Dreamweaver 8 : The Missing Manual (Missing Manual)

Web Programming

Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 Hands-On Training

Format: Paperback
Author: Daniel Short
ReleaseDate: 01 December, 2005
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Rating:

Effective, but needs a little tweaking....
Thus, future users will need exceptionally well-prepared materials to learn it well. Dreamweaver is a deceptively simple-appearing program, but is incredibly powerful and complex "under the hood".

This book is an excellent start, with numerous tutorials and videos, but the reader will definitely need additional materials.

Lynda. com is quite well resepected for its tutorials, and rightly so, though I personally find them rather dry (in comparison with the Total Training series). Author Daniel Short, while undeniably a talented, skilled and capable instructor, has a voice that could be bottled and sold as a prescription-strength sedative.

The book is an ideal supplement to the Lynda. com series, and could even be considered critical to adequately grasping Dreamweaver, but the section on CSS falls seriously short in conveying understanding to the neophyte.

I do recommend this book (even highly), but hope that Mr. Short and Lynda. com can address these shortcomings.

Great book for starters


When flipping through the pages, I noticed that the pictures were in color! Not only that, the layout of the lessons made it easy and fun to read! This book taught me the basics with dreamweaver (how to make forms, website, and etc. Before I picked up this book, I had no experience with dreamweaver whatsoever, and basic html skills (I can read html and know what it is. efficiently)

The only thing I "bad" about this book is that it is a short read; I bought it 2 days ago and I am almost finished, but its probably because the book is layed-out so well or most of it was easy to me.

I would definately recommend it to anyone with no experience in dreamweaver.

Can follow lessons, can't work independently
I'm on a Mac, so that offsets the instructions by one jog. OK, so I'm half-way through Chapter 15 and this book frustrates me. It doesn't help, either, when Mac instructions are given incorrectly, or not given at all.

Most of my software learning has been from books, not classes. This is my first experience of being able to follow exercises, but then not being able to work on my own. There is no sense of where to begin to build a practice site. For my style of learning, it is not helpful to be shown one way to do something, then to be told, "Don't do it that way. Here's a better way. "

I'll work the lessons through to the end even though the time spent feels partially wasted. Then, I'll try another book.

I would not recommend this book to others.