The last release of Dreamweaver saw what I would call an partial migration of Dreamweaver into the Adobe Suite of tools, a lot of work was done under the covers and some serious CSS improvements were folded in, but the whole package was not quite cooked yet.

Not so with Dreamweaver CS4! Adobe has really moved the bar on this release. First off Dreamweaver was given the complete "OWL" treatment and has the ultra flexible UI as Photoshop and Illustrator. At first glance you may panic and say what have they done?! But take the time to get reacquainted with the UI ans soon you will be amazed at how cool this interface is. Next, there are a boatload of new and improved features, one that stands out is Live View - this one feature alone will fundamentally change the way you design your sites and brings Dreamweaver as close the the WYSIWYG dream as any web developement tool has ever been!

There are far too many changes, improvements and additions for me to go into detail on here, but suffice it to say that Dreamweaver CS4 will be THE upgrade for all current users of Dreamweaver. This release will greatly improve and solidify Dreamweaver's position in the industry as the d facto cross platform visual web developement tool.

Go to Adobe Labs to download your beta copy now.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/dreamweavercs4/

Also, be sure to hop over to David Powers' blog for a couple of excellent video introductions to Dreamweaver CS4 features.

http://foundationphp.com/tutorials/cs4beta.php

Ever since the Adobe acquisition of Macromedia faithful developers that find Fireworks to be a vital part of their work flow have worried about Fireworks going down the same path as Freehand. With each CS Suite release they'd ask, is this the end of Fireworks? The release of the public beta for Fireworks CS4 gives a resounding answer to this question!

No it's definitely not the end of Fireworks... In fact, I'd call it a new beginning. Adobe struggled to get it's head around Fireworks and how it should fit into there suite of tools, they were so Photoshop focused that they didn't have a clear vision for Fireworks. Not any more. They finally "got it"!

Fireworks is not a competitor to Photoshop, it's the "next step" in the web development work flow. Adobe has positioned Fireworks as THE tool to quickly comp web sites and RIA UIs. It is meant to bring together designs and elements done in Photoshop and Illustrator and combine them and prep them for the transition to HTML, Flash, or Flex. Take time to dig around the new features and you'll see what I mean.

Looks like Fireworks has been formally welcomed into the family and shaken it's "red headed stepchild" status. Download the public beta and take it for a test drive, the new features, tighter integration with the other Adobe Suite applications and updated "Owl" interface will confirm the fact that Fireworks is definitely here to stay and it's comfortable in it's new roll in the family!

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/fireworkscs4/

This modification can be used for "Pay by Credit Card or Check" or for "Pay now or request a Quote". This is simply a matter of changing the credit card processor from your payment processor that is set up in the Application.asp file to "none" on the fly, based on user input.

You should be able to set up a form field on the order form to allow for checks to be sent on CWIncOrderForm.asp: (Add, around line 160, rigth above the form:

<p>Pay by:<br />
Send check:
<input type="radio" name="paymenttype" value="0" checked="checked" />
Credit Card:
<input type="radio" name="paymenttype" value="1" />
</p>

then add a bit of code to the CWIncOrderForm.asp file around line 27, right after If Request.Form("OrderFormNext") "" Then

Session("paymenttype")=Request.Form("paymenttype")

then a bit of code to the CWIncShowCart.asp file: (You can add this code anywhere on that file)

<%
IF Session("paymenttype") "" Then

       SELECT Case Session("paymenttype")

      Case "0"
             paymentAuthType = "none"
             paymentAuthName = "none"

      Case "1"
             paymentAuthType = "gateway"
             paymentAuthName = "CWIncAuthorizeNet.asp"
 
    END SELECT

END IF
%>

Also, if you want to change the confirmation emails based on the payment type, add this code to the top of CWIncConfirmation.asp as well:

<%
IF Session("paymenttype") "" Then

       SELECT Case Session("paymenttype")

      Case "0"
             paymentAuthType = "none"
             paymentAuthName = "none"

      Case "1"
             paymentAuthType = "gateway"
             paymentAuthName = "CWIncAuthorizeNet.asp"
 
    END SELECT

END IF
%>

You can edit file CWFunOrderConfirmEmails.asp to change the message the email sends in each case (Lines 43/57)

If PaymentAuthType = "gateway" Then
strBody = "Your order has been received and will be shipped to you shortly! Your details are as follows." & VbCrLf &_
VbCrLf &_
strContents & VbCrLf &_
"Thank you!"
Else
strBody = "Your order has been received." & VbCrLf &_
"As soon as your payment is verified you will receive a confirmation " &_
"notice and your order will be shipped! Your order details are as follows." & VbCrLf &_
VbCrLf &_
strContents & VbCrLf &_
"Thank you!"

End If 'PaymentAuthType = "Gateway"

This could also be used to switch between a gateway and Paypal, or even 3 options -- credit card, check, or Paypal.

Update: If the customer is logged in already, the default payment option only is shown, but you can set up a link to change the payment type like this (in file CWIncShowCart.asp

<a href="<%= targetCheckOut %>"> <strong>Change your payment type</strong></a>

Customers can download a set of these modified files from the customers download area.

