Dreamweaver CS5 just popped its head out of the box and dropped a jewel on web designers. Content Management System support and better WordPress compatibility. Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 software empowers designers and developers to build standards-based websites with confidence. Design visually or directly in code, develop pages with content management systems, and accurately test browser compatibility thanks to integration with Adobe BrowserLab, a new Adobe CS Live online service. Here’s a look at some of the cool new stuff:

Integrated CMS support

Enjoy authoring and testing support for content management system frameworks like WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal.

 

CSS inspection

Visually display the CSS box model in detail, and easily toggle CSS properties without reading code or needing to use a separate utility.

 

Integration with Adobe BrowserLab
Preview dynamic web pages and local content with multiple viewing, diagnostic, and comparison tools.

 

PHP custom class code hinting
Display proper syntax for custom PHP functions to help you write code more accurately.

 

Integration with Business Catalyst
Leverage integration between Dreamweaver and the Adobe Business Catalyst® service (available separately) to deliver powerful online businesses without programming.

 

Maintain consistency across media
Insert any native Adobe Photoshop® or Illustrator file® in Dreamweaver to create an image Smart Object. Make changes to the source image, and then update your image quickly and easily.

 

Subversion support (enhanced)
Manage site files more effectively in collaborative, version-controlled environments with enhanced support for Subversion® software.

 

Site-specific code hinting
Benefit from code hinting on nonstandard files and directories in Dreamweaver.

Working with CSS has its rewards. If you dig deep enough, you’ll find some amazing techniques. These two are right up there. Here’s a video showing how easy it is to create drop shadows on text, and background boxes with rounded corners. All without using Photoshop, Fireworks or any image editing software.

Learn from the pros!

Smashing Magazine contributor Chris Hanscom from Veign.com has created a “quick reference card” for CSS 3. You can use this handy cheat sheet to use the new CSS 3 features in some modern browsers (Firefox 3.5, Opera 9.6, Safari 3+, Google Chrome and Co.).Hop on over to this page and download the PDF.

I thought this post would be helpful to some of you who still struggle with css and how it differs from html & xhtml. It’s really not that different. Here’s a short video I made for my students to help them remember how to construct a CSS tag.

The CSS Syntax from Sam Grant on Vimeo.

COMING SOON: THE CSS SELECTORS

A List Apart contributor Joe Clark believes it’s time we came to grips with the fact that not every “document” can be a “web page.” Some forms of writing just cannot be expressed in HTML—or they need to be bent and distorted to do so. But for once, XML might actually help. Check out his entire article here.

by Spencer Spellman

Decided to give Spencer Spellman over at Tutorial Blog a piece of the action from here, folks. If you’re into WordPress, and you want some Plug-In tips, here are FIVE from Spence.

If you haven’t been following this little phenomenom since the intro of CSS3, you’re really missing something. This little tag has become the blessing of several end users and the curse of many type developers. If you want to get up to speed on what’s going on with this tag, hop on over to the Mozilla Development Center, then bounce over to I Love Typography to get an update. Now, if you’re too impatient to go through those well written sites, here’s what’s going on:

Almost every “structural limit” in web design has been conquered with CSS and Javascript. The final, lingering pet peeve I held on to was web fonts. There was no flexibility allowed outside of the standard browser fonts. The @font-face tag has changed that. However, it doesn’t arrive  without an odor of controversy.

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