Rating: 
Summary: KEEP LOOKING
Review: As anyone who's picked up a computer tutorial book knows, the nature of the experience (from a joyous pleasure to pure living ... of earth) and value of the book as a learning tool (a welcomed gift to a overpriced doorstop) is directly proportional to the number of steps left out or inaccurately described by the author. The errors in this book begin on page 13 (out of over 600) and by page 34 you're [done], unless you can lay your hands on the text and divine the missing steps. Not only that, but, because you have loaded HOT's files on your harddrive you'll find yourself with a partially finished site hidden somewhere and not a clue as to how to get the [darn] thing removed and error messages warning you of impending doom if you try to get around it. (For mac users, using Sherlock gets you nowhere.) I'm really disappointed with this book. It was a huge waste of money and time. I'll just keep looking. You do the same.
Rating: 
Summary: easy read
Review: Easy to read, excellent instruction. Weinman understands how to comunicate concepts well through exercises, etc.
Rating:
Summary: easy read
Review: Easy to read, excellent instruction. Weinman understands how to comunicate concepts well through exercises, etc.
Rating:
Summary: if you newbie, this is good
Review: Good book for newbie, especially because the language is so fluent. It's clearly from someone who know teaching as well the program. True this book is tend to the Mac user, but anyway, there's where people with open mind (they don't need any windows to see the world as such ;-P) gather, isn't it? The tutorial is so clear that I don't need to use any computer to exercise. But it you need anything fancy or tips on trick, you won't find much in this book. It's clearly for a newbie.
Rating: 
Summary: great book MINUS the EFFICIENCY
Review: great book for learning DW
it's a beginner-intermediate level book, not a BEGINNER's book. there is a difference. if you have no background with WEB DESIGN or DW, get a beginner's book.however, 600 pages of info? it's trying too hard and deviating from the purpose. DHTML section? i'm gonna have to read that in an INTERMEDIATE-ADVANCED LEVEL BOOK anyway. so why is it in this book? that's just ONE example. some of you may think it's good that it's covering a lot of material, but i think it's a waste of my time. damn. isn't there a smarter, more efficient way to learn DW without sacrificing quality? yes, there is. Dreamweaver 4 Virtual Classroom. less than 300 pages.. and you won't miss anything. this is random, but listen up... Dreamweaver 4 Visual Quickstart SUCKS! my opinion may seem harsh.. but it's really that bad. really. it is. =) For INTERMEDIATE-ADVANCED LEVEL, get INSIDE DREAMWEAVER 4 by NEW RIDERS(it also serves as a reference). personally, i don't regard BIBLES by IDG/hungry minds with any respect. i'm a INSIDE ____ by new riders fan. For bells and whistles, Dreamweaver 4 Magic by NEW RIDERS. wa la.
Rating:
Summary: H.O.T. is O.K. for the beginner
Review: Green and Weinman set out to put a basic process together to give you the understanding of the scope of Dreamweaver 4 and how to go about using it in a very broad way. I think they achieve this... anyone can follow this book... (it's not very technical so don't fear it's size.) It is a little repetitive to help drive the point home (and probably make it look alot more informative than it really is by excessive pictures, I think the publisher said "fill it out some more") I think this can be misleading to the layman picking flipping through this book in a book shop expecting it to be a fountain of knowledge. It's not. But it will help put you in the right mindset to use Dreamweaver 4. Learning HTML and Javascript, and CSS is upto the bazillian other books already written on those topics. So don't expect too much in technical detail because that's not the objective. They state in their intro "... What we saw missing from the bookshelves was a process-oriented tutorial that taught readers core principles, techniques, and tips in a hands-on training format.". This was their objective and I think they achieved that. So you can use this book as an introduction to the practical implementation of web design. But don't expect much more than that. It won't change your life but it will point you in a good direction. The CD is pretty good because the samples do work and the exercises seem to have been tested reasonably well, unlike alot of other tech books. Even so I consider still consider this CD's standard to be fairly high. I liked it and for $30-something bucks it will save you $400 on a course. Within a week I was hammering out my own pages. I would probably look at some of their other books to get into some of the other Macromedia products.
Rating:
Summary: Great tool for the novice!
Review: Have you ever had to learn something in a hurry? Like yesterday? Well, Dreamweaver 3 Hands on Training was the perfect tutorial for me.
