Macromedia Demos 'UltraDev'
LIVE FROM INTERNET WORLD - Macromedia today gave the press a sneak peek at an upcoming application to visually build dynamic Web content, code-named 'UltraDev'. UltraDev is built from the core pieces of Dreamweaver and will utilize Dreamweaver technology.
"UltraDev's purpose in life is to make the process of authoring Web content easier," announced Kevin Lynch, Chief Technology Officer of Macromedia. Using UltraDev, developers can quickly create Web pages using ASP, JSP, or ColdFusion, along with ODBC and JDBC compliant databases. UltraDev will replace Macromedia's Drumbeat 2000 product line.
Starting with an HTML page, UltraDev can connect to a live database and replace static text with dynamic database content. The page can also be edited in a 'Live Data' mode, allowing the author to see how the page looks with actual content. Drag and drop support along with complex formatting options makes customizing the look of data extremely simple. Those not fond of the WYSIWYG architecture however, can edit the SQL commands directly.
UltraDev extends Dreamweaver's 'Behaviors' into 'Server Behaviors', giving the user advanced options for organizing dynamic data on the page.
Although UltraDev's extensible API will make it easy for third parties to add support for more languages, when asked by eFront whether PHP support would be implemented before release, Macromedia said they had no plans to do so.
UltraDev will be available for Macintosh and Windows this quarter, however Macromedia declined to comment on pricing or specific release dates.