Foundation Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004

Rating:
Summary: Kudos....concise, well written & edited.......a great value!
Review: (Update (...): this book is so important, I just bought another copy to replace the one I lost recently. My original review (below) still holds true. And, based on this book, I've pre-ordered the sequel!)

Original review:
So far I'm very pleased with this latest FOE book. I wish I knew who was writing each section, so I could address them personally, but I like the friendly encouraging tone of the writer(s) and the goal: page xiii, "starting with basic layout tasks, working through the creation of a static website based on templates, and ending with a fully dynamic, databased-driven site". And all in ~300 pages, sparing several large trees!(in my opinion, the British are still the best writers, anyway =)

I've been using Dreamweaver since '99, and have always upgraded.I didn't like the latest version at first because of the CSS enforcement, but know it's really a good thing to use, and this book will help me make it a habit.

I'm especially eager to learn to use DW 2004 with the PHP/Apache/MySQL model, and have always hit the wall on my own with other books. I feel confident this book will be the key to building dynamic sites.

(UPDATE (...) Now on p236 & downloading phpMyAdmin as I write this; still verrrry happy & impressed with the book!

It really has been the key to getting
Dreamweaver/Apache/PHP/MySQL to work together....or rather, to enable me to set them up to create & test dynamic data-based pages.

After I get the hang of it, I'll add Flash to the mix as the front end. Way cool!!!

Great job! Keep it up, Guys!

Thanks, (...)

Rating:
Summary: Kudos....concise, well written & edited.......a great value!
Review: (Update (...): this book is so important, I just bought another copy to replace the one I lost recently. My original review (below) still holds true. And, based on this book, I've pre-ordered the sequel!)

Original review:
So far I'm very pleased with this latest FOE book. I wish I knew who was writing each section, so I could address them personally, but I like the friendly encouraging tone of the writer(s) and the goal: page xiii, "starting with basic layout tasks, working through the creation of a static website based on templates, and ending with a fully dynamic, databased-driven site". And all in ~300 pages, sparing several large trees!(in my opinion, the British are still the best writers, anyway =)

I've been using Dreamweaver since '99, and have always upgraded.I didn't like the latest version at first because of the CSS enforcement, but know it's really a good thing to use, and this book will help me make it a habit.

I'm especially eager to learn to use DW 2004 with the PHP/Apache/MySQL model, and have always hit the wall on my own with other books. I feel confident this book will be the key to building dynamic sites.

(UPDATE (...) Now on p236 & downloading phpMyAdmin as I write this; still verrrry happy & impressed with the book!

It really has been the key to getting
Dreamweaver/Apache/PHP/MySQL to work together....or rather, to enable me to set them up to create & test dynamic data-based pages.

After I get the hang of it, I'll add Flash to the mix as the front end. Way cool!!!

Great job! Keep it up, Guys!

Thanks, (...)

Rating:
Summary: Pre-review and a response.
Review: I have used other Foundation books and have found them to be more than adequete for my beginner/intermediate level needs. I trust that this book would do nothing less. I will most likely purchase this book. My ranking is based upon the other books.

The real reason I composed this review was to let reviewer rayne353 from Texas know that "usually ships within 24 hours" means it "usually" leaves thier warehouse within 24 hrs of receiving confirmation that you purchased this book. The key word in that phrase is, you guessed it, "usually." It most likely left the warehouse 2 or 3 days after you purchased it. Don't hold it against them too much. I made the same mistake and I'm sure others will to.

Rating:
Summary: delivery problem
Review: I ordered Foundation Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 on March 3rd and choose overnight shipping. The book said it would ship within 24 hours. I received an email that said "Shipping estimate for these items: March 4, 2004 Delivery estimate: March 5, 2004 - March 5, 2004" I checked my account evey day. Now, on the delivery date of March 5, my account suddenly says Delivery estimate: Mar 9, 2004. The webpage of the book still says " usually ships withion 24 hours". Delaying my shipment for a week, making me pay for overnight delivery charges, and not letting me cancel my order are not acceptable to me.

