ThemeDreamer - Create WordPress themes in Dreamweaver
Our newest extension offering is ThemeDreamer from Virtuosoft. We’ve been working with ThemeDreamer for several months and have been anxiously awaiting it’s release. It’s still in beta, but you can download a trial which will deactivate upon the next release or buy ThemeDreamer at half of the final release price.
If you have ever tried designing a WordPress theme in Dreamweaver, you know it’s not very easy and the workflow is rather repetitive. Even with a local WordPress installation, you are continually editing, saving, previewing, re-editing, etc. ThemeDreamer takes a lot of the hassle out of creating WordPress themes by integrating with Dreamweaver’s design view. It takes the assortment of WordPress PHP files such as index.php, header.php, sidebar.php, footer.php, etc. and combines them to allow WYSIWYG editing in design view.
ThemeDreamer goes a step further and also tells you which files are being compiled in design view. If you open archive.php for example, at a glance ThemeDreamer tells you it is comprised of header.php, sidebar.php and footer.php. If you open single.php, you might see header.php, sidebar.php, comments.php and footer.php.
If coding is your thing, ThemeDreamer provides most of the WordPress code tags for quick reference and also provides template tags, include tags and conditional tags. Code hints are built into ThemeDreamer which provide proper syntax, parameter defaults and common optional values. If that wasn’t enough, you also have quick reference to the WordPress API documentation right within Dreamweaver.
ThemeDreamer installs as any other extension in Dreamweaver and you can toggle it on or off simply by clicking a button. It’s very easy to use and saves a ton of time if you regularly design WordPress themes. It already includes a ton of features, and many more are planned for the 1.0 release. Remember, if you buy it now you save 50% off the full release price.
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
This seems like a great idea. I see from the product’s Website that some folks are using it with success, but I can’t get it to work. The extension seems to install properly, but it just won’t render WordPress pages and none of the buttons are live.
Support at ThemeDreamer responded to my request for help with suggestions of things I have already tried. Kind of at a loss here.