Thoughts from the Dirty City

I stumbled on this site today while doing some random googling about building WordPress themes and my heart began to sing. As a designer with little background in programing a tool like this could change the way I do business. The next few weeks are going to be crazy for me, and I don’t want to download the free trial until I know I will be able to really sink my teeth into it. However, the second I start to see some time on the horizon this will be my first task. I will let you all know how it goes, and if it does all it promises.

From the ThemeDreamer website

ThemeDreamer is an extension for Adobe Dreamweaver that can accelerate WordPress theme and application development by providing WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) feedback within Dreamweaver’s Design View editor in real time. Simply put, you do not need to mess with a server or even have to upload your files to see the vast majority of CSS and WordPress Template layout changes. Alterations are immediately reflected within Dreamweaver’s Design View. ThemeDreamer also puts the power of WordPress’s Template API at your finger tips by providing instant and thorough code hints.

ThemeDreamer started as an in-house tool for website design at Virtuosoft, owner of ThemeDreamer.com. As a Dreamweaver extension, it proved to be very useful in building WordPress themes for various clients. Virtuosoft decided to unleash this functionality to the greater WordPress community as a commercial product to better assist developers and designers globally. Also, because we love WordPress and Dreamweaver!

ThemeDreamer was developed to bridge the gap between WordPress and Dreamweaver because:

• Dreamweaver’s Live Data / Live View (including the new CS4) doesn’t support the intricate structure of WordPress’s successful CMS to load or view theme files in Dreamweaver with WYSIWYG.
• It is very tedious to routinely edit, split, combine, save, upload files, and refresh browsers, then repeat, (trial and error approach) just to view a simple CSS change.
• Customizing existing theme files is faster then developing from scratch.
• Setting up a local server for WordPress can be complex and bulky.
• Offline development is ideal for fast, portable, simple, and quick edits

Check out ThemeDreamer for yourself