Having said that, I look forward to receiving this book and believe it will be a great read. Just don't buy it from Amazon. Instead, go to your local book seller. I wish I had.

Rating:
Summary: It's a foundation book, stressing FOUNDATION
Review: I used dreamweaver MX and I also got myself through Dreamweaver MX: Training from the source before (which to be honest, was really boring to me.... each chapter felt like it would never end.....), but I never had the confidence in using dreamweaver for any big project of mine, I still used it just to save time on my XHTML and stuff like that!
I then got my hands on Foundation Dreamweaver MX 2004. Now I'll admit, I am a big fan of Friends of ED books and it is thanks to their foundation series that have got me going with my Flash MX side, but I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. I read the reviews on amazon.com and they all seemed positive... so I went ahead and dedicated time to this book.
As one of the previous reviews said, it truly doesn't waste time in the shallow end, giving no disrespect to you by teaching you how to do such common things like "SAVING", which I'm pretty sure I remember was in the training from the source book from before.. I mean if you're so new to computers, chances are you wouldnt have dived out and spent all that money to purchase of all programs, dreamweaver mx 2004!
It starts off by diving into a project and how you would/should first start off, then it starts to pave the pathway for using dreamweaver and it guides you to the creation of a static website. So the first half was relatively straightforward and easy because it doesn't really require anything more than knowing HTML/XHTML.. then comes the 2nd bit, and being a programmer myself meant that the bit on the basic language of PHP was a bit boring because I knew all the concepts, however, the excitement began once I created my own content management system, I was loading information from databases and stuff like that! Sure Dreamweaver does a lot of the work for you, but you can only let it do it when you understand how, not just know how, but understand how it all works together. I hate books that teach you "To do this, you click here, then type this, then click ok" and end there, this book does something and usually for instructions that I have a question about, I'll find an explanation of what just went on underneath it... good stuff! Mind you, there are also some cool tips a seasoned user might know but a beginner will have to find out through either mistakes or just luck.
Personally, I really hate and love this book. Hate it because it gets me excited when I get a quick glance at what I'm about to do in the next chapter and I start trying to read more and more within one day and neglecting other things. Love it because right now, having finished the book 2 days ago (Today is 28th July, 2004), I have to say I'd tell anyone who wants to learn Dreamweaver mx 2004 to get this book...definitely. It might not take u from zero to a professional, thats because its not like other books that are 195023852028502492 pages long, but it gives you enough of a grip for you to have the guts to go and explore and try new things and tell that guy next to you "Yep, I know how to use dreamweaver mx 2004" :)

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtfully written, not rushed, great value
Review: I've always liked friends of ED books - not least because I used to work for a sister company before they were bought out by Apress. The Foundation series has always been their biggest-seller, as it combines a comprehensive overview of a tool for the newcomer (either newbie to Dreamweaver, or newbie to this particular release) with a considered, intelligent tutorial style. Quality used to be an issue for friends of ED; fortunately this book marks a return to form. The marketing guy who sent me the book explained that friends of ED were bored at reading the same dry, rushed-out books written on beta code that always accompany a new Dreamweaver release and so took the decision to wait until the community and its authors had a decent chance to use the software in the real-world before writing the book. Happily, as well, Macromedia released a new update to DMX 2004 that made it a lot faster and more stable, hopefully attracting more customers who'd held off from buying due to the quality issues in the first DMX2004 release, although this book doesn't address features added with the updater, like the return of the timeline.

The authors of this book are professional developers David Powers and George McLachlan, and pro artist and designer Craig Grannell. Unlike many DW books, it doesn't only concentrate on the processes and technical procedures of Dreamweaver development; it acknowledges that you're using DW as a tool and the end-result is a site that has to look good and be attractive to whichever audience you're designing for. I found that refreshing in itself - throughout the chapters, there are aesthetic questions considered and it's never forgotten that you're designing for people rather than the dubious joy of squirting code up to a web server somewhere.

Interestingly, unlike previous friends of ED Dreamweaver books which used Access and ASP as the default server model to teach with, this book uses PHP and MySQL - the most popular combo for web sites across the world. The authors write "we chose PHP because ... it's free, it's cross-platform, running on Windows, OSX and Linux, it's easy to learn and ... there are a large number of resources available".

