The intermediate user's reference to development with Dreamweaver MX.
Written: Aug 14 '03 (Updated Aug 21 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great structure, good information, good overview
Cons: not for beginners, no sample CD included, related website hard to navigate, Windows only
The Bottom Line: Great overview to web development. Not for beginners, a 'must' for others. Windows and IE centric, but otherwise fair and informative.
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| theuerkorn's Full Review: Dreamweaver Mx Web Development Books |
Classes are nothing for you, but you still want to learn how to master such complex beast as the design of web pages (, if one wants more than adding text and pictures). Finding books isn't hard, especially when deciding on the most powerful software these days. However, too many choices are not always a good thing, and the last thing you want is a bunch of books that all cover the same (entry level) information.
Dreamweaver Web Development is one of those rare books that provide a lot of background information without getting stuck in details. It provides a lot of web design wisdom, and points the developer in the right direction for advanced problems.
Who should read it?
While DMX Hands-On-Training is an excellent book for the absolute beginner, DMX Web Development continues at a somewhat higher level. It's not so much about which button to click, but what to do with the web and what pitfalls to avoid. This may be the one 'disadvantage' of this book, since beginners will be overwhelmed by the pace with which Drew McAllen (the author) discusses each subject.
Everybody who has a basic understanding of how to deal with DMX, will find lots of valuable information in this book. Mostly in the form of pointers and background information, which help to bridge the gap between beginner's literature and experts.
Despite the availability of DMX for Macintosh, the book does not cover any other system than Windows, hence specific information is geared towards this particular OS only. The good news is that most of it is directly transferable.
For basic information about DMX and web design I would strongly recommend books like Nielsen's Web Usability and DMX Hands-On-Training before trying to digest DMX web Development.
As the title suggests, the main target group are users of Dreamweaver MX and those will draw the most use out of the provided information.
While there are many code samples included, this book does not teach programming. Advanced users may be grateful for the provided code hints, beginners and even intermediate users will be a little bit overwhelmed with the snippets. (I.e. the FormMail.pl script is mentioned, but it's up to the reader to find out how general email processing works and that the script is simply processing the information and hands it on to Sendmail which is actually sending the information as an e-mail.)
The associated website (www.dreamweaverfever.com) contains good general information but is hard to navigate due to the chosen metaphors. Once beyond that point, one will find some valuable information. (The focus seems to be on quality and not quantity.) It does not make up for the 'missing' CD, and most listing and examples from the book still need to be typed.
Excellent information.
The overall impression after reading this book is that it would be and excellent investment. It manages to provide just enough information about almost all factors that make web development such a complex nature. It also does good in avoiding to spend too much time on every detail, since each could be easily another book.
The main purpose of the book has been executed very well and the writing style is mostly excellent. However, one can tell that it has been written by a developer and not a full blooded writer.
The provided information allows the reader to decide on the next steps after mastering the basics on how to use DMX. It basically provides pointers towards advanced technologies and gives the details on how to choose between then and -- very useful -- what their use and advantages are.
As a vivid Netscape user, I felt several times that the author focused too much on IE and is biased in its favor. For instance, by reading the book one must conclude that NS4.7 is one of the most unstable browsers out there, while 6.x and 7.x are not even mentioned (The latter may be due to press time.) In fact, I cannot remember one detail about possible good features of NS. Having said that, the author cannot be accused of not telling the truth. (He just omits certain details.)
The author is an advocate of CSS positioning and non-table design. However, his approach to solve the issues with tables does conflict with another chapter about flexible content according to window size. The proposed layers are a great feature but certainly do not support resizeable content very well (without massive JavaScript). This is one thing I first got excited about, until actually executing this advice surfaced several issues that are omitted in the book. (i.e. inability of positioning absolute and relative layer sizes correctly to each other for all window sizes)
While I may have concentrated on the negative points about the book, I would like to highlight the fact that it practically is the only comprehensive overview to this subject, and a very good one too.
Content
Advanced Design and Architecture in DMX: Talks about general considerations when designing websites. Expert Web design like content management, and planning a site are discussed as well as site architecture and forms design. The browser overview is excellent with exception of outdated Netscape details and little non-Windows information. It also talks about clean HTML code, using DMX's own tools and gives a basic introduction to Dynamic HTML.
Rating: ****-
Workflow and Design Control: Covers advanced technologies like CSS, templates, librabries, tables and frames, as well as controlling windows of a browser. The provided info goes beyond basics and sparks the interest in trying special features like a layer based layout. However, it does not exactly teach it, but provides detailed pointers where to look for more information. The info, however, is well laid out and should be sufficient for the interested reader to start things on your own.
Rating: ****-
Develop Projects Further: is an excellent overview of advanced technologies that are available and competing in the net. The author nicely reviews 'all' options and provides a fair comparison basis. (unbiased) It's all about web applications, development and extensions. Given that this is subject of a separate library, it's an excellent overview without the marketing hoopla.
Rating: *****
My recommendation
... is a clear YES for everybody who needs a good reference to advanced technologies and well laid out details about their deployment and associated problems. Absolute beginners might get it too, but should wait until they got beyond the basics of how to use DMX.
Apart from very few issues I had with the provided information, it is one of the greatest books I found to 'general' web development with DMX. In fact, it may be the only one that bridges the gap between beginners and experts in such a comprehensive matter.
With 45.- it's somewhat pricey and especially when considering that no CD is included. However, it should be still a good investment, and even more so with the 20% to 30% discount one can get online (www.bn.com or www.amazon.com).
It's not the only book one will ever have to read, but it's a great overview to a complex and confusing world of web development techniques and tools.
Recommended:
Yes
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