Dreamweaver 4 brings a high level of polish and maturity to a product that has been in an evolutionary state since its original release a couple of years ago. Each successive version (and it seeems like they just came out with Dreamweaver 3, but that was more than a year ago) has striven to walk on its hind legs, take a few halting steps out of the nest, and learn to fly. In the process, Dreamweaver has matured into a virtual community of solutions that goes far beyond simple Web page markup. Simply put, this baby is finally what it has wanted to be—the best Web editor out there.

The new stuff is worth noting up front. A nice, big, juicy 582-page printed manual with a 19-page index was a welcome sight in the box. Other changes range from cosmetic (reworked existing features) to remarkable.

This version looks a little different from Dreamweaver 3, but keeps the same sense of operation while staying congruent with the new layout of Flash 5. The layout is good, but you will find that a second monitor is highly recommended for keeping extra palettes/inspectors open.

Likely inspired by Bare Bones’ BBEdit 6, this version of Dreamweaver now has a built-in text editor with colored syntax to show you more clearly which HTML elements are related. You can now have a linked "split-view" showing your live code on top, and your layout below (not a huge functional difference from having two windows open, but useful for single-monitor setups to keep things clean). More notably, the code editor can now edit code such as Perl scripts, or JavaScript, rather than just tweak your working HTML layout at the code level. In fact, you can debug JavaScript by executing the code in a browser while watching the code line by line.

A nifty built-in reference tool from O’Reilly has information you might not always remember about HTML tags, JavaScript, and cascading style sheets (CSS) in an inspector window. This is a big help if you (like me) keep a three-ring binder handy with reference material like this. A very useful little feature if you need to look something up without breaking stride.

Another new feature that is cool, but admittedly limited, is a built-in Flash Format Text and Button editor. This feature allows you to build simple headlines and navigation buttons in Flash vs. using bitmaps, arguably more efficient on a Web page (assuming the site visitor has Flash installed, of course). While I’m not convinced building sites with Flash-only content is truly viable for the majority of projects, there will definitely be some users who find this useful since you can do it without launching (or having to buy) Flash itself.

The new Assist Panel provides a site element management window that allows you to view and see previews of images and files without having to keep another window open on the desktop. Site Reporting is a nifty feature similar to QuarkXPress’ Usage feature, allowing you to quickly check and report on the status of all images and links in a Web site project. While not as extensive as third-party applications like LinkBot, it’s a valuable addition that will help minimize broken links or missing attributes.