The book is structured around a case-study - a promotional site for photographic images of Iceland. (It's a shame that the book's only in black and white, as the images look great - but if monochrome keeps the cost down, that's OK by us, right?). The reason for the case-study approach is the same approach as we use at DMXzone for our articles (and our series Ideas to Implementation) - recognising that the easiest way to learn something is by doing it, and making it as relevant to the real-world as possible. So there's a short one chapter on the Dreamweaver IDE (if you're completely new) and then it's straight in with the learning curve.

I won't go through every chapter individually; most notable are chapter 9 which builds the site using CSS rather than nested tables, chapter 10 which handily gives instructions on installing PHP and Apache Server on different operating systems, Chapter 11 which looks at forms, and some simple ways to protect them from malicious scripts, chapter 13 which helps set up and run MySQL, chapter 14 which looks at website security.

The reason I highlight these are because many beginner's books don't touch on security at all (which can lead to a lot of very good sites written by beginners being open to hacks) and because, in a beginner's book, I always like to see installation explained in the author's own voice, as that's the style that the reader has become familiar with (rather than being sent off to a URL - and, frankly, many open-source developer sites are not terribly beginner-friendly). Also of note in chapter 16 - Dreamweaver Extensions - which name-checks DMXzone!!

I liked this book very much; the style was bright and breezy enough so that it never got boring (and I've read a lot of beginner's Dreamweaver tutorials in my time). It hangs together as a book, too; we were shown a lot of DMX 2004 books last year that were written in a rush, hardly edited, and which were 90% of the previous MX edition of the book with a few new screenshots. The learning curve in this book is fast, but not frightening, and it covers all the basics but distinguishes itself by including information on design, the user experience and security which you don't usually see in books aimed at the beginner, but which I believe most definitely *should* be included. The premise behind the case-study is that web sites should be styled using CSS -which is great, but the book doesn't really cover much CSS - just enough to get the case-study up and running.

After reading this book, you won't be up to professional level (you need DMXzone tutorials to do that!); I'm not sure that after reading it, you'd be ready to make a huge site using PHP although, in fairness to the authors, they don't claim that it will - but it will give a newbie a full grounding in the mechanics of making PHP/ MySQL sites with DMX 2004.

Bruce Lawson, DMXzone.com
The Independent Dreamweaver Community

Rating:
Summary: Concise, well written & edited.......a great value!
Review: So far I'm very pleased with this latest FOE book. I wish I knew who was writing each section, so I could address them
personally, but I like the friendly encouraging tone of the
writer(s) and the goal: page xiii, "starting with basic layout tasks, working through the creation of a static website based on templates, and ending with a fully dynamic, databased-driven site". And all in ~300 pages, sparing several large trees!
(in my opinion, the British are still the best writers, anyway =)

I've been using Dreamweaver since '99, and have always upgraded.
I didn't like the latest version at first because of the CSS
inforcement, but know it's really a good thing to use, and this
book will help me make it a habit.

I'm especially eager to learn to use DW 2004 with the PHP/Apache/MySQL model, and have always hit the wall on my own
with other books. I feel confident this book will be the key
to building dynamic sites.

Great job! Keep it up, Guys!

Thanks,
Cal McGaugh
[e-mail]
Escondido, California, USA

Rating:
Summary: An author replies...
Review: Sorry you feel you wasted your money, SJ. Actually, the book was written by three people, not one as you seem to think. "Foundation Dreamweaver MX 2004" is a beginner-level book about using Dreamweaver MX 2004, which explores the development of a website using XHTML and CSS; and in the second half, it takes the reader's knowledge further by showing how to build a dynamic website with PHP and MySQL.

You criticize the JavaScript, but seem unaware of the fact that it's perfectly legal to omit the semicolon from the end of a statement. Why didn't we explain the workings of the JavaScript? Because it's a book about Dreamweaver, not a JavaScript tutorial, that's why. Dreamweaver inserts a large amount of JavaScript into web pages, and most users don't have the faintest idea what it does - but they do know it works. And the short script that we added in the book works, too. And when one reader contacted me through the friends of ED forum, I rewrote the script (free of charge) to add extra features to it. He certainly didn't feel he'd wasted his money - he was delighted.

