Dreamweaver is based around a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) development environment that is powered using the Presto layout engine (originally developed for the Opera web browser). Editing of web pages, is all done on the user's local (client) computer, and only when the changes are complete, are the edited files are uploaded to the user's web server.
Dreamweaver incorporates a number of features that makes it well suited for use by professional web developers. These include the ability to access underlying the code behind web pages and edit it using a powerful syntax highlighting (keywords are automatically colored according to their function) editor, find and replace capabilities, the ability to convert HTML tables to layers and vice versa, and a template feature that makes creating multiple pages with similar structures into a breeze.
Like many other Adobe applications, one of the best features of the program is that it is extensible. A wide variety of third party extensions are available that add additional capabilities to the program (ranging from graphics effects to complete HTMLecommerce building systems) are available - some of these extensions are free, whereas others are commercial. Additionally, the program's ubiquity means that there are large numbers of people who know how to use the software, and many helpful resources available including Internet tutorials about books about Dreamweaver.
