Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual
Reviewed by Dr. Eric Flescher
Author:
David Sawyer McFarland
O'Reilly
Released:
2009Pages:1087
45 USD, $45 CND
ISBN 10: 0-596-52292-4
ISBN 13: 9780596522926
Novice/ Intermediate/Advanced
Requirements:
Dreamweaver CS4
Strengths:
This massive book is well designed and is packed
with helpful information. The index is well written. This book includes a
very nice set of introductory based guides and information so that novice
Dreamweaver users or those who have switched over, can learn how to use the
software. There is a “CD” on a website for additional information.
Intuitively written book with lots of helpful ideas, information and
tutorials.
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There are tutorials and
a program that can be downloaded for free, that allows importation of Go Live
files/websites, so that users
don’t have to start completely all over. Uses can work with Dreamweaver and your favorite files
almost immediately. Excellent guidance section is integrated and goes along
now with Dreamweaver CS4.
Dreamweaver CS4 now is much more user friendly because it is now integrated
with Adobe related interface features.
Weaknesses:
The book has only black/white text / color.
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Introduction
Dreamweaver has been, for most
part, recognized as a web
developers’ “tour de force”, for website design. It has remained as the choice
for designing websites for many years due to its lofty reputation and being the
“standard” for website design.
Mostly this reputation has come about due to its
complex and feature laden design in one package. Dreamweaver has been a real
nightmare for me however. My disdain for Dreamweaver has been a long one. Unwieldy, hard to figure out, even with
the guidance of tutorials, it was highly non-intuitive and very not user
friendly. In 2000, after dropping
my use of Dreamweaver, I was able to produce good websites, within a week, with
its new-found nemesis, GoLive. Since that time, I have watched with interest
the battle between Golive and Dreamweaver, year in and year out. They have
always been “neck and neck” with Dreamweaver having a few more innovations. But
overall, Golive was more intuitive and a better visual tool. Still, like it or
not, Dreamweaver was the “main weapon” in website building, even as both Golive
and Dreamweaver became more powerful.
When Adobe took over
Dreamweaver, the “writing was on the wall”. Golive would soon be left for dead.
My feeling was that Adobe bought Dreamweaver to use the best of Golive, meld it
into Dreamweaver and gradually improve other parts of it. My feelings now are borne out by working through Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual. My intention was to delve
into its guiding principals and see if I could finally quell my disdain for
Dreamweaver.
The Missing Manual book
series is written by David Pogue, the New York Times Technology columnist, who
continues to be the author at the helm of this series. The words on
the front cover of the book say it is “the book that should have been in the
box”. For the most part, you can call this the main theme of this series of
books. The series books are self help guidebooks for learning how to use
software and hardware that usually and only comes with the meager original documentation or manuals.
This book, authored by
David Sawyer McFarland, is a media and website developer since 1995. He has
produced a massive but thoughtfully written guide. The fact that this author is
also a writer, trainer and instructor and has taught many classes involving
Dreamweaver, is borne out and is also self evident in the ways that he has
thoughtfully crafted this book.
This book is more a guide
then a “textbook”. That is the main intent for the The Missing Manual series
books, as well as in this book. There are a short hand system of arrows that replaces the use of “much more text laden information”. These
guide the user through the learning process in a much more efficient
manner. Illustrations and
additional visual aids are in black and white. This is a drawback but screenshots are, for the most part, of ample size and very readable. Throughout the book, there
are helpful tips, help boxes, notes along with some very nice tables (conversions
for different formats.
Throughout
the book, there are helpful ideas in the way of tips, (called: Frequently Asked
Questions (FAQs) , Power Users Clinic, Work around Workshop, and more), sprinkled throughout the seven parts of
the 1,065-page massive book. The author helps the user cover “a lot of ground”
but admirably, one can start from the beginning.
In this book, there is
guidance within its 26 chapters. These are: Building web pages; Building better
web pages; Bringing your pages to Life; Building a web site; Dreamweaver
CS4Power; Dynamic Dreamweaver. The complexity grows with some chapters but at
least there is a guidance as you progress from which ever place you start. Adobe has built a good user friendly
area to learn about many facets of the Dreamweaver. This new area makes
learning with this book even better and supplements the assistance of this book.
The Appendix A has an
assistance help section with more information on-line which in the long run can
help speed up finding more ideas and information. That combined with this book
made for a much more pleasurable learning experience then when I first started
with Dreamweaver.
Appendix B has menu by menu descriptions for Dreamweaver CS4.
Unfortunately there is just text here and no visuals and screenshots are available in this section. Finally, the huge index is well done
and was very helpful.
Conclusions
I am not happy that GoLive
will slowly go the way of the “Dodo bird”. But I could see the “writing on the
wall” when Adobe acquired Dreamweaver. My only wish was that Dreamweaver would
some how become a better program and be more user-friendly for me as well as
others, (should they choose to work with Dreamweaver). This wish has been
fulfilled to a great extent. This book includes down to earth, basic, easy to
understand tutorials. My main
thought was, I "wish I had this book" when I was first starting out
with Dreamweaver.
What I also like about
this book are the “little things”, that make reading and understanding, a more
pleasurable experience. Codes, application terminology and more are outlined and explained.
There is a better understanding and guidance of the information. Tutorials are
well outlined in all parts of the book. By explaining, what is needed and why, applications etc are
necessary, one appreciates also and learns better from this book. There are informative answers and
examples which make for even greater understanding. You learn because you
understand, not because “someone is teaching you and wants your to understand
it”. Step by step guides also provide substantial assistance, whether you use Macintosh or
PC/Windows. In fact, I found that even though this software
version is made for Macintosh G5 with lots of ram, I was able to workaround
many aspects of Dreamweaver with my current ancient old flat panel Imac with
900 mgz! ( You can download Dreamweaver for a free trial by the way).
Finally if you are a
Golive or Dreamweaver user, novice to advanced, take a look at this book. While it doesn’t wipe away my
frustration with Dreamweaver over the years, this book and the author’s way of
writin this book, has given me a
new outlook on this application nemesis. Hopefully one day, I can call
Dreamweaver a true "friend" for website building. At least my journey
has begun. Time will tell but at least with this book, I as well as others can have a good start or begin to
improve and learn website building. Check it out to see if this book can meet
your needs with Dreamweaver.