You also complain that there is no explanation about capitalizing h2 tags. In fact, an entire page (page 88) was devoted to the subject. The style of the h2 tags (as of all other tags) is controlled by CSS. The real pity is that you didn't take up the invitation to ask questions in the friends of ED forum. You would have got a fast and I hope helpful answer, and perhaps have joined the large number of apparently very happy readers.

As with all books, it may not be perfect. My co-authors and I were not happy at the size of some of the illustrations, and conveyed our feelings to the publisher. I'm pleased to say that they listened, and steps have been taken to prevent it happening again in future books. Still, it's an exaggeration to say you need a magnifying glass. All the details that readers need to copy from illustrations are clearly legible.

Rating:
Summary: No wasting time in the shallow end here!
Review: This is a great book for certain kinds of people, and maybe not so great for others, so it's important you're able to assess your style of learning to avoid disappointment with it.

I love it and think it's one of the most fantastic books of its kind for any application -and I'll tell you why: they don't fill pages with over-detailed explanations of simple interface issues and figure that's teaching you the application; they teach you the application as a means to make sites. You're always in the thick of using Dreamweaver to accomplish the real-world tasks involved in designing, building and launching a site. They cover tangent technologies as they come up in the process of building the book's example site, so you're learning way more than just how to push Dreamweaver along -PHP, MySQL,the Apache server, CSS, accessibility issues, etc., -whatever you'd come across getting the site done and online. The catch is you need to be able to follow deep material covered in few pages, because it covers the most ground, in the most depth and in the fewest amount of pages I've come across in a computer book. YET- everything is explained so you're not left feeling steps were left out or that you're being told to just imitate without being given enough to understand why and what's going on.

I love it because you're constantly being challenged to keep up with all the diverse information that weaves in & out of the website creation process. The layout helps enormously by breaking the information into different visual chunks per page, and the screen shots are big enough to be informative and clear despite being b&w throughout.

An excellent return on your time investment with this one; you'll come away with a lot more understanding than just how to work Dreamweaver's interface, if you're willing and able to keep taking giant steps following along.

Rating:
Summary: Look elsewhere
Review: Very sorry I wasted my money on this book.

I am a computer science major and am quite familiar with PHP, HTML, Mysql and most of the items he puts into this book. I bought it to teach me dreamweaver. Although this guy is probably very smart, he is a horrible writer. If you're dead set on getting this book, the first thing I recommend you do is get a magnifying glass. A few times he asks you to duplicate code that is inside a black and white square that is maybe 2 and a half inches. His code has so many inconsistencies. For example, in the javascript section (which I once studied but remember very little of) he puts semi colons at the end of some code and not others (such as two different variable declarations one with a semi colon and one without). So instead of learning javascript I'm spending time looking up his inconsistencies. The code in the book doesn't match the code he provides on his website. Once he said something like "Above I have used the escape sequence for quotation marks..." and he hadn't. So I download the code on his website to see if he had, and of course he did.

I know it's a dreamweaver book but when you put javascript in it and don't explain how it works I'm a little turned off. He never explains his code, only says "If you don't understand this code just type it and don't worry about it". Pfft. He frequently switches files without mentioning that he did so. For example, i think once I was working in the iceland.js file and he wrote "Now paste this code back in your file..." and hadn't asked you to open anything else. He wastes a lot of pages on talking about general configuration of dreamweaver that most people can figure out by just looking at the preferences tab. I found that he skipped some configuration in the book.. For example he notes that "Since we've edited our H2 tags to capitolize all the text anything surrounded by the h2 tags should appear in all caps" and shows an example of this. Well, I skipped back through the whole chapter and didn't see a single spot where he asked you to change the h2 tag to uppercase.

The guy knows his stuff but he shouldn't be writing books. Look elsewhere for dreamweaver help. Too frustrating to read this one.