Macromedia Dreamweaver UltraDev 4 UltraDev 4 Has Got It All Together! Douglas Smith
What's New? We did a review about a year ago of a great new program by Macromedia called UltraDev 1, which allowed developers to design and create professional-looking web driven applications with ease. Well, a brand new release has just been developed that adds a lot more punch to an already nice piece of work. UltraDev 4 takes all of what made UltraDev so popular and makes it easier to use, and is a lot more powerful.
If you missed our article on UltraDev 1 before, lets try to recap what it is and how it works. UltraDev allows you to build database-driven Web applications quickly and easily, hand code Active Server Pages, JavaServer Pages and ColdFusion sites easily within an integrated Text Editor, and Customize your Web program to support different environments. Building complex Web driven applications used to be for the experienced developer; the slogan "Do Not Apply", was the applicable phrase for the rest of us!
Along with a redesigned interface come new enhancements in an attempt to make UltraDev much easier to use. New Automated features in UltraDev 4 are Remote Database Connectivity, User Authentication Server Behavior, Master/Detail, Database Editing, Recordset Navigation Bar and Recordset Statistics Live Objects, Layout View, Flash Text and Flash Buttons, Roundtrip Graphics Editing, and new Dream Templates. For you seasoned veterans that want to touch your code there are some new features like an Integrated Text Editor, Live Syntax Coloring, a new Split View, Visual SourceSafe Integration, WebDav Integration, Support for Non-HTML Files, and Code Navigation. Customized features for UltraDev 4 include a new Server Behavior Builder, JavaBean Support, Recorder Server Behaviors, Asset Management, Customizable Keyboard Live Objects, and a new Configurable Site Window. These major additions make the program that much more powerful.
The Good and the Bad Macromedia UltraDev 4 is a sound software package that can help you create, build and test just about any type of E-Commerce site that you fancy with added attention to database driven applications. You can quickly connect an existing static Web site to a database with total control over your source code. If you have ODBC, JDBC, or ADO databases, connection is no problem at all. You can import complete sites that were developed in other software and not damage a bit of your code, or integrate application development with the leading version control software through WebDAV protocol. We especially liked the ability to build up a mock site quickly and test database connectivity directly within the UltraDev environment without publishing to a server at all. Also, if you purchased the suite which comes with Fireworks 4, a graphics editing tool that allows great graphic editing, you can quickly accelerate your editing capabilities while launching and editing from within UltraDev 4. Binding data using the new JavaBean technology makes building enterprise ready JSP applications a snap. Something that really makes us smile is the new split view, allowing the developer to view source and WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") together in real time.
There are still some areas that we felt hinder the novice and can be a little confusing. When first started, UltraDev 4 pops up lots of windows that for a novice are a little hard to stomach. Without a good knowledge of Web development or without reading the documentation (as some of us tend not to do), a beginner can get lost. The manuals are written in an easy to follow method, but the tutorial lacked clarity on some features. An online tutorial that Macromedia recommends you print and follow just didn't cut it for us. If you are use to using other programs that basically do everything for you, and you don't really want to learn UltraDev 4 the old fashioned way, which is reading and running through the tutorial a few times, then this software may not be for you. But with our limited knowledge of Web development and a few romps through the tutorial, creating Web Applications was as easy to do as reinstalling a program, once you got the hang of it.
How Does It All Stack Up? UltraDev 4 is one of the strongest visual solutions to creating database-driven Web Applications that we have tested to date. Power should be its middle name because you can quickly create and test just about any type of Web based application. Even though a novice can use UltraDev 4 and create some interesting projects, Web Application Builders and Advanced Web Designers will really profit with this program, both in time saved and great development tools that come with it. The competition for UltraDev 4 would probably come from Allaire ColdFusion Studio, Microsoft Visual InterDev, and Adobe GoLive but all of these programs together do not match the features that come in this one great package. Major advantages using UltraDev are the ability to view Live Data, Multi-Server Design Environment, Server Behavior Library, Personalized Live Data, Clean Code, Roundtrip Server Markup, and Server Behavior Builder. In its class UltraDev 4 rises above the rest.
