much a work-in-progress and did not compel me to adopt it. The first incarnation was a bit too arcane for what it actually did, and it was far simpler for me to continue building my projects in straight HTML (using Bare Bones Software's venerable BBEdit). Many of my colleagues found products like GoLive (now Adobe) CyberStudio more approachable (more "QuarkXPress-like") when migrating to a Web page-layout application, and I considered adopting GoLive until I heard about Dreamweaver 2.

To put it simply, it was well worth the wait. Dreamweaver 2 has many of the features that all of us code-heads demanded, and a wealth of new features that will cater to the DTP-centric crowd who can't wrap their noodle around hypertext markup tags. Far more powerful features than these are what make Dreamweaver a remarkable product, however. It has a number of tools geared to development teams who work in a client-server, or shared network, environment. It has tools that allow advanced developers to preview server side include (SSI) functions without uploading the site to the actual Web server. It can also create usable (and exportable) site maps for site development, client presentations, or for creating a working image map for the final site.

Sites are constructed by creating visual layers over a tracing template, or based on the default window size you choose. A nifty feature allows you to quickly resize the document (workplace) window to different browser sizes to see how it will look on different screens (such as 640x480 vs. 800x600). A tracing image can be a GIF, JPEG, or PNG image, and you can set a level of transparency to be able to overlay text, graphics, tables, or frames (this works much as it does in popular vector drawing applications). By positioning elements on layers, you can develop sites either with overlapping layers for new browsers, or by converting layers to tables with no overlaps for older browsers.

Dreamweaver allows you to assign actions to images to easily create mouse-over effects for buttons and other graphics without having to learn to modify JavaScript. The benefit of the "roundtrip" HTML feature lets the experienced developer go into the code and tweak it and, more importantly, to import sites without altering them. Some of the more consumer-oriented products insert numerous unnecessary tags, or alter the HTML in unpredictable ways when importing and exporting sites created in other programs. Dreamweaver allows you to set numerous preferences for altering or cleaning up HTML code when a site is imported/exported. Dreamweaver includes either BBEdit for the Macintosh, or Allaire's HomeSite for Windows, to edit HTML code in its pure form.

One of the more amazing tools in Dreamweaver is a function that owes its heritage to Microsoft Excel. When you create or import tables into Dreamweaver, you can select and sort columns just as you would in Excel, including first and second level sorting (such as date and then name). You can also re-order columns and set alignment tags. You can also set background colors for cells, and apply style sheets to header text using point and click functions. No matter how good a code-head you are, there is no longer any excuse to continue hand-coding these kind of tables in a text editor.

For those of us who use SSI functions for more dynamic site design, Dreamweaver proves itself to be a massive timesaver in allowing pages to be built and previewed locally in the document window, and not have to be loaded on an actual server for checking. (Server side includes are used to place a tag on numerous pages as a virtual pointer to another file, which is inserted by the server wherever the place-holder tag sits.) In addition to allowing SSI preview, Dreamweaver promises the ability to mimic many other environments and settings through extensible plug-ins. Numerous companies already offer add-ons to the product (free so far).

Working with images is also streamlined. When images are placed within the workspace, the dimensions (height and width) are inserted automatically. Alignment of elements is done simply with the property inspector. Creating image maps is simple with a built-in client-side map editor. Dreamweaver will also copy image files automatically to your working directory if you load them from an external source.

One notable weakness in Dreamweaver is its documentation. The tutorial assumes you already know how to build a Web site, rather than explaining how to build a site from the ground up with Dreamweaver. As a vocal opponent to the trend of minimizing printed documentation in favor of "online help," I was frustrated (again) by gotchas like "see online help" relating to numerous basic topics like the object palette. In fact, when trying to use the online help, I found that the version of the Shockwave plug-in included on the CD was not new enough to actually run the introduction. I resent publishers who make it mandatory for us to visit their Web sites (and view their advertisers' banners) simply to learn the first steps in using their products.

The other weakness is support for "nested tables," which are commonly used by us "hand coders" to build complex tables-within-tables-etc. layouts. While layers can be converted to general tables, you can neither create nor import sites built using the nested-tables approach.

That said, Dreamweaver 2 is, overall, an excellent product with room to grow and one I will consider using for some projects. However, with its available documentation (printed, electronic, and online) Dreamweaver 2 does not provide enough information for a beginner, and has many confusing concepts for the uninitiated. But for the journeyman or expert site designer, Dreamweaver 2 is an excellent choice for moving from hand-coding to more efficient and visual site development.

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