Adobe's Creative Suite CS2 Hits the Shelves GoLive CS2 and Version Cue CS2 Scott Koegler
GoLive CS2
Adobe GoLive CS2 is Adobe's Web design package. It has been updated to include support for a growing number of Web technologies and viewing methods. Web designers building Web sites to be viewed on the small screens of PDAs and phones can take advantage of the SVG Tiny format with live previews rendered in simulated views of a variety of phone displays.
Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) technology has been available as a Web design methodology for some years. Updating CSS-based sites is simplified because one change in the base CSS design can update the entire site. However, creating complex CSS sites has been difficult, even for seasoned professional designers. GoLive CS2's Visual CSS authoring provides a set of pre-built elements that can be dragged and dropped into GoLive CS2's CSS design pages and modified from there to meet the specific needs of the Web site.
We created a 3-column blog page using the available tools in less than 10 minutes. What makes this unusual is the middle column is expandable while the right and left columns remain fixed in width, a trick that we didn't have the technical skills to pull off without this kind of help.
Version Cue CS2
Version Cue CS2 is specifically meant to coordinate multiple users working on the same document. It functions similarly to version control systems employed by teams of programmers, where files are checked in and out of a central library. This function will be significant to professional work groups, but lost on solitary workers. However, it's another foot in the door of the large publishing empires that have relied on the (until now) singular publishing workflow environment of QuarkXPress.
Adobe Creative Suite CS2 Premium Edition sells for $1,199 and the Standard Edition is available for $899. Upgrades start at $349 for Standard and $549 for the Premium edition. Adobe's packaged solutions like Creative Suite can be money-saving opportunities for buyers of multiple Adobe applications, as Photoshop by itself sells for $599 and InDesign sells for $699 individually.
One potential downside is that even experienced users are unlikely to use or even notice many of the new features and enhancements in this collection of top shelf software. Professionals accustomed to using certain features should spend some time with the documentation and examples to introduce themselves to the changes and new capabilities. Overall, Creative Suite CS2 sets a new benchmark in graphics design and image editing software suites in its breadth, depth, and simplification of its tools.
Pros: A power user's dream suite of design tools; well-integrated set of applications, with several complementary, useful tools like the Adobe Bridge; templates and context-sensitive assistance for help new users get acclimated to the powerful features and capabilities of the various apps
Cons: Price ($900-$1300) relegates it to professional use for the most part, power-packed with so many features that the learning curve for some of the CS2 apps can be relatively steep
