Dreamweaver MX 2004 has vast improvements in the way it deals with more complex code like tables and with state-of-the-art design methods like CSS-driven design. To start with tables, there's a spectacular improvement to be noticed in the way Dreamweaver deals with tables. First of all, setting up a table is now done through a dialogue that contains all elements a standard table should have. Macromedia clearly believes that tables should be used for tabular data only, judging from their dialogue window.

As you can see from the screenshot on the left, Dreamweaver assumes you're going to use a table for tabular data--what a table is designed for--instead of for positioning elements on the page. Nothing keeps you from doing the latter, of course, but the support for table headers and accessibility features has much improved, up to the point that it is more obvious you should provide a header and accessibility features to your tables--the latter even if you use them for positioning purposes.

However, Macromedia hasn't stopped at providing a dialogue window. Table editing has become spectacularly better. When dragging the boundaries of your table, you are provided with visual clues as to the table's measurements. I've recorded this feature in a QuickTime MPEG-4 movie of 92KB. At IT-Enquirer, I haven't set up a streaming QuickTime server, but if you want to see the file, you can either load it in your browser or download it from this new window.

Dreamweaver MX 2004 stimulates page layout using the newer and more standards-oriented CSS-design methods. To that effect Dreamweaver now offers you to check the compatibility of your pages with browsers. It is a well-known fact that CSS isn't always interpreted the same way by different browser versions and browsers. The most CSS-accurate browsers currently available are Mozilla and Safari. But not everybody out there is even as much as using the latest versions of those browsers, so to be warned of incompatibilities with existing browsers is a good thing.