October 7, 2009

Illustrator and Dreamweaver Integration - TAKE 2

A while back, I blogged about using Illustrator for web design. Specifically, I wrote about using Illustrator and Dreamweaver together, lamenting about the lack of integration between the two applications. I've even had numerous discussions with the product managers for Dreamweaver over at Adobe about the topic.

To summarize, I questioned the apparent lack of support for moving art quickly from Illustrator into Dreamweaver via Smart Objects. The team kept asking me why I would care to bring vector art into Dreamweaver, and whatever would I do with it once it got there? My response was that I didn't want the vectors - I wanted Dreamweaver to generate pixels a la Smart Objects from the GoLive days.

Boy was I shortsighted. What was I thinking?

Each year, Adobe has their MAX conference. Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons, I was not able to attend this year's conference in LA. One of the best sessions is something called "MAX SNEAKS" where Adobe shows tasty nuggets of technology from their labs. I'll mention that these aren't usually sneaks like features from the upcoming releases. Rather, the demonstrations are from Adobe's engineering scientists and generally cover things they are "messing with" that are often a while out, if at all. These are rarely polished demos and as I stated, the presenters aren't professional demo masters (of the likes of Greg Rewis or the incredible Jason Levine).