Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide [Paperback]

However, I did find a few areas too lightly covered, such as making and working with custom templates. Also, being aware that this book is focussed on a Macromedia product, I would have liked to have seen more information for working with or importing work from, other applications such as PhotoShop and Image Ready. Understandably Ms. Towers covered a bit more about integrating Dreamweaver with Macromedia's Fireworks, but even working in the design field, I personally know very few people who use Fireworks as opposed to PhotoShop.

There were a few other areas I would have liked to have seen handled differently or perhaps laid out in a different format. I found that when trying to learn how to use Dreamweaver's CSS tools, I had to do a fair amount of chapter jumping to get the information I needed. Personally I would prefer to have like functions grouped together for ease of advancement in that area.

The illustrative examples are numerous, well-labelled and relevant to each page's content. In many areas, I found the illustrations to offer a better explanation of how to accomplish something than the textual instructions. In my opinion, one of the best sections in this book was that on managing web sites. Gone are the days when the majority of websites consist of one page of information and perhaps a few graphics. Even a simple personal site can easily encompass several pages of content. The tips on managing everything from a small domain to a large network are very practical and invaluable.

I would have liked to have seen some quick reference tables and or appendices in this book; while there are many such resources online, I still find Dreamweaver to be somewhat cluttered and it's easier to be able to look up a reference table than it is to find what I need somewhere in the programme. Besides, some of us still like books. Overall I wouldn't hesitate in recommending this book to anyone who is just starting out with Dreamweaver, but I would hesitate in recommending it to someone new to both Dreamweaver and web designing, as many areas of this book seem to assume that the reader is more than a novice as far as web coding knowledge is concerned.