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GoLive 6
.0 Goes to the Enterprise”>
Adobe Systems Inc. has made steady improvements in its Web authoring tool, GoLive. Continuing this progress, Version 6.0 moves beyond being a useful tool for building Web sites with a lot of multimedia to become a full-fledged, enterprise-worthy Web development system with excellent group content management features and broad support for dynamic scripting languages.
Along with its previous support for ASP (Active Server Pages), GoLive 6.0 also supports JSP (JavaServer Pages) and PHP, and the inclusion of a development server with support for JSP and PHP makes it easier than ever for site authors to quickly set up test development systems.
All in all, eWeek Labs found the $399 GoLive 6.0, which shipped last month, to be an excellent upgrade for those already using the authoring tool. It is also definitely worth a look for those using competing tools such as Macromedia Inc.s UltraDev. GoLive runs on Windows 98 through Windows XP and on Mac OS 9.1 through 10.1. eWeek Labs tested the Mac version on Mac OS 10.1 running on a Dual one Ghz Power Mac G4. The Windows version of Flash MX was tested on Windows XP running on a Pentium 3 system.
The Adobe Web Workgroup Server, which is bundled with GoLive 6.0, is one of the most welcome new features in the product. The Web Workgroup Server installs as an administrative staging server that manages content before it is published to the live server and provides many core content management features, including check-in/check-out, versioning, side-by-side document version comparisons and site rollbacks.
This server is especially valuable for sites that are mostly developer-driven but that still need content and project management features.
High-End Tooling
GoLive 6.0 will also be more attractive to high-level developers, given its added support for dynamic scripting languages. Using the tool, we easily built and edited files in ASP, JSP or PHP. Like Macromedias UltraDev, GoLive can attach to a server to provide a live view of the dynamic content.
A new wizard made it simple to set up this connection, and the bundled Apache, Tomcat, PHP and MySQL made it possible to quickly create a test system. In addition to the scripting languages, GoLive 6.0 has excellent support for XML and Extensible HTML.
Using the Page Generator, we could convert content that was created dynamically into standard static HTML. This can be extremely useful, especially for sites that want the management benefits of dynamic content but dont want to run a dynamic server on their live site. However, this feature was not very user-friendly. We could not simply export a site as HTML; instead, we had to create a file that listed every page to be converted.
Version 6.0 builds on one of GoLives main strengths—its excellent features for building multimedia content and integrating it into Web pages. Among the improvements here are support for interactive editing of QuickTime files and improved support for editing of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language content. In addition, Adobe has continued to more thoroughly integrate GoLive with other Adobe products such as LiveMotion, Photoshop and Illustrator.
GoLive 6.0 also includes a number of interface improvements that make it possible to extensively customize the user interface, which can still be very cluttered, especially for site authors who are more accustomed to less graphical, developer-oriented tools. We were also able to test content to see if it met government standards for accessibility.
East Coast Technical Director Jim Rapoza is at [email protected].
GoLive 6
.0″>
GoLive 6.0
|
USABILITY |
B |
|
CAPABILITY |
B |
|
PERFORMANCE |
B |
|
INTEROPERABILITY |
B |
|
MANAGEABILITY |
A |
By adding very good content management capabilities and well-integrated support for the top dynamic scripting languages to its GoLive upgrade, Adobe has made the updated product an excellent choice for Web site authors looking for a powerful, complete development environment.
SHORT-TERM BUSINESS IMPACT // GoLive can easily integrate into existing site infrastructures and immediately improves management and site content flexibility.
LONG-TERM BUSINESS IMPACT // Sites choosing to implement development tools with content management features, such as GoLive, can eventually get the best of flexible development and increased site manageability.
PROS // Excellent group content management features; broad support for dynamic scripting languages.
CONS // Interface can quickly become cluttered; Page Generator feature is overly complicated.
Adobe Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif.; (408) 536-6000; www.adobe.com