Dreamweaver 8: The Missing Manual
reviewed by Eddie Hargreaves
David Sawyer McFarland O'Reilly Missing Manual Series Booksite: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dreamweaver8tmm/ $45 USD, $63 CND, £32 GBP, 39.50€ EUR Published: December 2005 Pages: 952 ISBN: 0596100566 Requirements: Basic computer knowledge Strengths: Well-written, organized; Hands-On Tutorials; Power Users' Clinics; Mac version treated equally; Unbiased. Weaknesses: Big and long. |
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The titles in the Missing Manuals series from Pogue Press are each billed as "the book that should have been in the box." But if that were the case with Dreamweaver 8: The Missing Manual, the box would weigh an additional three pounds. At more than 900 pages long, DW8:TMM is not a quick read. But that's only fitting for the most advanced, long-running web design and development program.
The book is not written solely for novices nor solely for advanced users, so there's something for anyone who uses Dreamweaver. It begins with an introduction to the program's interface and the basics of creating a web page. It continues by explaining more complicated features like tables, layers, and Cascading Style Sheets. It describes how to add interactivity using forms and JavaScript, manage an entire site, and concludes with an introduction to dynamic database-driven Web sites.
Anyone new to Dreamweaver will find the book easy to read thanks to the crisp, clean writing style. In addition, it doesn't make assumptions about knowledge the reader has or doesn't have.Readers of the previous volume obviously won't find as much new information and will probably want to skip a few chapters outright. But there are still a lot of handy tips scattered throughout the entire book that are set apart visually and easy to spot when casually thumbing through. Between the Power Users' Clinic and Workaround Workshop boxes and the Notes and Tips set-asides, there is a lot of useful information revealed quickly and easily, including undocumented keyboard shortcuts.
Reading and doing are two different things, so it's also welcome to have hands-on tutorials that directly follow the various chapters. Using files downloadable from McFarland's web site, the book walks you through specific examples of how to use the concepts it just explained.
Some application-based books focus exclusively on the Windows version, using screenshots that could confuse Mac users or referring only to Windows keyboard shortcuts (Control-S, Alt-F4). DW8:TMM uses screenshots from both Windows XP and Mac OS X and shows web pages in multiple browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, even Netscape in Classic Mac OS). It also gives the two different shortcuts and explains any differences the Windows and Mac versions may have (which are minimal).
Finally, McFarland is not a Macromedia or Adobe employee, so the book is not a cheerleading tool. If there is an aspect of the program that is difficult or confusing, he won't ignore it, and will often explain a way around it. But that also makes any praise he gives to the program that much more genuine. Similarly, when other books are recommended that cover more specialized topics, they aren't always O'Reilly books, adding a level of editorial integrity.
Dreamweaver 8 is a large, complicated program with many capabilities and quirks. McFarland's Missing Manual explains all of them* and is perfect for anyone new to the program who may be intimidated by the application's long history and enormous feature set. Longtime users should also find plenty to help them expand their skillset, especially if they've yet to implement CSS.
*A chapter on frames that appeared in previous versions of the book has been removed, but is available online.
