As the title says?
It is just software. HTML and CSS are what make websites.
I’m not sure how that relates to my question?
Is Dreamweaver classed as industry standard when it comes to software for web design/development.
No. Dreamweaver is not an industry standard. IT IS JUST SOFTWARE.
HTML and CSS are industry standards.
Sorry, maybe you’re not understanding the question.
In terms of the software being used to create/develop websites, is dreamweaver industry standard, or is that some other software that people are using?
I recently had someone tell me I should be using Zend Studio as almost all developers are using it now, I wanted to see I can could find out if Dreamweaver is still the standard software to be used in the industry?
What logic_earth was trying to say is that it doesn’t matter what software you use to create HTML and CSS. Some people simply use notepad, or an advanced variant thereof.
Does “everyone” use Dreamweaver? No. Do most? That’s debatable. Do at least some? Certainly.
Zend Studio is geared towards PHP, not basic HTML/CSS. Dreamweaver and Zend Studio are in different classes of tools.
Is development with Zend Studio a standard? One of a handful, yes. It’s not the standard by which all things PHP are measured by, however.
What happens when you’re working on websites that make use of PHP and are also very graphical?
In the past I tried using Zend studio, and when it came to building PHP classes and developing the bulk of a sites logic, it was excellent, however when it came to making changes to HTML/CSS I found it way more difficult to use that Dreamweaver (it didn’t have a design view for one thing which helps). I found myself having to switch between both tools.
With Dreamweaver I find it’s excellent for HTML/CSS, giving you at least a half decent impression of what the site will look like and whether or not your styles have been applied correctly, and it’s also more than capable in terms of developing using PHP.
This may be my own impression, and maybe the wrong one, but I’ve found that things like Zend studio are only great if you’re not really touching the HTML/CSS.
Everyone I know uses Dreamweaver, however speaking to another developer he was saying that everyone he knows uses Zend studio (or similar).
You can use PHP or any other common server-side language within dreameaver, but it won’t offer things like autocomplete, syntax highlighting, and anything else found in a proper IDE for server-side languages.
Your best option for getting an idea of what your design looks like is to open the page in the browsers you’re testing them in, and not rely on dreamweaver’s design view. Each browser engine can render a page slightly differently, and dreamweaver’s engine is still different than that of firefox, IE, safari, etc.
So, if you will be both designing a page and programming a page, you will mostly likely be working with two sets of tools. One for the client side, and one for the server side.
From my experience, some professionals prefer to code pages by hand and look down on people who use Dreamweaver. Others however see it as a tool which has a great code view (self-finishing tags are rather nice). I’d say that so long as you don’t rely on it too much and treat it like a WYSIWYG editor you should be fine.
Yeh this is what I don’t get. I’ve been a developer now for over 14 years and I’ve always used dreamweaver. I don’t really do much in design view itself other than use it to add tables and merge cells because it makes it so much easier than typing them all up yourself.
So far I’ve been doing all of my PHP work in Dreamweaver, and the latest version has better support for tags so it really does try to help you. It doesn’t go as far as things like Zend Studio which can tell you which classes are in your project etc, but Dreamweaver has been perfectly capable.
However, over the last few days I’ve started to give Aptana a try, and I’m finding it very good for coding, just no so great for HTML (tables for example), but I really like the SVN plugin as well, which is way better than the svn support in dreamweaver which I find very slow and buggy.
A few weeks ago I was helping out a new “developer” who was using Dreamweaver. Alright, fine w/e. Upon instructing him to comment out a line of CSS for debugging purposes a search for the “comment tag” began. That made my day. Dreamweaver… I won’t even get started.
In all fairness, that’s not really the fault of dreamweaver though is it? I’ve been developing sites for 14 year, I’ve always used Dreamweaver and I know how to comment out files.
I believe dreamweaver is a great tool, but like any tool, it’s got to be used correctly.
The original question here sounds a bit like asking “Which is the industry standard car?” What does that mean? Cars are basically for getting you from A to B, whether it be a BMW or a VW Beetle. What matters is the standard of the websites you are creating, and the tool for creating them is totally irrelevant. Some may have better features than others, but that’s for your convenience. Nobody cares whether to get to work in a comfy sports car or some clapped-out old rust bucket. The important thing is the work you produce. I’m just as happy using TextEdit/Notepad as Dreamweaver. All of the code I produce (HTML, CSS, JS, PHP) looks exactly the same no matter which editor is used … unless you let the editor insert its own code—which is anything but an industry standard. 
I think by industry standard, what I meant was as a develop what tool would you be expected to use if you went to work for a company?
Many different trades have software that is classed as industry standard, even though the same task might be able to be completed using another tool.
If I wanted to create some graphics, Photoshop would be the industry standard, but I’d probably be able to do the same task in Gimp. If I was an accountant I’d expect excel to be industry standard, but I can do the same tasks using open office.
So what you are really asking is “what’s trendy in business”. I guess if employers are looking for someone proficient in Dreamweaver it would be handy to say that you are, although it kind of shows that the employer doesn’t really know much about web design. Perhaps the best way to answer the question is to look through job ads to see if there is a code editor that features more than others. But to be honest, I can’t remember seeing a code editor specified in job ads. Often Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash etc show up, but I guess they have a more specific function. In terms of web skills, I tend to see CSS, JavaScript, PHP and other such languages specified, rather than a code editor you use them with.
Dreamweaver is the choice of many who look for a WYSIWYG editor. Many designers code their layouts in notepad or other simple programs, so they don’t need Dreamweaver. I’ve stopped using it 5 years ago, when I started coding div only layouts. So, it’s not a standard, some might say it just bloats the code with useless things. Others would rather use the money for something better, since they can do their layouts independently from DW.
Dreamweaver like all WYSIWYG editors promotes ignorance and laziness. So yes I do believe Dreamweaver promotes practices reflecting those qualities.
The tool is built and promoted to produce sites improperly, cutting as many corners as possible – that is the problem.
Good for you
There is also another great tool, Aptana is free and fast
After reading some of the comments, made me think. When first starting I did all my coding in Notepad. Then because of time tried out Dreamweaver and NetBeans. Like NetBeans for PHP work, but not basic sites. With Dreamweaver I’ve found that I code faster and quicker. With some of the automatic checking ability and design view, I can check and see my results faster. So I charge a little more per hour and save some time, works for me.
That’s not very reliable, though. Better to check in a range of browsers.