glitch in trial version .. how do I get support ?

Firstly .. I just want to say I am frustrated with macromedia's support. It
*only* provides support if your software is registered .. they don't provide
any kind of support for trial versions.

And here is where I am in a quandry .. I used Dreamweaver MX 2004 for a few
days, and now there is some kind fo glitch in viewing some webpages. (I have
screen-grabs to show). I don't see how there is a mistake in what I am doing
.... so it would appear that somehow Dreamweaver is corrupt on my one computer,
but not the other, when I view the exact same files. re-installing didn't
help.

So I really can't see myself paying $400 for software that doesn't work
properly from the onset .. or alternately .. paying $400 for the software in
the hope that the problem can be solved for me. That would be stupid.

Anyway, I wrote a long email describing my problem ... but it obviously can't
get to Macromedia's Help Center without a registration nr. Anyway ... here's
the full email. Any ideas on what is wrong .. or how I can get help from
Macromedia on this ??


.................................................. ...............................
.....

I have several small websites that I maintain. I'm in the process of
revamping this one ..
http://www.planetneil.com

Instead of continuing to code the html by hand, I decided to try out
Dreamweaver MX
2004. It worked very well for a few days and then came up with a glitch
which I can't get rid of.

I bought a website template that I intend to use, and it came up in
Dreamweaver exactly as it should. I was busy editing it a few days later,
when some of the objects moved their position on the webpage. Even when I
called the original index.html file up again from the zip file, it still
looked wrong.

Here's a screen-grab of what it looks like ..
http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/error.jpg

.. and here is a screen-grab what it looks like and should look like when I
call it up in Internet Explorer, and it is exactly what it looked like
originally in Dreamweaver, before Dreameaver came up with this glitch.

http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/correct.jpg


I have tried re-installing Dreamweaver MX 2004 on this laptop, with no
effect. That index page still looks corrupt. Yet .. when in trying to
figure out this problem, I installed Dreamweaver MX 2004 on my other
computer, it looks fine. So it would seem as if some basic setting with
Dreamweaver MX 2004, causes this problem to arise with files on my laptop.

Here's the index file (renamed so you can view it if you need to) .. as well
as the accompanying CSS file. (I also uploaded the images that came with
the webpage template, so that it views correctly.)

http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/index2.html

The CSS file can be seen from this root folder ..
http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/

Now, I do realise that there is a policy in effect where (limited) support
is only offered when the product is paid for and registered .. yet, I can't
see myself paying for this product when already it doesn't work correctly.

Also, I can't pay for this product just in the hopes of then only getting
support which will maybe solve this problem. That would be like paying $400
for support on a product I'm not using yet, in the hope that you can fix
this bug.

So why would this index file appear incorrect on the one machine (after a
few days of being correct), but appear correct on my other computer .. when
it is the same file .. and the same first installation of Dreamweaver MX
2004 ??


I'd love to use this program from what I've seen while working with it for
the first few days .. but I would need to know what is wrong in this
instance, or how to solve it's recurrence.

thank you.

Neil.

"Neil_vN" <webforumsuser (AT) macromedia (DOT) com> wrote in
news:cboak1$qq9$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com:

Without looking to far in, and doing a very quick impression...

the screen grabs show two different widths of page. You can get caught,
very easily, as I have, with this. I #think# both pages are displaying as
they should, because possibly the right hand boxes that have drifted are
not being explicitly placed, rather than just assumed to be in place.
The narrower broswer is forcing them - they have nowhere else to go.
The wider one is essentially giving you the more accurate view, as it
isn't having to force anything.

I did notice from the css file that you haven't given html and body a
width to contain everything else.

Firstly .. I just want to say I am frustrated with macromedia's
support. It *only* provides support if your software is registered ..
they don't provide any kind of support for trial versions.

And here is where I am in a quandry .. I used Dreamweaver MX 2004 for
a few
days, and now there is some kind fo glitch in viewing some webpages.
(I have screen-grabs to show). I don't see how there is a mistake in
what I am doing ... so it would appear that somehow Dreamweaver is
corrupt on my one computer, but not the other, when I view the exact
same files. re-installing didn't help.

