Forums | MacLife

I've found that Dreamweaver is a dog on a 1GHz G4 Mac.  Mind you, I'm a text editor guy so I have no patience.  DW isn't exactly great on Windows either, but it seems to run faster on a Windows machine in my experience.  Perhaps it's because the Windows machine I was using for a stint was 2GHz or so.   I should also probably add that I have tried DW on both platforms and while I really like having the O'Reilly references built-in, I much prefer to use text editors on both platforms because I'm not a patient man.

Photoshop is the opposite.  PS feels sluggish on a PC but pretty snappy on a Mac.  And the PC had a much higher clock speed.  I don't know what it is, but PS (and Illustrator) felt slow and clunky on Windows. 

I have no considerable experience with Fireworks, but the few times I've used it, it seems fine on a Mac.  (My typical operations in FW involve saving png files that were otherwise prepared in PS.)

I run DW MX on a 6 year old Dual 500 G4 with no problems. I have stop using it for the bulk of my work in the last few years though because I just use a text editor and FTP client now.

Thanks to all for your input.  I will be receiving the new CS3 versions of DW, FW & PS soon so I will be able to see how they perform on my 3 year old PC with 1 GB RAM.

I get a new computer every 3 years or so. When I do it it is usually latest technology (but not bleeding edge).  So I suspect I will be looking at an iMac 20" or so.

My next PC was going to have 2GB RAM. I am sure that I would also get 2GB RAM on a Mac.

Apple RAM prices are a bit steep. If I were to get an iMac should I have Apple load it up with RAM or get the minimum & buy additional thrid party RAM?

Thanks JustG,

but if you're planning to get a Mac Pro, replacing/adding HDD/RAM to that system is ridiculously simple, and I would highly recommend getting the minimum from Apple and shopping at Newegg or OWC for your upgrades.

You answered an important question before I had a chance to ask. I noticed that RAM prices are high. So a minimumly configured Pac Pro might be the way to go.

I do have a NICE 21" Trinitron monitor on my current Dell PC. Can I assume that Mac drivers are out there somewhere so I could use this monitor? 

In fact that is one question I have had:  Do Macs have "plug & play" ability like the PC's or do you have to search/hope that hardware drivers are available for download?

The only thing I'll add to chipper's response is that I'm actually using a 21" CRT with my Mac Pro as well, with no problems. It's the NEC MultiSync FE2111SB. My Mac Pro came with a VGA-to-DVI adapter in the box, so I was able to easily hook up my monitor. Works a treat.

Hope that helps.

I might add that the Mac Pros have the ability for dual monitors right out of the box (well, except you might have to get another cable). I was spoiled the minute I added a second monitor (which is especially nice for DW).

If you have one of the Intel iMacs (can't say with the G5 model) you need a Mini-DVI to VGA adaptor. I checked the specs on the iMac here:

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

And more specifically, here:

http://www.apple.com/imac/graphics.html

(Check the bottom of the page) - it looks like you just need to by the adaptor.

Severl of you mentioned that you use a text editor for development.

What is a good HTML/CSS editor for the Mac?

Sonoran wrote:

Severl of you mentioned that you use a text editor for development.

What is a good HTML/CSS editor for the Mac?

Textmate
SubEthaEdit
Coda
BBEdit
TextWrangler

TextEdit <-- in your Applications folder

skEdit. $25 license with lifetime upgrades. Registration entitles you to test the beta, if that's your cuppa. Awesome, because v4.0 beta truly rocks (it's a complete overhaul).

Hmmm....

I have been playing with DW CS3, and I really haven't noticed much different about it.  The interface is the exactly the same.  There are some new .js widgets in the insert panel, and they use the "Spry" framework.  Nothing impressive.   

It is still very sluggish.  Resizing the work window has a very visible slow redraw.  (MacBookPro with 2GB and DW and Safari are the only things running.)  It should perform much better than that. 

It is almost twice the size though.  The last version is only 190mb vs 366mb.  (though that may be because of the UB)

I was really hoping it would get an Adobe interface makeover.  Maybe in the next version.

Sigh...

The demos are available now.  Just downloaded FWCS3 (the one I have been waiting for).  Huge freaking disappointment.

Couple of new features, nothing major, though the 9-slice scaling is nice.  Nested folders are slick. (haven't spent a lot of time with it, so there may be some stuff I have missed). 

A couple of UI fixes that I have found so far (pallets resize when closing stacked pallets, which is very helpful).  But also some new ui bugs.  The form fields in the auto shape box appear to be invisible... works fine, just can't see the fields.  Still can't use mouse wheel in the layers pallet... grr....

Still craps out with huge files.  Granted, it isn't designed for that.  But I like the drawing interface in FW over AI, so I use it for all vector illustration, and often I will scale it up for hires output.  I know it isn't designed for that, but it would be nice if it could handle big images.

But mainly, there is no noticeable speed boost!?!?!  It has gone UB, so it is not running in Rosetta any more.  In PS, the performance difference is instantly apparent.  Seems the same in FW. 

And that alone sucks because the app is now huge to accommodate both binaries and as with all Adobe apps it now install a smurfload of stuff I never need or use.  The installer (just FW, not a bundle version), said it requires 1.1gb of disk space!  As opposed to the 300ish with the last version.   And it didn't give me an option to deselect crap.