Re: Can DW CS3 be used together with Joomla or Moodle? : Macromedia Dreamweaver

Absolutely. I have been using DW with Joomla for the past 4 years (well, Mambo
at first) and for my money it is the best IDE for Joomla integrators (the guys
that don't write PHP full time) is out there.

My system is quite complex and you can go to my blog at:
http://conticreative.com/blogs/conti...omla-blog.html
to read more on how it works. I have an old article for DW8 where my method is
a bit rough around the edges and I am writing a new article that is going to
cover DW CS3 and 4.

Essentially, I force a Joomla template to became a plain HTML page by doing a
view source and saving it in a specific local directory in my DW site. First
you create a local site, save your files (especially the template folder) in it
and connect it to the remote files.
After you dsave the HTML source locally, you link the CSS to your actual local
CSS files in your active template and any changes you make will reflect on the
live site once you push the CSS files to the server.

Naturally, I have a 100 small tricks to make the process as fast as possible,
but the highlights are to install and use Firefox with some custom add-ons to
speed up source and css editing and customize your DW shortcuts to make
repetitive tasks faster to access.

You can also find a couple of DW extensions: one from media65.com and another
from I don;t recall who,m anymore that allow you to edit your templates even
more (as well as adding toolbar shortcuts.

What I like about my system is that while I use it for Joomla the most, works
just as well with Drupal, wordpress and any other template based script out
there. In any language.
I even use it to make PHP and HTML changes to the core files (or the overrides
in the case of J1.5) and it streamlines that process as well.

I am not finished with my updated tutorial I linked above, but I will be soon.
Check it out from time to time and I'll continue adding Joomla tips and tricks
as well.

Incidentally, since I figured out this system, I stopped developing "static"
websites all together. There is no reason for me to do support what I consider
an outdated and inflexible system.

I can build a world class Joomla website with a custom template in about 3/4
of the time it would take me for a corresponding static site. Since I maintain
a Joomla "Master" installation, creating a new empty site with all my best
add-ons installed takes me about 15 minutes with Cpanel/whm. After that it's
just a matter of placing a temporary template on so the client can enter their
text (or I do it for them) and in the meantime I design the template to their
specs.

Some folks claim that Joomla websites all look the same and give that as an
excuse for not using it. Bull. That's a reflection on some Joomla developers
not having the skills or the will to make sites that look different. I
specialize in building Joomla sites from any design that a client can come up
with. So far, I have not encountered a design I could not reprodue. The only
limitation I even encounter is the one all dynamically driven websites share:
the content can vary from page to page so it is not wise to build design
oriented websites that have any sort of fixed height. But even that can be
circumvented.

Good luck.