I had to learn this program because my company began using it. Oh, and let me not fail to mention that I also have a website that's due in two weeks using Dreamweaver. Well, I bought this book. It's for the novice user using easy to comprehend chapter material and great examples. It covers everything from: Cascading Style Sheets
Site Management
Linking HTML
DHTML
Site layout
Automation
Frames
Templates/Libraries
Behaviors
Forms And on and on and on. I can't tell you just how much I have learned in such a short period of time. This was my first use of Dreamweaver. I had used FrontPage in the past. And it was the greatest investment that I could have made for myself. This book gives detailed instructions. I didn't find any errors in the book. (And that's unusual for tutorial books.) Not only do they offer instructions, it explains why you need it and the purpose it will serve. Along with the instructions, neat charts are given at the end of most chapters detailing the functions of objects and/or commands. For example, a chapter on Interface design went over the document window tools and their functions. At the end of the chapter a nice chart was given with the function of all the commands on the document window screen. I tagged those pages and labeled them. They make quick and easy reference pages when using that tool in Dreamweaver. Book also makes a great reference tool for Dreamweaver. I plan on holding it close as I go about creating this website. I feel confident that I can do it ---by just owning this book. I went through the entire book and I'm up and running with my website.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Dreamweaver tutorial for beginners
Review: I already knew HTML before I bought Dreamweaver. However, I still didn't have a clue how to use Dreamweaver. I have never used an HTML generator before. The manual that came with Dreamweaver is very comprehensive, but the tutorial was boring and I still wasn't learning Dreamweaver. After I got this book, I was a bit intimidated by the number of pages. Once I started the lessons I quickly started understanding Dreamweaver. One reviewer commented that there are "missing steps". I didn't have any trouble following along and noticed nothing missing. That reviewer also found it difficult to remove the lessons from their hard drive. I'm not exactly sure what is so hard about right-clicking and delete. Yes, the program warns you just as Windows warns you before you delete a file. I find that this book compliments the manufacturer's manual. There are a few obscure things that I wanted to do that weren't covered in the book, however the manual's index pointed me in the right direction and made sense since I now knew how to work Dreamweaver. I'm sure knowing HTML first helps, but is not necessary. It is amazing that you can build an entire page without writing a single line of code. As a matter of fact, if you want to learn HTML, you could do so after learning Dreamweaver. It allows you to view the code that you just created. I think that the book assumes you already know how to build a web page. If you don't, you might think there are "missing steps" because the book does not explain how to create and manipulate images. However, that's not the function of this book. It teaches you Dreamweaver and it does a very good job of it. Dreamweaver will not make you a webmaster any more than a hammer and saw will make you a carpenter. It's a tool you need to learn how to use to do a job you already know.
Rating:
Summary: This book should come with Dreamweaver
Review: I already knew HTML before I bought Dreamweaver. However, I still didn't have a clue how to use Dreamweaver. I have never used an HTML generator before. The manual that came with Dreamweaver is very comprehensive, but the tutorial was boring and I still wasn't learning Dreamweaver. After I got this book, I was a bit intimidated by the number of pages. Once I started the lessons I quickly started understanding Dreamweaver. One reviewer commented that there are "missing steps". I didn't have any trouble following along and noticed nothing missing. That reviewer also found it difficult to remove the lessons from their hard drive. I'm not exactly sure what is so hard about right-clicking and delete. Yes, the program warns you just as Windows warns you before you delete a file. I find that this book compliments the manufacturer's manual. There are a few obscure things that I wanted to do that weren't covered in the book, however the manual's index pointed me in the right direction and made sense since I now knew how to work Dreamweaver. I'm sure knowing HTML first helps, but is not necessary. It is amazing that you can build an entire page without writing a single line of code. As a matter of fact, if you want to learn HTML, you could do so after learning Dreamweaver. It allows you to view the code that you just created. I think that the book assumes you already know how to build a web page. If you don't, you might think there are "missing steps" because the book does not explain how to create and manipulate images. However, that's not the function of this book. It teaches you Dreamweaver and it does a very good job of it. Dreamweaver will not make you a webmaster any more than a hammer and saw will make you a carpenter. It's a tool you need to learn how to use to do a job you already know.
Rating:
Summary: Best book series, best author of software products
Review: I am very impressed by the authors ability to write instructions on how to use software. And to show you "why" are we doing this. It makes much more sense that way. The first book I read by Lynda was the Photoshop HOT 5.5 series. And I was impressed initially that it was in full color. So I started with Dreamweaver 3, and have not rec'd the "4" book. And as usual, the best ever. Now I'm ready to dig into my new Flash 5 book by Lynda and see how that goes.
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