Dreamweaver^R CS6 has been integrated with two popular online services. Most of us know that PhoneGap was acquired by Adobe and now it has been better integrated into the Dreamweaver workspace. Also added to the workspace is integration with Adobe's new Business Catalyst service.

PhoneGap Build

PhoneGap Build is an online service that is integrated into the Dreamweaver workspace which allows you to upload your app, which you have created in Dreamweaver, and in return you will get a store-ready app for your favorite app stores.

Google Android
WebOS
Symbian
BlackBerry
iOS

You already know how Dreamweaver can help you create your mobile app. Besides the page starters and prebuilt components, you also have the Live preview for testing your app in the Dreamweaver Resolution Switcher.

One of the biggest headaches in mobile app development, especially iOS apps, is the required developer certificates and profiles needed before you can test on an iOS device. Once you have your certificates and profiles, you still need to get thenm to work together with Xcode, iTunes and your iOS devices. Sounds like an easy task but it isn't. Every time iTurnes updates or you download an upgrade for Xcode, you run the risk that the certificates and profiles stop working. PhoneGap Build handles all this and stores the information with your app build.

Once your build is complete, you can download to your computer or device for testing. But one of the nicest features is the ability to share the build's URL with your client. The client can visit the URL, download the app and give you feedback for the next step in the development.

Adobe Business Catalyst

Adobe Business Catalyst service is a web hosting service that works hand-in-hand with Dreamweaver. Once you create an account, you can use Dreamweaver to create and publish your client's CMS websites to the Business Catalyst platform. The nicest feature is that you can manage all your clients sites from this one account.

If you are familiar with WordPress or WordPress.com, you will have an idea of how Business Catalyst works. You begin with a basic site framework and then add as many prebuilt modules (called plugins in WordPress) as your client may require.

Module Manager

The Module Manager panel is how you can add modules to your webpage. Once you choose the module, Dreamweaver will put a tag (called a shortcode in WordPress) into your code. Because your webpage/website is stored on the Adobe Business Catalyst server, the hosting server does all the work to display the module on the webpage. Below are some of the available modules.

Ad Rotators
Affiliate Programs
Announcements
Search
Social Media
Web Apps
Web Forms
Web Pages
FAQs
Comments
Sitemap
Email Campaigns
Photo Galleries
Online Store and Shopping Cart/Payment Gateway

You or your client can customize module with a user-friendly "dashboard" similar to WordPress. For example, the Announcements modules will display the latest announcement on the webpage. All the client needs to do is create the text for the announcement in a typical text editor in the dashboard. When the page loads into the browser, the announcement is displayed into the webpage in place of the code tag that Dreamweaver added into your page code. You can add as many modules as you wish to your page. However, I would assume too many modules will slow the page load.

*Adobe provided a copy of this software to me for review purposes.

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