Talk:Macromedia HomeSite

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discussion begins.


Contents

[edit] features - advert flagging, rewrite discussion

The features section was flagged advert, so needs some rewriting. IMO these are the lines that would need the most work, or that seem to be more marketing-flavored. Suggestions for rewording welcomed. --jwilkinson 23:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

  • An efficient and effective user interface puts what you need where you can see and use it.

(True, but needs some kind of rewrite. suggestions? )


  • Enhanced code snippets save time by creating and saving reusable blocks of code, and can prompt for variable replacement when used.

(rephrase without the "save time" ?)


  • Very powerful search and replace

(Suggest a rewrite with some detail of the search and replace and/or extended search and replace functionality instead of saying "Very powerful")


Are there any others that seem to be adverts? IMO the rest are pretty factual and accurate. --jwilkinson 23:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] history - syntax highlighting

On 13:25, 10 September 2007, someone (user was an IP) removed the phrase "powerful syntax coloring" from the history of what Allaire added, explaining "Bradbury's original Homesite already had extensive syntax coloring before Allaire acquired the software. Allaire may have expanded it, but they did not add it."

While I recall that the pre-Allaire HomeSite had syntax highlighting, I believe it wasn't very powerful or customizable by the user, at least compared to what was added. It just had an options dialog of some areas that you could assign different colors. (different types of tags, text, script, etc?)

Allaire added the TSyntaxMemo scriptable syntax coloring, which is not only more powerful, but far more customizable. Users have written additional syntax highlighting add-ons for new languages in HomeSite. I think the TSyntaxMemo Parser was added around version 4.0. Does anyone recall?

I'd suggest we put back the text, perhaps modified to make it clear that Allaire improved the syntax highlighting and made it more customizable & extensible. Any thoughts or opinions on this suggested change? --jwilkinson 23:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] citation needed discussion

Currently this text has some citation needed flags:

While many software companies at the time had WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) website creation tools where the user never saw the code, Nick Bradbury created a product that was code centric and loved by those that preferred to work directly in the code,[citation needed] a concept that was dubbed "What You See Is What You Need."[citation needed]

Would it be more NPOV and considered more verified-verifiable to change 'loved' to 'popular'? Having been a user at the time, I can confirm that the statement is true with many I corresponded with in the forums, though those old forums are gone now, so I'm not sure what would count as an acceptable citation. Would a link to a product review that mentions its popularity with users suffice?


Secondly, on the "What You See Is What You Need." phrase, that was a marketing phrase used by Allaire to describe the interface, and to contrast it with WYSIWYG. What type of citation would be sufficient to validate that? (We'd only have to validate that HS was dubbed that, not that the WYSIWYN is true) A simple google on WYSIWYN and HomeSite finds a number of reviews and copies of Allaire's marketing blurb mentioning this. Some listed below. --jwilkinson 23:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)


I noticed that the following sentences have citation requests listed: "Some dedicated HomeSite users have criticized Macromedia for neglecting the tool in favor of the more expensive Dreamweaver editor. Now that Adobe has bought Macromedia (2006), its future has been questioned even more."

I didn't write those sentences, and I can agree on the need to add citations or remove them. That may be difficult unless someone can find published articles discussing the issue. Much of the criticism and discussion along those lines (that I saw) occurred in the HomeSite support forums, and may not even be visible in the forum archives.

And, while the sentences are true and accurate, it may be counter-productive to include them. So, should they be removed? --jwilkinson 22:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Removed the sentences in question. --jwilkinson 19:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add an Infobox?

Macromedia HomeSite
Developed by Adobe Systems
Latest release 5.5 / 9/2003
OS Windows Vista
Windows XP
Windows 2000
Windows NT
Windows Server 2003
Windows 98SE
Genre HTML editor
License Proprietary
Website Adobe.com

Should the HomeSite page have a software Infobox? (presumably using Template:Infobox_Software) What determines what software uses an Infobox?

Here's a start, we can copy it to the main page if/when ready. Feel free to add logo and screenshot images if desired. --jwilkinson 01:10, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

A few changes:

  • Clarified OS's. Microsoft Windows is a brand that includes numerous operating systems and Homesite is not compatible with all of them.
  • Fixed "Genre" link
  • Changed website so that you can more information than just "[1]".

I'll see about getting a logo and caption later. Koweja 20:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Logo and screen shots are added. I'm going to move it to the main page. If there is anything to debate it can be pulled temporarily. Koweja 23:06, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for putting that together. Can we get a better screenshot though? Perhaps one with a page of code in it so the syntax highlighting is more obvious? And with a larger version so users can zoom in and actually see something? The max size of that one is still too small to be clear on the interface details. I'd grab and upload one but I've never done the media like this before. jwilkinson 02:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I removed the image lines from the infobox copy here... they were replaced by a bot for use outside an article anyway. --jwilkinson 22:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Should we also mention Windows NT? jwilkinson 02:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Sure, a larger one with code would be great; I was just being lazy at the time. If you can get one, that would be great. Just open up the program so it shows what you want, hold Alt and hit Print Screen. Then open up a graphics editor (MS Paint will work fine). Paste it and save it as a PNG. Go here to upload a new version of the file. And you're done.
Oddly the infobox images here seem to have been removed, flagged as non-free, though those linked on the actual article are still there. I don't know what is going on there. Fixes welcomed. --jwilkinson 19:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I can do one in a week or two as my computer has to be fixed first. I'm not sure why I made it so small, it seemed like a good idea at the time. As for Windows NT, is there anything to mention about it? Acording to Adobe's system requirements it isn't compatible (I haven't tried it myself). Koweja 03:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
It runs fine on WinNT, Win2K, etc. (don't know about Vista yet). --jwilkinson 07:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
BTW, HomeSite runs on Vista too, though some rights need to be set up correctly. Hopefully Adobe folk will write a support technote on it soon. HS support forum threads document the details for now. --jwilkinson 19:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] link addition question - asp4hs

I made some updates to this Macromedia HomeSite page, as one of the volunteers who help support HomeSite users. Hopefully my edits maintain the style and objectivity of the content.

