I have DW MX and I have tried the trial of DW 2004.  2004 has some nice uder interface changes, but to me, it wasn't worth the upgrade just for that.  Besides, I am used to MX anyway.  2004 is just a cash grab if you ask me.

PHP is a server side language.  It has to be run off a server so no...

Never played with the CSS.   Download the free trial and see for yourself.  

I dunno....ask MM  

PHP-specific changes
As a PHP developer, if you're worried about Dreamweaver MX 2004 putting you out of business because people can create dynamic websites themselves, you can sleep well tonight. They really haven't improved much on the PHP front as far as the layperson goes. You can still enter a little bit of common PHP code with the push of a button, and get some code hints with Ctrl-Space, but it is far from being a substitute for the experienced PHP/MySQL developer.

PHP Reference
For those newbies out there who are taking pre-written scripts and attempting to modify them to fit their own needs, Macromedia has added a PHP reference section to their list, courtesy of the good folks at O'Reilly. If you recall, Dreamweaver MX had some built-in references, but PHP was unfortunately yet again the last little guy picked for kickball, and was omitted. With this feature, you can highlight a function in your code, right-click, and scroll down to "reference". You are then shown a brief description of what the function is meant to do. A list of functions is also provided for your reference should you want to look up another specific function that isn't in your code. Now, if we can only get the newbs to look up "register_globals".

I've only used CSS here and there as needed, but I want to use it systematically now. Because I don't have a strong grasp of it, I would like to learn as much about it as possible and use the DW version that will best help me along. CSS in DW MX actually confuses me. Then again, it's probably because I need to study it more.

Does anyone have suggestions on which CSS book to buy? I would like one that is written for someone who already knows HTML.

Thanks.

DW MX 2004 also has a setting to use ONLY css for layout/font settings, etc.

As for showing php results, fire up your local web server, download php from www.php.net , install it, and you can view local php to your heart's content.

Running a server on your PC connected to the 'net can pose a security risk.  You may want to implement a firewall such as Zone Alarm which will selectively block ports and programs from seeing the internet, while allowing them access to your local network.

IIS will work fine.

I have ZA not allowing any Internet servers, so that should plug up the security hole by maintaining port 80 in stealth (and any other ports servers want to listen on).

If you NEED other servers running, you can dissallow server to Internet for inetinfo.exe in the programs section of ZA.

You can also get mysql server for windows at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/

I installed IIS and PHP 4.3.6. I changed the setting so that the default site points to my current web files.

I am able to access certain files by going to http://localhost . However, the files that reference files in other directories have errors. For example I call up '/includes/header.php' in the web file, but because of Windows using backslash instead of forward slash for file paths, I get an error. When I change things and moved the header file in the same directory, it works fine.

Is there a workaround?

Jwink3101,

Did you know that you could change the setting so that DW doesn't use CSS tags?