Beta Bonanza!

Adobe has obviously been working hard on the next version of products. Although Adobe doesn't "officially" use the term "CS4", they make reference to the "Next" versions of their software, or technology previews of "technology that may appear in a future version of their software". In any case, considering the precedent of CS, CS2, CS3, we can kinda figure out what's around the corner.

Some may remember that in the CS3 timeframe, Adobe released Photoshop as a public beta.

Today, Adobe has released THREE public betas for the "next" versions of some products. These products are Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth. They are all available for download right now, and can be found at Adobe Labs.

Sadly, Illustrator isn't on the list. But oh man, if it were, we'd have SO much to talk about! For the time being though, we'll have to keep all that excitement bottled up.

Back to the topic of Dreamweaver, guess what's in it? That's right! You guessed it! Smart Objects! Yay! Well, for Photoshop only (what's up with that?). Some things that really blew me away about Dreamweaver were the HTML data sets, the code navigator (if you use CSS, this is totally AWESOME), and the new user interface. Hey, a new user interface! Better get used to this new user interface -- sounds like all "next" apps will feature it.

Of course, if you aren't using Dreamweaver yet, there's still time to get up to speed with the program at the Getting Started with Dreamweaver and CSS seminars from MOGO Media.