Macromedia ships MX product line for OS X

Macromedia Inc. announced today that its recently previewed line of MX products is now shipping. The MX line includes Macromedia Studio MX, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia ColdFusion MX and Macromedia Fireworks MX.

Unveiled on April 29, 2002, Macromedia’s MX products contain many new features, as well as Mac OS X compatibility. In expanding the features of Dreamweaver, Macromedia has taken pieces of its other applications and integrated them into Dreamweaver MX. While the layout of Dreamweaver remains the same and will be familiar to longtime users, Macromedia has added the web application development features of both Dreamweaver UltraDev and ColdFusion Studio, and the code editing support of HomeSite — only available as part of the company’s Windows only application before this release.

Dreamweaver MX allows development of HTML, XHTML, ColdFusion, ASP, ASP.NET, JSP or PHP websites. The application enables control over code and design with layout tools as well as coding features like code hints, tag editors, extensible color coding, tag choosers, snippets and code validation. The new integrated workspace, shared with Macromedia Flash MX and Fireworks MX, includes dockable panel groups, customizable toolbars and integrated file browsing. Dreamweaver MX also includes pre-built layouts and code, including site structures, forms, accessible templates and JavaScript functions for client-side interactivity.

“Dreamweaver MX is a tremendous new release, especially for the Mac community,” Macromedia Vice President Adam Berry, told MacCentral. “We’ve taken the core Dreamweaver visual design capabilities and have extended that functionality by adding very robust support for editing and hand coding, and for application development.”

When Dreamweaver was announced in April, the company had a preview version available for download — a Macromedia spokesperson told MacCentral that over 530,000 copies of the preview release have been downloaded.

The new version of Fireworks simplifies navigation creation with easier pop-up menu creation and even more control, according to Kevin Lynch, chief software architect at Macromedia. Users can deliver both horizontal and vertical JavaScript pop-up menus that work with tabbed button bar appearances and other creative layouts, and all pop-up menu attributes are customizable including spacing, borders and color shading. Wizards enable users to create sophisticated Web navigation by automatically generating the graphics and JavaScript, Lynch said.

Fireworks MX will work with all major graphics formats and HTML editors. Users can share files across graphics applications, including Macromedia Flash and FreeHand, as well as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. You can create vector graphics for Flash, export SWF files and open graphics directly from within Flash. Plus, you can open, edit and export Photoshop graphics while retaining layers, masks and text properties.

Macromedia Studio MX includes Macromedia Dreamweaver MX; Macromedia Flash MX, which shipped on March 4; Macromedia Fireworks MX; Macromedia FreeHand 10; and a developer edition of Macromedia ColdFusionb MX Server. The studio, with introductory pricing of US$799, is available for immediate purchase from the Macromedia Online Store.

Priced at $399, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX is available from Macromedia’s online store. Upgrades from previous versions of Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver UltraDev and ColdFusion Studio are $199. Dreamweaver MX will be available for the French and German in June; and Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Swedish, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish in July.

Dreamweaver MX will require a Power Mac G3 or better; Mac OS 9.1 or higher, or Mac OS X 10.1 or higher; Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer 4.0 or later; 96MB of RAM (128MB recommended); 275MB available disk space; 256 color monitor capable of 800 x 600 resolution (1024 x 768, millions of colors recommended)

Macromedia Fireworks MX, priced at $299, is also available from Macromedia’s online store. Upgrades from previous versions of Fireworks are $149. Fireworks MX will be available in French and German in June; and Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Swedish, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish in July.

System requirements for Fireworks MX call for a Power Macintosh G3 Processor; Mac OS 9.1 or higher, or OS X 10.1 and higher; 64MB of free available system RAM (128MB recommended); 800 x 600, 8-bit (256 colors) color display or better; 80 MB of available disk space; Adobe Type Manager Version 4 or later for use with Type 1 fonts (OS 9.x); and a CD-ROM drive.