Adobe announces a bunch of stuff… but I like the Web Suite the most!
Adobe announcement of an announcement today is the big unveiling of their CS3 product line. Since Photoshop CS3 beta appeared in December there has been a lot of talk about the changes in the Adobe line but my thing is the Creative Suite CS3 Web Edition. More specifically I am interested in Dreamweaver CS3 and Contribute CS3.
I have been using both on campus here for a while and I can say they are both very nice upgrades from the previous versions. Adobe highlights the features of Spry integration for Dreamweaver but I have to say the new CSS based layouts that come with it are going to be the #1 hit. The templates are just basic layouts that offer a designer/developer a sound starting point to build a web site. The code is just amazingly simple and full of comments so you can easily understand what is going on. It is sorta what the campus CLF here was supposed to be but with no real style just straight structure.
That is not to say the Spry features aren’t cool either. Adobe has come a long way since last May with Spry and I think Spry integration will offer a lot of people a stepping stone into the tricky world of DOM scripting and AJAX. Spry stuff should be used wisely mind you 
I am a bit worried that people might use it and not think about accessibility or usability but time will tell.
Contribute on the other hand… Version 4 was released what feels like just last month. This new version is a CS3 release and like all the other products is a universal binary for mac users. That along with the updated CS3 branding, blogging, integration with FLV, IE 7, Firefox, rendering improvements, and some other general clean up make the latest version of Contribute a lot more attractive to update from version 3.
I am really excited about these updated tools. It should be interesting to hear what other people think once the try copies are available for download (no idea when that will be).