Dreamweaver for PHP? have customer pay for it?

[IHateMyJob2004]

I am doing some work for someone. He hinted that I should get Dreamweaver for development. In the past I used Programmer's Notepad for a small task I did for him.

I was going to try out Eclipse for PHP development.

Should I just get Dreamweaver? It's $400.

Should I request that he pay for it?

I am doing what I expect to be 100-150 hours of work for him at $60/hour. So I am going to make $6000+ probably. Should I just eat the $400 price tag of Dreamweaver? Our agreement did not include the cost of development tools. I already ate a $500 cost for a new laptop.

Thanks.

 

[Ka0t1x]

Dreamweaver will really do nothing for you, if you know what you're doing. For me, it actually slows me down.

 

[Snapster]

The only place Dreamweaver may have been useful would be if you were creating a plain html site and using the site template feature. Given that you are using php that is a moot point as it wont offer you many time saving features that you cannot get for free elsewhere. In your position I would probably use Eclipse.

 

[Ka0t1x]

If you have an OS X environment to use, give TextMate a try. I have and I've never gone back.

Actually I believe they have a windows version 'e'.
http://www.e-texteditor.com/ -- Check it out.

A few people at work use Eclipse and they like it, I'm sure its great too.

 

[sourceninja]

Dreamweaver offers no real useful features unless you are using templates and honestly if you were going that route it would be better to setup something like drupal or joomla.

Eclipse makes a nice PHP editor. The thing I can't stand is a lack of word wrap. I personally use textmate and coda on OSX.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Any tools that would be good for Windows? Free or at cost, either is fine.

I was starting to think that Dreamweaver would help you with things like Layout, etc. Is it kinda like a tool for peopel that don't know much about web development?

FWIW: I do mostly Java and know Eclipse inside and out. Id it just as powerful for PHP? With autocomplete and shortcuts, etc? Any good sites with PHP for Eclipse tutorials?

OK, another co-worker said Dreamweaver sucks (reading this over my shoulder).

 

[sourceninja]

When I was using windows for development I always used vi. I think the variant I used is http://cream.sourceforge.net/

I then switched to netbeans which worked pretty well, and finally settled on eclipse before my boss finally let me leave windows behind.

 

[Markbnj]

Any tools that would be good for Windows? Free or at cost, either is fine.

I was starting to think that Dreamweaver would help you with things like Layout, etc. Is it kinda like a tool for peopel that don't know much about web development?

FWIW: I do mostly Java and know Eclipse inside and out. Id it just as powerful for PHP? With autocomplete and shortcuts, etc? Any good sites with PHP for Eclipse tutorials?

OK, another co-worker said Dreamweaver sucks (reading this over my shoulder).

Dreamweaver was one of the earlier visual HTML designer/editors. It's meant to allow people who don't do markup, or who don't want to do markup, to create HTML page layouts. The problem is that most sites don't have many static HTML pages anymore. Page layouts are generated from server side script by merging static HTML, CSS styles, and generated markup. Dreamweaver probably still has value for completely static sites, or as a wireframing tool in design, but personally I have never liked the markup produced by any of the visual tools.

I'm not sure exactly what you want in terms of tools for windows, but as an editor it's hard to beat Visual Studio Express. There is an edition built around Visual Web Developer:

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/

It's free, and even if you don't want to use the visual editor you'll at least get a very good markup editor.

 

[sourceninja]

I don't believe VS Express does PHP. I am incorrect? The OP said he was doing PHP development. VS is the best choice if you were going the .NET route.

 

[GaryJohnson]

The only good thing about Dreamweaver is that Homesite+ comes with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_HomeSite

 

[Markbnj]

I don't believe VS Express does PHP. I am incorrect? The OP said he was doing PHP development. VS is the best choice if you were going the .NET route.

Ah good point, missed that.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Dreamweaver CS5 says it has code hinting for PHP.

http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/upgrade/?view=compare

 

[sourceninja]

Dreamweaver CS5 says it has code hinting for PHP.

http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/upgrade/?view=compare

Yea it does, it's also bloated and imho a poor text editor.

I have the full CS5 suite on my mac as I do need photoshop now and again and my employer simply bought us all the suite. I wouldn't use it unless I was forced. It's not a good IDE and it's not a good text editor.

Even a good quality text editor like editplus would be better.

 

[troytime]

i use komodo edit. it's free and has lots of features.

 

[drebo]

I like Dreamweaver because it integrates directly with my FTP server and I can edit files without having to download them first. Also being able to open multiple files in a tab format.

If another program gives those two things, I'd switch in a heartbeat, because Dreamweaver is bloated...but those are two things I can't live without.

 

[Cogman]

beyond notepad++, I don't really use anything for webpage editing. Generated HTML is crappy HTML. Dreamweaver, frontpage, and all their kin only generate crappy HTML.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I like Dreamweaver because it integrates directly with my FTP server and I can edit files without having to download them first. Also being able to open multiple files in a tab format.

If another program gives those two things, I'd switch in a heartbeat, because Dreamweaver is bloated...but those are two things I can't live without.

I think Eclipse with an FTP plugin and maybe ANT could do all of this.

 

[troytime]

I like Dreamweaver because it integrates directly with my FTP server and I can edit files without having to download them first. Also being able to open multiple files in a tab format.

If another program gives those two things, I'd switch in a heartbeat, because Dreamweaver is bloated...but those are two things I can't live without.

komodo edit does it
so does zend studio
and homesite

 

[Leros]

I don't think you should bill the customer for a tool unless its specific to their job (and either will never be used again or given to the customer afterward).