So I really can't see myself paying $400 for software that doesn't
work
properly from the onset .. or alternately .. paying $400 for the
software in the hope that the problem can be solved for me. That
would be stupid.

Anyway, I wrote a long email describing my problem ... but it
obviously can't
get to Macromedia's Help Center without a registration nr. Anyway ...
here's the full email. Any ideas on what is wrong .. or how I can get
help from Macromedia on this ??


.................................................. .....................
......... ....

I have several small websites that I maintain. I'm in the process of
revamping this one ..
http://www.planetneil.com

Instead of continuing to code the html by hand, I decided to try out
Dreamweaver MX
2004. It worked very well for a few days and then came up with a
glitch which I can't get rid of.

I bought a website template that I intend to use, and it came up in
Dreamweaver exactly as it should. I was busy editing it a few days
later, when some of the objects moved their position on the webpage.
Even when I called the original index.html file up again from the zip
file, it still looked wrong.

Here's a screen-grab of what it looks like ..
http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/error.jpg

.. and here is a screen-grab what it looks like and should look like
when I call it up in Internet Explorer, and it is exactly what it
looked like originally in Dreamweaver, before Dreameaver came up with
this glitch.

http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/correct.jpg


I have tried re-installing Dreamweaver MX 2004 on this laptop, with
no effect. That index page still looks corrupt. Yet .. when in
trying to figure out this problem, I installed Dreamweaver MX 2004
on my other computer, it looks fine. So it would seem as if some
basic setting with Dreamweaver MX 2004, causes this problem to arise
with files on my laptop.

Here's the index file (renamed so you can view it if you need to) ..
as well as the accompanying CSS file. (I also uploaded the images
that came with the webpage template, so that it views correctly.)

http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/index2.html

The CSS file can be seen from this root folder ..
http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/

Now, I do realise that there is a policy in effect where (limited)
support is only offered when the product is paid for and registered
.. yet, I can't see myself paying for this product when already it
doesn't work correctly.

Also, I can't pay for this product just in the hopes of then only
getting support which will maybe solve this problem. That would be
like paying $400 for support on a product I'm not using yet, in the
hope that you can fix this bug.

So why would this index file appear incorrect on the one machine
(after a few days of being correct), but appear correct on my other
computer .. when it is the same file .. and the same first
installation of Dreamweaver MX 2004 ??


I'd love to use this program from what I've seen while working with
it for the first few days .. but I would need to know what is wrong
in this instance, or how to solve it's recurrence.

thank you.

Neil.

I would also think it could be that the page width isn't set ... and that it
may be due to the template not being designed accurately enough.

Yet ... this index page did display properly for a few days on the laptop with
the wider screen, and it was while I was working on the sub-pages and changing
the graphic at the top, that the index page I had edited started showing up
like this, with the text blocks spread out. So what I did was go back to the
original unedited index file .. and that too seemed 'corrupted' now, even when
I took it directly from the zip file.

So that makes me thing that some kind of setting withing Dreamweaver is not
correct ... even when I re-install it.

"Neil_vN" <webforumsuser (AT) macromedia (DOT) com> wrote in
news:cbp6lq$51c$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com:

I would also think it could be that the page width isn't set ... and
that it may be due to the template not being designed accurately
enough.

keep the width control in the css file...

Yet ... this index page did display properly for a few days on the
laptop with
the wider screen, and it was while I was working on the sub-pages and
changing the graphic at the top, that the index page I had edited
started showing up like this, with the text blocks spread out. So
what I did was go back to the original unedited index file .. and that
too seemed 'corrupted' now, even when I took it directly from the zip
file.

possibly a problem with the template then. The two images definitely
indicate that the right hand logo an the lower small box are simply
drifting to the right margin of the available space

So that makes me thing that some kind of setting withing Dreamweaver
is not
correct ... even when I re-install it.
Have you tried viewing with a larger window size? DW isn't perfect with

its rendering in some places, but the proper test is always with the
client side browser, which DW is not!

sadly, dreamweaver doesn't display some css positioned elements
according to the specs. this shouldn't be a problem though as you should
be testing in browsers anyway. it's not really a bug - even the browser
manufacturers can't agree on how the specs should be interpreted.

i don't understand why dreamweaver would render it ok one day and not
the next. my feeling is that something obviously changed, you said you
reverted to the original .HTML file, but did you revert to any original
..CSS files too?

joe




Neil_vN wrote:

Firstly .. I just want to say I am frustrated with macromedia's support. It
*only* provides support if your software is registered .. they don't provide
any kind of support for trial versions.

