Adobe Creative Suite 3Dreamweaver CS3 is the first Adobe -branded version of the feature-rich Web-site editor that was last released as Macromedia's Dreamweaver 8. After Adobe bought Macromedia, it began integrating Dreamweaver with Photoshop and other applications in the Adobe Creative Suite, and Dreamweaver CS3 is the impressive result.

In its basic interface and features, it's the same Dreamweaver that advanced Web designers know by heart, but Adobe has brought it into the 21st century with full CSS support through tools that validate and manage style sheets, as well as a new graphic interface for Adobe's "Spry Framework," a set of JavaScript code snippets built into Dreamweaver for displaying dynamic elements such as collapsing menus, database items, or XML feeds. Any developer can download the Spry framework separately, from Adobe's site, and use the code in any Web editor, but only Dreamweaver has it built in.
The new version is an essential upgrade for any Dreamweaver user who wants to build up-to-date CSS-based code, and it offers effortless drag-and-drop integration with Photoshop. Potential newcomers may want to compare Dreamweaver with Microsoft's compact Expression Web before taking the plunge. Both programs let you create sites from templates that impose design consistency, and both automatically display syntax options when you're editing code. Dreamweaver, however, gets bonus points for supporting Secure FTP uploads, and it's the only choice if you want automated code-completion on PHP and ColdFusion pages. Dreamweaver also includes prebuilt dynamic widgets such as an "Accordion" that expands to display hidden data when a user clicks on a title.

Even more now than in earlier versions, Dreamweaver acts like a powerful, smooth-running machine, with up to a dozen control panels, multitabbed inspectors, toolbars, and other controls arrayed around its editing screen. If you like the feeling that you can do anything on the page in the editing window, and that you can fine-tune even the most complexly organized Web site, Dreamweaver is the program to choose.