I had added a link to part of my own site, but now I'm not sure if that's ok. I'm a wikipedia newbie, and just came across the policies on external links which say not to add links to a site you own, but to suggest it in the talk.

I had added the following to External Links.

ASP4HS, ASP, PHP, .Net, XML, XSL, SQL development extensions for HomeSite, user community add-on repository

I also added a specific link within the feature text, mentioning that "Syntax-coloring parser syntax and examples are available to help users to extend or write their own." and linking to my own site's page where that information is posted. Since Macromedia doesn't offer one place with all this information I'd suggest this is a useful link.

I'll leave it up to you all whether to leave these in or remove it.

I would say that my site is free and non-commercial and this portion is all about HomeSite. I run it as a non-Macromedia volunteer, and that I offer a lot of information on using HomeSite, as well as a repository place for a great many user-created extensions to HomeSite. My site is one of the only current *active* HomeSite user sites. If that's not worth linking to, I'm not sure what is.

Thanks for considering and for guiding me in wikipedia ettiquette. jeff wilkinson, jwilkinson 20:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HomeSite+ and ColdFusion Studio

It's nice to know that there are others out there who also have a place in their hearts for HomeSite. In so many ways, it seems to me to be the quintessential web development tool. Consider how many years have gone by since there's been active development on HomeSite, yet its features are current-- XHTML support, CSS support, Validation, etc.-- all of these features were available in an editor which was given to us before it's time. One might wonder how HomeSite might have continued to help pave the way for the Web Standards that we follow today, and how it would likely lead us into tomorrow-- how an enhanced development tool might develop with the Hand Coder in mind, not a WYSIWYG software user. At least we have each other's support, and the custom add-on's made by the HomeSite community to keep us smiling for many years to come.

Well said. HomeSite is definitely still a useful and powerful tool, mainly because of all that ability to let users customize and extend it in so many ways. Heck, I've recently received new user-written HS extensions to provide support for XSLT, XML, Python and even Ruby and Ruby-on-Rail. I'm still hopeful that Adobe will realize the potential and will pick up the ball on HomeSite's future where Macromedia mostly dropped it (though users may have to push them a bit). --jwilkinson 21:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

In the Versions section of the article, it is mentioned that HomeSite+ is generally comparable to a 'version of HomeSite called ColdFusion Studio'. So, ColdFusion Studio is in fact a HomeSite version? I'd like to see that part be made more clear.

Yes, that's right. CF Studio was always a version of HomeSite that had extra features to provide some powerful support for ColdFusion development. That got renamed and sort of merged in with DWMX. I don't think they still sell a separate product that just has HomeSite and the extra CF support. Did you see the item, FAQ: What is HomeSite+? How is it different from HomeSite? (that's my version) --jwilkinson 21:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I was going to make a comment about the ColdFusion affinity which HomeSite seems to bear, yet it is not emphasized in the Article. While I appreciate the purist viewpoint on the matter, I was not introduced to HomeSite until it was an MM product, yet i don't recall it being referenced in my first studies of ColdFusion (but perhaps it was overlooked for my, then naive, sensitivity to text on DreamWeaver), however after i started reading some of the more advanced ColdFusion articles, there is a lot of talk about HomeSite as being the preferred editor for use with cfml. As a HomeSite+ user, I must remark that all signs seem to point toward ColdFusion (especially HomeSite+ which instead of simply asking for servermappings, it asks for the location of the ColdFusion server!)-- as if perhaps it was to be a hand-in-hand marketing campaign until DW integrated the ColdFusion functionality, and with the advent of cmfx, seemed to take over.

To add a little detail to the history... As I understand it, when Allaire bought HomeSite, it was specifically so that they could extend it into a development tool for CF. They kept selling the standalone version that wasn't so CF-centric, but the main reason for the purchase was so they could have that tool. Keep in mind that ColdFusion was competing with Microsoft's ASP/etc, which had their own development tools. Allaire certainly couldn't rely on Microsoft adding CF support to FrontPage, MS Studio, etc. And just to clarify, HomeSite (standalone) isn't tied too strongly to CF though, and works well with ASP, PHP, .Net and other languages. --jwilkinson 21:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, although other software developers have tried, there is no better match to ColdFusion development than HomeSite+.

[edit] Unicode support

Is there any possibility for the proper Unicode(UTF-8) support by HS 5.5/+ ?

It has been a problem in HS 5.5. You might see HomeSite TechNote: Unicode issues in HomeSite/HomeSite+ 5.5
Hope this helps. jwilkinson 21:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)