Books: Dreamweaver

Most of my experiences with these books goes no deeper than having spent time at Barnes and Borders thumbing through their pages. I have not actually worked through any of the books listed here to thoroughly evaluate their worth. If you have used a book that you felt was helpful, or spent money on a book that you later regretted, email me and I'll share those experiences here.

Workbook
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: Training From the Source
by Khristine Annwn Page

From the book's back cover: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: Training from the Source leads readers through a series of 18 lessons in which they learn how to create and maintain Web sites of their own. The book's step-by-step exercises use the "Lights of the Coast" project Web site to teach the reader how to use the latest version of Dreamweaver. By recreating the sample Web site through the lessons, readers will develop sites that are accessible to a wide audience and will learn to work in an environment that integrates both visual and code editing. The lessons provide 23 hours of tutorials designed to take you through Dreamweaver's powerful tools. By starting with the basics of creating a Web page while working with text, graphics and tables, the reader will develop skills and techniques needed to produce Web sites.

My own evaluation of this book: As the paragraph above explains, this book is really meant to work you through the building of a project. If you are looking for a reference book, this is probably not a good choice. This book did seem that it would be very beneficial to those that would like to learn Dreamweaver through experience in using it. It is very "workbook" like in nature and, like many computer books, comes with a CD containing the files used within. The book appeared unimposing, yet thorough.

Reference: Easy
Dreamweaver MX: The Missing Manual
by David McFarland

In our district, we have used the "missing manual" series for iMovie and have found it to be a very easy book to use. It would be my guess that this book be similarly humorous and helpful.

From the Publisher: "As the Web's popularity continues to skyrocket, so does that of Macromedia Dreamweaver, one of the most elegant and powerful Web-page creation programs available. DreamWeaver offers a rich, well-designed, WISYWYG environment for building cross-platform, cross-browser Web sites; but unlike most visual editors, it doesn't clutter up the underlying HTML programming by inserting unnecessary HTML tags that make large Web sites difficult to manage. Dreamweaver is a favorite of multimedia designers, thanks to its smooth integration with other Macromedia applications, like Flash and Shockwave.

"Dreamweaver MX (for Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, and Windows) marks the historic union of Dreamweaver and Dreamweaver UltraDev, a package of Web-database language modules once sold separately. The new, unified program offers even more power--and DreamWeaver MX: The Missing Manual offers even more easily understood, witty lessons for harnessing it.

"As in his highly regarded Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual, author McFarland livens the book with unique "live examples" that let the reader see and test--on the Internet, itself--real Web pages that follow the development progress of the book's chapters. There's even a step-by-step tutorial for creating an interactive Web database using Microsoft's ASP programming language, new to Dreamweaver MX.

"In collaboration with Missing Manual series editor David Pogue, McFarland brings DreamWeaver MX to life with clarity, authority, and good humor. Armed with this book, the first-time or experienced Web designer will have little difficulty using DreamWeaver to create stunning, interactive Web sites.

Reference: Intermediate / Advanced
Dreamweaver MX Bible
by Joseph W. Lowery

Each time a new version of Dreamweaver comes out, this is THE book that developers are waiting for. Not only does it's size make it look impressive on one's bookshelf, it's pages hold the answers to nearly every question you will have while using Dreamweaver.