Download Dreamweaver CS4 beta at Adobe Labs

UPDATE: Adobe has announced September 23, 2008, as the date of the official unveiling of Creative Suite 4. They will announce the actual release dates of the Suite at that time. You can register for a special web broadcast of the announcement and Creative Suite 4 features at Adobe.com.

Adobe Labs has just released beta versions of both Dreamweaver CS4 and Fireworks CS4. The beta versions can be used for two days unless you provide a valid CS3 serial number which will extend the beta until the final release date.

New features of Dreamweaver CS4

Live View

View your web pages under real-world browser conditions with the new Live View in Dreamweaver — while still retaining direct access to the code. The new rendering mode, which uses the open source rendering engine WebKit, displays your designs like a standards-based browser.

Related Files

Manage the various files that make up the modern web page more efficiently in Dreamweaver. The Related Files feature displays all the documents associated with your current page, whether CSS, JavaScript, PHP, or XML, in a bar along the top of your document.

Code Navigator

The new Code Navigator pop-up window shows you all the code sources that affect your current selection. A click in either Code or Design view brings up the Code Navigator pop-up, which displays CSS rules, server-side includes, external JavaScript functions, Dreamweaver templates, Library files, iframe source files, and more.

CSS best practices

The Property inspector’s new CSS tab shows the styles for the current selection as well as all the applicable CSS rules. Hover over any property to view a tool tip with jargon-free English explanations of CSS principles. New CSS rules can be created and applied in the Property inspector panel and stored in the same document or an external style sheet.

Code hinting for Ajax and JavaScript frameworks

Write JavaScript more quickly and accurately with improved support for JavaScript core objects and primitive data types. Work with popular JavaScript frameworks including jQuery, Prototype, and Spry.

HTML data sets

With HTML data sets functionality, you can create your data in a standard HTML table, a series of div tags, or even an unordered list and then choose Insert > Spry > Spry Data Set to integrate that data into a dynamic table on the page with sortable columns, a master-detail layout, or other sophisticated displays.

Photoshop Smart Objects

Photoshop and Dreamweaver integration has evolved to the next level of compatibility and functionality. Drag and drop an Adobe Photoshop® PSD file into a Dreamweaver page to create an image Smart Object.

Subversion integration

Dreamweaver integrates Subversion software for a more robust check-in/check-out experience with file versioning, rollback, and more. Once you’ve defined Subversion as your version control system, you can update your site to get the latest versions of its pages directly from within Dreamweaver; no third-party utility or command-line interface is required.

Adobe® AIR™ authoring support

Create multiplatform desktop applications from your Dreamweaver HTML and JavaScript sites with new Adobe AIR™ authoring support.

New user interface

Work faster and smarter across Dreamweaver and other components of the next version of Adobe Creative Suite® thanks to a new level of integration and common user interface elements.