Choosing a server technology

You can use Dreamweaver to build web applications using any of five server technologies: ColdFusion, ASP.NET, ASP, JSP, or PHP. Each of these technologies corresponds to a document type in Dreamweaver. Choosing one for your web application depends on several factors, including your level of comfort with various scripting languages and the application server you plan to use.

If you’re new to web application development or to application development in general, you’ll probably prefer ColdFusion because it provides an easy-to-learn server scripting environment that’s also tightly integrated with Dreamweaver. If you’re familiar with other server technologies, such as JSP, PHP, ASP, or ASP.NET, Dreamweaver offers great support for these as well.

Which server technology you choose also depends on the application server you plan to use for your web application. An application server is software that helps a web server process web pages containing server-side scripts or tags. For example, if you have ColdFusion MX 7 Server, you can choose ColdFusion as your server technology. If you have access to a server running Microsoft Internet Information Server 5 (IIS) with the .NET Framework, you can choose ASP.NET. PHP is an option if you have access to a web server with a PHP application server; JSP is an option if you have access to a web server with a JSP application server (such as Macromedia JRun).

A developer edition of ColdFusion MX 7 is available on the Dreamweaver CD (Windows version only) and on the Macromedia website at www.macromedia.com/go/coldfusion/.

For more information, see Setting up an application server in Using Dreamweaver.

To learn more about ColdFusion, select Using ColdFusion from the Help menu.

To learn more about ASP.NET, visit the Microsoft website at http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/.

To learn more about ASP, visit the Microsoft website at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/activeservpages.asp.

To learn more about JSP, visit the Sun Microsystems website at java.sun.com/products/jsp/.

To learn more about PHP, visit the PHP website at www.php.net/.