And here is where I am in a quandry .. I used Dreamweaver MX 2004 for a few
days, and now there is some kind fo glitch in viewing some webpages. (I have
screen-grabs to show). I don't see how there is a mistake in what I am doing
... so it would appear that somehow Dreamweaver is corrupt on my one computer,
but not the other, when I view the exact same files. re-installing didn't
help.

So I really can't see myself paying $400 for software that doesn't work
properly from the onset .. or alternately .. paying $400 for the software in
the hope that the problem can be solved for me. That would be stupid.

Anyway, I wrote a long email describing my problem ... but it obviously can't
get to Macromedia's Help Center without a registration nr. Anyway ... here's
the full email. Any ideas on what is wrong .. or how I can get help from
Macromedia on this ??


.................................................. ..............................
....

I have several small websites that I maintain. I'm in the process of
revamping this one ..
http://www.planetneil.com

Instead of continuing to code the html by hand, I decided to try out
Dreamweaver MX
2004. It worked very well for a few days and then came up with a glitch
which I can't get rid of.

I bought a website template that I intend to use, and it came up in
Dreamweaver exactly as it should. I was busy editing it a few days later,
when some of the objects moved their position on the webpage. Even when I
called the original index.html file up again from the zip file, it still
looked wrong.

Here's a screen-grab of what it looks like ..
http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/error.jpg

.. and here is a screen-grab what it looks like and should look like when I
call it up in Internet Explorer, and it is exactly what it looked like
originally in Dreamweaver, before Dreameaver came up with this glitch.

http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/correct.jpg


I have tried re-installing Dreamweaver MX 2004 on this laptop, with no
effect. That index page still looks corrupt. Yet .. when in trying to
figure out this problem, I installed Dreamweaver MX 2004 on my other
computer, it looks fine. So it would seem as if some basic setting with
Dreamweaver MX 2004, causes this problem to arise with files on my laptop.

Here's the index file (renamed so you can view it if you need to) .. as well
as the accompanying CSS file. (I also uploaded the images that came with
the webpage template, so that it views correctly.)

http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/index2.html

The CSS file can be seen from this root folder ..
http://www.planetneil.com/dreamweaver-problem/

Now, I do realise that there is a policy in effect where (limited) support
is only offered when the product is paid for and registered .. yet, I can't
see myself paying for this product when already it doesn't work correctly.

Also, I can't pay for this product just in the hopes of then only getting
support which will maybe solve this problem. That would be like paying $400
for support on a product I'm not using yet, in the hope that you can fix
this bug.

So why would this index file appear incorrect on the one machine (after a
few days of being correct), but appear correct on my other computer .. when
it is the same file .. and the same first installation of Dreamweaver MX
2004 ??


I'd love to use this program from what I've seen while working with it for
the first few days .. but I would need to know what is wrong in this
instance, or how to solve it's recurrence.

thank you.

Neil.

"Neil_vN" <webforumsuser (AT) macromedia (DOT) com> wrote in
news:cbp6lq$51c$1 (AT) forums (DOT) macromedia.com:

what does the template look like?

I would also think it could be that the page width isn't set ... and
that it may be due to the template not being designed accurately
enough.

Yet ... this index page did display properly for a few days on the
laptop with
the wider screen, and it was while I was working on the sub-pages and
changing the graphic at the top, that the index page I had edited
started showing up like this, with the text blocks spread out. So
what I did was go back to the original unedited index file .. and that
too seemed 'corrupted' now, even when I took it directly from the zip
file.

So that makes me thing that some kind of setting withing Dreamweaver
is not
correct ... even when I re-install it.