Update (December 17, 2005):

The webdevelopers finally had a chance to crack Dreamweaver 8, and they very much like what they saw. As part of the slow march to XML (XHTML actually), of the entire site, having a good code editor is a must. So is validation AND mandatory pretty-printing. Dreamweaver seems quite capable of both with a little tweaking.

Original story (November 5, 2005):

They're here. And everyone that's touched them loves them. Except for the download part, which, quite frankly, bites. Like usual, you get to login to your Macromedia user account, then proceed to the Macromedia download area, where things very rapidly degenerate into some type of cyber circus. The download simply never starts. Feeling all clever, a quick Google of this found a page offering the downloads of the most important three titles ( Flash 8, Dreamweaver 8 and Fireworks 8). Or you can hunt them down yourself - Flash8-en.exe, Dreamweaver8-en.exe, and Fireworks8-en.exe.

Haven't had a chance to do anything in Dreamweaver yet (Pacoima Ranch uses Homesite almost exclusively), but all are assured there are neat new things there, to be learned via the tutorials when needed. The new CSS controls are making developers drool. Based on the wonderful new goodies in Flash 8 and Fireworks 8, it's assumed that the new features in Dreamweaver are beyond awesome.

The Pacoima Ranch development team hasn't had opportunity to need it yet, but the new ability to switch between marquee and bitmap without flattening nor saving is a dream, a Godsend and a timesaver, situation depending. It's not just all the steps saved, but having the layers just sitting there ready to edit (or unedit). Good times all around.

The differences in Flash 8 have been seen, realized and used. Near the properties tab is a new tab called filters. Yes, they're not just for timeline effects anymore. They've also been bucked up and are now world class. It's just the basic Macromedia set, but that's enough, particularly the new drop shadow, which looks exactly like a drop shadow from Fireworks, allowing Flash vector images (nice and small) to be used now where before a Fireworks image (large and bitmap bloated) was required.