Adobe adds functionality beyond your harddrive
Posted by Lindsayanng on September 1st, 2009I just got an email announcing Adobe’s new “hosted services” At first I was thinking, “Lovely, Adobe is hopping on the hosting bandwagon. What’s next, Adobe ready made websites reminiscent of GoDaddy’s Website Tonight feature?” But alas, I was wrong..
This is not hosting for your websites, but instead it is web hosted features for you to add to your design arsenal along with your local Adobe Products. There are two new feature/services that work seamlessly with Dreamweaver to allow you to offer your web design clients complete control over their content, and give you, the developer, a tool that can save you hours of time testing your websites in different browsers.
Adobe Incontext Editing (click on Online Services) is probably one of the most revolutional things to come out of Adobe in ages. We all know that Adobe is great at what they do, but they have been doing the same thing for so long that we kind of forget that Adobe is still there, trying to continue to revolutionize the way we, as developers, view the web.
InContext Editing is Adobe’s response to the boom of CMS users. Web designers are heeling to the needs of their client’s control issues, and most are utilizing basic CMS (Content Management Systems) to build a creative and unique website while still allowing the client the ability to easily add content and change the basic appearance. My assumption is that with this boom of CMS, less people are using Dreamweaver and more are using freeware text editors.
Dreamweaver is an amazing tool for starting a website from scratch, but if you do not know a little bit of coding and a lot about standards, if you just let Dreamweaver code your website for you in WYSIWYG mode, you will end up with a tangled knot of code and content. Dreamweaver does what is function, but not what is “right” and most of the times, it’s great of getting started, but then you have to head in and clean up what they did. Thus the turn to CMS (like wordpress). CMS already have a coding base, there is already a main structure which you can build upon and change, and the massive amounts of free templates out there, if a web designer wants to create a quick basic website, all they need is a skeleton template and they are more than halfway there! But enough about CMS, I am not here to tell you all about what a CMS can do for you.
I am here to talk about Adobe’s respone to the CMS craze. InContext Editor allows web designers to design a website from scratch using Dreamweaver, but it also allows the client to edit their websites from their own browsers similar to that of WordPress. The developer can design a website and give it editable “Hot Spots” These “hot spot” will work similar to that of the FCK editor that we are all familiar with, or TinyMCE. When a developer is done designing their website, they create the editable regions and then add the website to thier InContext account. Now, it is important for me to mention that although the preview is free, there will likely be a monthly charge of $10-$20 to use this service. I am not entirely sure how I feel about this, I would rather pay a one time fee and get some sort of “plugin” for Dreamweaver, but that is where they are not.
InContext will allow the web developer to invite users and grant them access to different web pages and sites. You, as a developer, can control the permissions of each user in order to limit the type of editing each person can do. Users can upload pictures using the build in “behind the scenes” FTP connection that you would have set up when you added your site. They can also change fonts and other styles that you define when coding the website. You can strictly limit the extent of which the CSS style sheets can be edited, or you can leave them completely open for the user to do what they will with it.
InContext’s user interface is extremely easy to use, and very “newbie friendly” There is very little training, if any, that will need to be done in order to show your “users” how to use this feature. Its very self explanatory, which I believe it needed to be in order to compete with the likes of WordPress and Blogger.
The other new feature that was announced in the email was the “Browser Lab” Now, I was a lot more excited about this before I found out that you had to pay for this service, but none the less, it is really cool. Browser Lab is what is sounds like. It’s quick and easy UI makes for a smooth experience, unlike the browser checker over at browsershots.org. I have used Browser Shots since I started web designing, and I honestly do not think that I will ever pay for this feature, but I am sure that accessability and smoothness will appeal to some and it could be worth spending the money to have access to this at all time. The onion skinning of the various shots along with the ability to organize the shots side by side or full screen view make this feature a little bit more appealing than the free Browser Shots.
I am going to continue to play with these features since I now have a free trial account, and i will definitely report back with any findings and my overall experience.
Have you used any of Adobe’s Online Products? What do you think of them? Anything you could do with out or couldn’t live without? I want to know!
Want to know who is offering this awesome content? Here it is! Someone who is relatively new to web design. I am new enough to still remember how absolutely frustrating it was to try and get anything done in this field, but have also been around long enough to be able to help those that are where I was a year ago.
Aside from web design, I run the office of my dad's engineering business, and do book keeping by trade.
I love my pets.. All 6 cats, 1 peg legged dogs, and 1 hedgehog. LOVE THEM!!
Oh yea, and my husband. He lets me chase my dreams and I let him do the same. We are happy people because of it. Read more from this author
