Dreamweaver 4 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Author: J. Tarin Towers List Price: $21.99 Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price ISBN: 0201734303 Publisher: Peachpit Press (05 April, 2001) Edition: Paperback Sales Rank: 6,745 Average Customer Rating: 3.33 out of 5

Buy now directly from Amazon.com -

Customer Reviews

The book starts off simple by explaining and demonstrating the dreamweaver development environment: workspace, planning your site, and moving files.

The book assumes you have little or not knowledge of HTML or Javascript. So they cover: edit HTML, working with images, working with links, fonts and characters, paragraphs and block formating, forms, and javascript behaviors. This was ok.

But the section on Style Sheets was excellent. I've create style sheets from scratch, but using dreamweaver made the task very easy.

Since, I've already have a strong understand of javascript and html. The book was more about learning how to use the dreamweaver tool rather than learning how to code a web page.
Filling out forms and modifying behavior events was helpful in terms of learning how to use the dreamweaver tool.

I found the multimedia section fun. The authors do an excellent job explaining and demonstrating timelines, keyframes, layers, and behavior events.

This was a very user friendly book to read and use. The book has a learn by example approach to learning how to use dreamweaver.

Sometimes there are crucial steps missing from detailed step-by-step procedures and these have left me in the proverbial. For example, when explaining how to make a link appear in a popup window that does not have any controls, I followed what the book said and I got two windows popping up instead of one! It did not say I would need to open the popup window on the mousedown event.I had to figure that out for myself. Surely they could have had somebody test the examples in the book before publishing it.

Also,the book does not show you objectives and how to achieve them by tying together different parts of dreamweaver. This makes explanations of different dreameaver topics feel disjointed. For example, it discussed layers and tables seperately without much guidance on layout in general. As a beginner, I needed more guidance in what I should be aiming for with layout. I needed more than just a listing of the options available in dreamweaver.

On the other hand, a lot of stuff in this book is very good.The explanations are clear and the illustrations are great. I have learned a lot about dreamweaver but I reckon I should have bought the HOT Dreamweaver book instead.It seems to be a better guide towards the whys and wherefores of building a site with dreamweaver.

I am disappointed with this book.

it does introduce comprehensively on what's available in DW and how certain tasks are done, but does not explain the HOWS and WHYS; the underlying logic. and many terminology is thrown at you in which you will have no idea... what i mean by this is the techical jargon that a total beginner will not know about; so, basically, the author DOES ASSUME you know somewhat about web design.. which shouldn't be the case

to make it worse, random comments within a section is thrown at you; making you think..."huh?" and leaving you frustrated b/c the book isn't organized in an efficiently readable format.
it's fundamental - anything, whether it be an work place/office, bedroom, or BOOK, it needs to be organized well for you to do what you need... if there are random matters around, it will slow you down.. confusion... etc

THE BOTTOM LINE, the positive aspect about this book is that it's pretty comprehensive - but a beginner book doesn't need to be comprehensive as this book; it should introduce you to dw and get you on your way... it's an ok intermediate book; not a beginner book.

the downside is that the book will take you longer to read than it should be for a 600 page book.. b/c too many random comments... not much info will be retained.
BELIEVE ME.. I've read many web design books... i had to go back to this book so many times whereas in other books, having read it carefully once did the job of knowledge retainment.
TIME IS IMPORTANT TO ME!!! LIFE IS AN ECONOMIC BATTLE AGAINST COMPETITORS AND TIME...

my definitive suggestions to novices to the web design field:
Please consider what i say carefully.. b/c i had to go thru the struggles and time to come to the knowledge i have now.

Similar Products