jQuery Support

jQuery is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks. I was happy to see that Dreamweaver^R CS5.5 supports jQuery with code hinting as well as some very nice starter layouts for mobile projects. The coding hinting makes it easy to add powerful interactive content to your projects and you can test the jQuery with Live View.

I was especially interested in the starter layouts for mobile projects, hoping to use these layouts both as a learning aid and to speed up my project workflow. These basic jQuery mobile layouts are already coded for you and waiting for you to customize for your project. But it doesn't stop there. Dreamweaver comes packed with several pre-coded jQuery components. From the Insert Panel, you can choose from many UI components such as a layout grid, text or password input, select menu and collapsible block. Because these are blocks of code that Dreamweaver inserts directly into your project, you don't need to do any coding unless you wish to customize the UI component further.

PhoneGap

If you are interested in creating Android or iOS apps, you will be glad to hear that Dreamweaver CS5.5 has integrated the PhoneGap SDK into the workflow. With the click of a few buttons, you can download and install the Android SDK directly from within Dreamweaver. I have to admit, it would be nice if you could also do this for the iOS SDK. However, you still need to download and install the iOS SDK manually and then go back to the same dialog box and point Dreamweaver to the location where you have installed the iOS SDK.

Once these SDKs are installed, you are ready to create mobile apps with HTML5, CSS3, jQuery mobile and JavaScript. You can use the jQuery Mobile's Touch-optimized layouts & UI widgets and with PhoneGap you can add mobile app multitouch, geolocation and accelerometer functionality. PhoneGap will also compile and package your app for testing on a device and submitting to app stores.

Live Testing and Safe FTP

Once your project is ready for testing, you can easily test from within Dreamweaver via the W3C Validation Service and Adobe's BrowserLab. If you are connected to the internet, you can test your code with W3C and view the result in Dreamweaver. Double-clicking on any errors will automatically take you directly to the problem code in the Code View window.

Dreamweaver now supports the new FTP variants FTPS and FTPeS for more secure data transfer. It's easy to setup the FTP protocol with your server from within Dreamweaver's Manage Sites dialog box.

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*Adobe provided a review copy to me free of charge.

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