Rating: 
Summary: Even great in Dreamweaver MX!!!!!!!
Review: I bought the book almost a year ago and had done a few of the projects. Great stuff and I learned more from the hands-on approach than from other reference books I'd read. I recently installed the trial version of Dreamweaver MX and was amazed that all of the stuff in my Magic book still works! I was doubly amazed at my first visit to the projectseven web site and found so many more goodies than I knew what to do with. My only negative thought is that Mr. Sparber won't be doing the next Magic book. But then again, there's so much stuff on his site that it may take me another year to get through it all.Kevin
Rating: 
Summary: Become a Dreamweaver Magician!!
Review: Dreamweaver 4 Magic is a great book for Dreamweaver users. It shows the person not versed in complicated languages like javascript and css stylescripts how to accomplish the tasks of adding text without breaking your neck. I practiced several lessons and then when ready I added their style sheets to mine and created a great template featuring a type of pull down menu for my own website. The only thing preventing me from giving it a five rating was that there were a great deal of errors and you can only find the fixes by going to the web site, not of "new riders" the publisher but by project vii, the designers. Fortunatly, their corrections do work well. A great book and if you are a dreamweaver novic, it will help you do a lot of great things you never thought possible.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for beginners
Review: I have very little experience with designing Web pages and limited experience with HTML/DHTML. I was looking for a book that would give me a good background in Web design in general, in using Dreamweaver, and show me how to do cool stuff. I realized very quickly that this book shows you how to do cool stuff only. It is more a recipe book then a teaching tool. I will come back to this book after accomplishing my two first goals.
Rating:
Summary: Nice design, but I still feel a little lost...and a lot bald
Review: I think the projects in this book are really nice, design wise. It does make a good addition to the bookshelf, if you would like to contemplate harmonious designs for your menus. It's pretty helpful on CSS, but I'm not so sure how much I learned using the extensions, which insert a good deal of Javascript into the pages. I work with other programming languages, and I can follow Javascript source code enough of the time to get how I might be able to apply it elsewhere. Sort of. I tried to integrate the extensions from this book with other Javascript in a 'real world' project. The scripts did not play happily together. This was not a problem with the code from the book, but rather with a lack of discussion of the code behind the projects. This not a 'code' book. I did not expect it to teach me Javascript, but I found myself asking a lot of questions about how the extensions could be used in other projects which were not answered by the text. A summary of what each block of code did would have been all that I required, or wanted. Some blocks were fairly self contained and self explanitory. But others were more complex and less self evident, especially when they interacted with other code/extensions. I have to add that since I have begun using Flash I feel like DHTML menus are really a lot of trouble to deal with in comparison to Flash navigation. Code and compatibility are two big issues you will need to learn to deploy a site with DHTML menus successfully. They're not discussed very much in the book. You may find yourself eventually pulling out your hair doing DHTML in the real world. Seriously. In any case, I did find that I still enjoyed some of the projects, and the graphic design work is still good.
Rating:
Summary: No Doubt This Is The Best Book Ever Written for Web Design
Review: Al Sparber and his team of creators has done a fantastic job at piecing together what I would consider the best book ever written for dreamweaver, and even for web design in general. I bought this book because of the top reviews at Amazon, and believe me they were all accurate. It was only 2 days ago did I discover the "Magic" of Clickable tabbed interfaces, and how you can "show and hide" layers at the click of the mouse. I created buttons and layered them with text on the side that will display only when that hotspot is clicked. Wonderful !! I was overjoyed. I'll be digging into the book more soon. If you know the basics of Dreamweaver already, then this is the first book to get so you can be creative in your own magic. It doesn't matter you buy, just BUY IT NOW !! Thanks Al !!
Rating:
Summary: The BEST Dreamweaver 4 book available!
Review: I resisted purchasing this book because I thought it would end up on my shelf, dusty, much like some of the other "flashy" how-to books I have. But I did finally purchase it and to say it is the best Dreamweaver 4 book is no joke. All of the projects contained in the book gives beautiful examples as well as pratical and can be customized to fit your particular web design needs. As a web developer, I am always looking for ideas and this book provided me not only with an introduction presentation for a company site, but gave me extra resources to further develop the site. Thank you for a wonderful book, Project VII, I look forward to the next "Magic" book!
Rating:
Summary: Oh What a Book!
Review: That the authors of Dreamweaver 4 Magic have the most awesome support newsgroup I've ever seen was a very pleasant surprise. It's a place where I've learned so much! They take the techniques taught in the book and expand and expound like nobody's business. I really thought I understood Dreamweaver and Web Design before encountering Sparber and company... Perhaps if the gentleman who made the comment about Magic's menus being passe had visited the newsgroup, he'd have learned that the truth is quite the opposite and it's the Fireworks menus that are passe because of its use of old creaky and bloated code!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Focus on popup menus is outdated
Review: With the introduction of Macromedia's Fireworks 4 there are a lot easier ways to create popup menus that those described in this book. Since popups are on of the main "magic" features, I think the book is outdated now.
Rating:
Summary: Indeed, a magical book!
Review: For the serious beginner (like me) who wants to achieve interesting visual effects and capabilities of Dreamweaver, this IS the book. I saw it in the bookstore,and knew I just gotta buy it. It's very clear and straightforward, with step-by-step instructions and diagrams (so, you know exactly what you would see after each step). I had absolutely no trouble going through the exercises on my own.
Rating:
Summary: Best Dreamweaver 4 book
Review: Buy it and enjoy it. Excellent samples, this books shows to you how to build a great and powerfull site, dynamic html, CSS, all in this wonderful book. Worth the wait to get it. Im from Mexico.
The book includes a CD with all the samples and more software, also you can find a great and nice look so you can keep reading for hours and no boring time.
| 