This modification can be used for "Pay by Credit Card or Check" or for "Pay now or request a Quote". This is simply a matter of changing the credit card processor from your payment processor that is set up in the Application.cfm file to "none" on the fly, based on user input. The code for this modification in PHP is shown at http://www.tom-muck.com/cw/

You should be able to set up a form field on the order form to allow for checks to be sent on CWIncOrderForm.cfm:

<p>Pay by:<br />
Send check:
<input type="radio" name="paymenttype" value="0" checked="checked" />
Credit Card:
<input type="radio" name="paymenttype" value="1" />
</p>

then add a bit of code to the CWIncOrderForm.cfm file around line 43, right after <cfif IsDefined ('FORM.OrderFormNext')> :

<cfif isDefined("Form.paymenttype")>
<cfset session.paymenttype = form.paymenttype />
</cfif>

then a bit of code to the CWIncShowCart.cfm file:

<cfif IsDefined("Session.paymenttype")>
 <cfswitch expression="#Session.paymenttype#">
   <cfcase value="0">
    <cfset request.paymentAuthType = "none">
    <cfset request.paymentAuthName = "none">
   </cfcase>
   <cfcase value="1">
    <cfset request.paymentAuthType = "gateway">
    <cfset request.paymentAuthName = "CWIncAuthorizeNet.cfm">
   </cfcase>
 </cfswitch>
</cfif>

Also, if you want to change the confirmation emails based on the payment type, add this code to the top of CWIncConfirmation.cfm as well:

<cfif IsDefined("Session.paymenttype")>
 <cfswitch expression="#Session.paymenttype#">
   <cfcase value="0">
    <cfset request.paymentAuthType = "none">
    <cfset request.paymentAuthName = "none">
   </cfcase>
   <cfcase value="1">
    <cfset request.paymentAuthType = "gateway">
    <cfset request.paymentAuthName = "CWIncAuthorizeNet.cfm">
   </cfcase>
 </cfswitch>
</cfif>

Then you can make your changes in the email within the CFMAIL tag however you like, such as:

Your order has been received.
As soon as your payment is received you will receive a confirmation notice and your order will be shipped! Your order details are as follows.

#EmailContents#

You might also add a bit of code after the <h2>Order Details</h2> line:

<h2>Order Details</h2>
<cfif request.paymentAuthType EQ "none">
<p>Your order has been recieved. The order will be shipped when your check or money order is received.</p>
</cfif>

This could also be used to switch between a gateway and Paypal, or even 3 options -- credit card, check, or Paypal.

Update: If the customer is logged in already, the default payment option only is shown, but you can set up a link to change the payment type like this:

<a href="<cfoutput>#request.targetCheckOut#</cfoutput>"><strong>Change your payment type</strong></a>

"I am building a site and the links to the categories are images. I don't know how to do this."

Due to the fact that a lot of Cartweaver users are new to dynamic web development we frequently get asked this question. Fortunately, when it comes to learning code, this is one of the easiest things you'll learn. Another good thing is that all server models, ASP, PHP, and ColdFusion handle this is the same way, so that makes things pretty easy.

Here's what you do. You select the image or test you want to use as the category link and simply link it to the search results page, by default this is Results.cfm, (or .asp or .php) depending on which server model you are using. This is pretty standard, you've done this plenty of times. Next come the "coding part" Here's all you need to do... In code view, look at your link

Results.cfm

Then add this

Results.cfm?category=1

The question mark tells the server that a variable is being passed followed by the name of the variable, in this case "category" then the equal sign tells the server that what follows is the variable's value. Here I used the number 1, for your case you will need to look into the database and see what the actual ID is for the category you are wanting to pull.

That's it. Easy stuff no?

Now what if you want to narrow things down by searching on both a category and a secondary category? You can do this by using the ampersand to tack the secondary category ID, like this...

Results.cfm?category=1&secondary=2

Notice there are no spaces, that the values and the names and = and & are all bunched together. Be sure you do it this way. Spaced will cause this to fail.

One additional way to use your new found coding skills. What if you want to "hard code" a link to a particular product... Easy. Just do the same as you've done above but this time link to the Details page and pass the product ID. Like this...

Details.cfm?ProdID=1

Again, you'll need to check in your database to see what the ID is, or as a short cut you can use one if the links that Cartweaver generates for you and link to the product you want then look in the address bar of your browser and low and behold, there's the ID and the link you'll need.

This one little coding technique make it very easy to manually place links through out the site to put products you want to feature on you home page or where every you wish.

If you have any questions stop by our newsgroups, we will be happy to help out.

news://support.cartweaver.com

Mac Leopard users rejoice! Adobe has just released 8.01 update to ColdFusion and among the notable fixes and enhancements included in this update is an updated installer for OSX Leopard.

Traditionally the cool thing about updates to ColdFusion, is besides fixing any glitches or bugs found since the version release, Adobe sees fit to add more features and functionality that many companies would hold over till the next "paid" update! This update is no different. With the addition of Windows 64bit support, better AJAX support, new features in the text editor function (ala FCKEditor), some new cfimage features and a ton more.

ColdFusion just keeps getting better and better!

For more info, check out the ColdFusion 8 Update 1 FAQ and Release Notes.

Mac Leopard users should go to: http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/ and download CF8 Developer's Version, the version you will download is the 8.01 update.