Dreamweaver CS3 – The Missing Manual
Reviewed by Robert Pritchett
Author: David Sawyer McFarland O’Reilly Media http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510435/index.html Released: June 22, 2007 Pages: 1020 $45 USD, $59 CND, £32 GBP €34.38 Euro Requirements: Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 and a system running it. ISBN 10: 0-596-51043-8 ISBN 13: 978-0-596-51043-5 Missing CD Tutorial: http://www.sawmac.com/missing/dwcs3/tutorials/index.php Strengths: It really is the “Missing Manual” for Dreamweaver CS3! Weaknesses: The publisher wrote that they are recalling/recalled the misprinted copies: Chapters 6 & 8 of this missing manual were ironically missing two pages. In their place were pages 210 and 320 from Varieties of Religious Experience by William James. My book didn’t get replaced. |
|
Introduction
From Amazon.com we read –
“Welcome to Dreamweaver CS3. This new version of the popular web design software offers a rich environment for building professional sites, with drag-and-drop simplicity, clean HTML code, and dynamic database-driven web site creation tools. Moreover, it's now integrated more tightly with Adobe's other products: Photoshop, InDesign, Flash, and their siblings. But with such sophisticated features, the software isn't simple.
So say hello to Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual, the fifth edition of this bestselling book by experienced web site trainer and author David McFarland. This book helps both first-time and experienced web designers bring stunning, interactive web sites to life. With jargon-free language and clear descriptions, this new edition addresses both beginners who need step-by-step guidance as well as long-time Dreamweaver users who need a handy reference to address the inner-workings of the program.
Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual teaches designers how to construct and manage web sites by examining web-page components and Dreamweaver's capabilities through "live examples". With a complete A-Z guide to designing, organizing, building and deploying a web site for those with no web design experience, this book:
- Takes you through the basics to advanced techniques to control the appearance of your web pages with CSS
- Shows you how to design dynamic database-driven web sites, from blogs to product catalogs, and from shopping carts to newsletter signup forms
- Teaches you how to master your web site, and manage thousands of pages effortlessly
Witty and objective, Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual is a must for anyone who uses this highly popular program, from beginners to professionals. Altogether, it's the ultimate atlas for Dreamweaver CS3.”
In this book…
Since we use Dreamweaver CS3 to do the macCompanion website, I was eager to see what I’ve been missing – Forms, Spry Effects, Snippets, generating dynamic page and manipulating databases. But 1,020 pages? Wow!
In spite the 2 “Missing Pages” ™, I liberally bookmarked pages. And the “Missing CD” tutorials are such a nice touch!
Conclusion
David wrote the book to be brief (really!) Perhaps he could have beefed up the section on extensions – but those could be a topic for another book.
Recommendation
Of course it may be too much of “War & Peace”, but it should be a good read for those who use Dreamweaver for a living. It was for me.
