Macromedia Studio MX 2004 is a complete package of web designer software. The package includes the following programs: Dreamweaver MX 2004, Fireworks MX2004, Flash MX 2004, Freehand MX 2004, Coldfusion MX 6.1.

Each one of these programs is a great for web developers and designers. Being brought together in one package makes them even handier to use. That is if I work, for example, in Dreamveaver and have to edit a flash object, a double click on this object will open Flash MX.

Dreamweaver, in my opinion, is the best web design program out there. It's quipped with multiple plugins, editors and templates which give me with everything I need whether I'm working on a simple layout or complicated site.

Although Macromedia has its own graphic design software included in this package (Fireworks MX), I prefer Photoshop (unless I want to create vector graphics in Fireworks). But for quick editing I sometimes use Fireworks.

Flash MX is more complicated than previous Flash versions. Basically it has the same features, but more advances. Negative side - it is not compatible with Flash 5 and doesn't convert files to .swt - meaning that you can't create your own template. Dreamweaver MX doesn't except Flash 5 files either. Rather silly if you ask me.

Freehand MX is an alternative to Adobe Illustrator - great tool to create graphic designs or other documents. It's pretty easy to use and it interacts with other programs in Macromedia MX package perfectly. However, I'm afraid that since Adobe has now acquired Macromedia that Freehand is going to die an unpleasant death.

Coldfusion MX 6.1. is a very helpful tool for building web applications, complementing the package and making the whole process less complicated and time consuming.

To sum it all up I would recommend Studio MX to anyone interested in web design, although I have to admit now that Macromedia has be gobbled up by Adobe, you'd probably be better off buying the CS3 Design version, though it's gonna cost you a lot more. Anyway, this works fine for me and if you don't mind not having the latest and the greatest, it'll probably work fine for you if you can find someone who is upgrading and willing to sell you their copy of MX 2004.

Macromedia Dreamweaver is the first obvious starting point of this package. Dreamweaver is an excellent package that can be used to build full-featured websites. I would suggest anyone starting to use Dreamweaver to attend a course as the package can be overwhelming if you have no background in WSWG (what you see is what you get) software to build websites.

The next thing to learn would be Fireworks, which is a fairly web-centric graphics program. Fireworks can do many of the things that a full-blown graphics program like Adobe Photoshop can do, however it is more targeted at the web developer.

For those who are more daring, try the Flash product which can be used for animations among other functionality.

I really like Coldfusion. Coldfusion has many interesting "tags" that allow you to read and write databases, perform programming logic like "if's", "else's" and a myriad of other functionality like scripting, using Java, XML etc. There's no end to what you can do and keep discovering in Coldfusion. A great book is Sams Teach Yourself Coldfusion MX in 21 Days, which has all you need to know to build fairly significant Coldfusion applications.

The only drawback of Coldfusion, which is really the "endgame" of these products, is that it is not extensively used commercially by web developers. Time and time again I get chastised for not creating my web applications in more commercially acceptable PHP or Microsoft products that would make my products more universally hostable, supportable and acceptable.

We can only hope that a new version of Coldfusion is soon coming, with even more extensive and fun features to learn.

I would say, especially if you are a web programming hobbyist, and have access to some inexpensive courses to get you started, you won't be disappointed by joining the Macromedia way.

As a package, this is probably the best one to buy out there!
As individual programs, there are better ones out there. Still a little pricy from Macromedia, but extremely good value as a web design package. It's best asset is the online tutorials, which make initially confusing programs, easier to deal with and more user friendly.

Macromedia continues to improve on their ground-breaking Internet development suite of applications, bringing the MX versions to a completely new level of versatility and functionality with this release. While I found MX (the previous version) to be bug-ridden and slow, MX 2004 is a huge improvement not only in performance and stability but functionality as well. I've read reviews claiming that this is the most buggy version of the software to date, but they have all been for the Mac version. While I can't speak for that version, I can say that the Windows version of this software is far better than the previous release, and the built-in update feature of this software should ensure that it will offer the best features possible until the next upgrade.

Flash and Dreamweaver continue to be ground-breaking Web-development platforms, and this release is a huge step forward in making them accessible to both amateur and professional developers alike. I suggest that anyone serious about Web development consider this product.

All in all this upgrade is good, not tremendous.

The problem lies in the changes to the ActionScript Panel: The Normal mode has been removed. This means that you need to learn how to write all your ActionScript yourself, without the great aids that MX offered. There are still a few little helper menus you can use, but if you don't understand the syntax of ActionScript in detail they aren't much help. If you intend to use Flash without becoming a programmer, choose the MX version, not MX 2004.