Customer Reviews

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While this review is still basically correct it needs to be ammended because the appendeces on the web are not complete. When looking for an appendix Q, which was referred to in the book, the online appendeces only included A - N. The publisher referred me to the author, but the email addresses given only return errors. Very disappointing. The rating has dropped from 5 stars to 2 for this reason.

...This is called VISUAL QUICKSTART. When I want depth I look at publishers like MacMillan Technical, Wrox, and O'Reilly. When I want some help doing a project with software that is unfamiliar to me, then I look first at these guides. They are reasonably priced and get me working quickly.

I haven't found anything that claims this book is for advanced users, it is clearly marked beginning to intermediate. Nor is it a tutorial. It is 700 pages of direct instructions that are grouped by task that are well indexed with a complete table of contents. And it is all to the point, I don't have to wade through dross to get to the silver. It also has a companion website that provides extensive appendices, along with links to other sites that the web developers that I know recommend - webmonkey, killerwebsites, pagesthatsuck and more.

I would say that this book is for beginners at Dreamweaver, not new computer owners. I am comfortable technically, I want to put up a site with Dreamweaver, and this is a book that will keep me busy and learning new things for a long time. Since I am not a developer, along with the website it may well be the only book I will ever need. However, the online references need to be completed.

I really like this book. I'm pretty good at computers but I was stumped when trying to learn Dreamweaver on my own. The book breaks learning down in to easy to follow steps, and includes information for MAC users as well, although not as frequently as I'd like. Ms. Towers has tons of personality, and it comes through in her text. Unlike the other reviewer, I like how the book is organzied. It is written very sequentially so that the reader builds upon thier skills, even if this means not learning everything there is to know about a function until a later chapter. The author always notes this, and tells the reader where to skip ahead to if they need the advanced stuff now.

I have 5 dreamweaver books that are all different. Tarin's visual quickstart guide is almost always the first book I reach for trying to find an answer. It is not always there, and it is not always clear, it is not always covering every detail, but it is the book with the least blah blah and the most to the point and step by step instructions on how to get something done. Especially for the price definitely a must have for me.

There are not many screenshots - as opposed to what also the other titles in these series might suggest - so they all should rather be called "The Peachpit QuickSTEP Guides."

As with other Visual Quickstart Guides, this book had me working in no time at all. It covers everything you need to know to get started with Dreamweaver MX and even goes a little deeper for more advanced users.

with illustrations and concise explanations for designing/publishing an outstanding web site - for beginning to intermediate designers, and the price is right!

This book is basic. If you are new to Dreamweaver and want an entry-level book to get your feet wet with, this will do it. However, if you need more than that, you're going to have to buy additional material. This falls short.

I've been using this to help learn Dreamweaver and while it's a good resource for basic information, it's definitely a mixed experience.

It seemed that every time that the book started heading toward a subject I found useful (timelines, animations, hotspots), the book would direct me to the appendices on their website. This was extremely frustrating. Plus some of these appendices were completely missing, like timelines and animations (Appendix N). I wanted to create an image slideshow -- advanced but not overly so -- but since the book was missing this subject completely, I had to patch together the information from a search on google.com.

And sometimes it's helpful if a book tells me what a program CAN'T do, so that I don't spend hours wasting my time on something won't work anyway. This book fails to do this, unlike the excellent Missing Manual guides.

I had a good experience with Peachpit's Photoshop 6 book, but this book has really turned me off from their products.

I just got done with this book and I have to say that it is just O.K. that is if you just want to learn the UI of Dreamweaver MX. It helps to know Code and you can move quickly through the book if you do know code. Or if you have worked with something similar before like Adobe Golive.

Their are some annoying problems with this book though.

1. Every few pages the author tells you to look up information on the books website. While this book is over 700 pages long.

2. At the latter parts of the book, the screen shots are printed so small that you can't tell what the author is pointing to, and notice the amount of white space on those pages.

3. And finally some of the content that is said to be online is not. Don't bother with the given email address for feedback or assistance. They don't answer!

Having some back ground in the industry and just wanted to learn the UI of Dreamweaver MX (after using Golive for the past 4 years) I would have to say that this book was a quick help and a good book over all.

Thanks for reading this, and good luck to all.

The information contained in this book is all available in the tutorials which come with the program. What's more, it is laid out in such a confusing way that it is next to useless. I'm going to check out Macromedia's *Dreamweaver from the Source* -- I was very impressed with their Freehand guide. As for this book, all I can say is "read the title ... and save your money."

I bought this book because I wanted to learn this program. On the back of the book it says beiginner-advanced which is completely untrue. The book is very basic and is one I would call a "bonehead" book. The book is nice because of the pictures included but would be very confusing to a novice. This book is only good for a reference, or if you've just started learning dreamweaver, but even then, there are many other books out there such as Inside Dreamweaver MX that are much better to learn from.