Rating: 
Summary: Great Book!!
Review: Fantastic Book. This book provides step-by-step instructions on visually spectacular layouts. Comes with a great CD for you to reference. I highly recommend this book to all web designers.
Rating:
Summary: A Dreamweaver Reference Book I Didn't Waste Money On...
Review: Dreamweaver Magic is by far the best reference manual I've purchased. It is step-by-step and although I've been using Dreamweaver for some time, I think this book would be helpful to new users as well as intermediate. There are 12 projects throughout the book and none of them leave you wondering what steps were left out... it's all there, in black and white (and color photos to boot!!).Not only is the book a must-have reference for all Dreamweaver users, it also comes with a CD chock-full of the most awesome extensions and behaviors I've seen made for Dreamweaver. If you're looking to add a little pizzazz to your navigation, Dreamweaver Magic is the answer. Add DHTML and javascripting without knowing a thing about them... too cool. I highly recommend this book...
Rating:
Summary: Finally, Practical Information....
Review: Looking for a step-by-step guide for creating very clean, impressive interfaces? This is the guide! All of the graphics are included on the disk and by altering them in Fireworks, you can take the shortest step from learning to setting up a very nice site navigation interface. I have read some other books by Al Sparber and this is his best. He states that the reason that he included the 12 "Lessons" in the book were to include the most important and practical features of Dreamweaver...he has done an impressive job. By the way the extensions included on the CD are terrific for accomplishing some very impressive effects.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible. Opens new doors!
Review: I've made about 12 websites with Dreamweaver, and thought I was pretty good with it. But all of a sudden, I feel like a total beginner!! I am exploring all of the new, awesome techniques and I love it! This book just opened my eyes to the fact that Dreamweaver is THE most powerful HTML program out there. Wow! As I go through the lessons, I feel like I'm a kid opening presents Christmas morning. I get all giddy. This book is not for beginners in my opinion. The book is written with the assumption that the reader is familiar with the program. And I think that's one of the cooler things about it. Step-by-step instructions for the novice/expert. The screenshots are VERY helpful. The information is complete. The subject matter is worthwhile. Awesome book. I'll be first in line to purchase Sparber's next Dreamweaver book.
Rating: 
Summary: Really good book ... but lacking a few things
Review: Based on other reviews here, I am really bucking the trend as far as the rating. That is because I am really divided on this book. On the one hand, it is visually appealing. The examples are well presented with appropriate screen shots. On the other hand, the nature of the Dreamweaver tool makes some of the examples cumbersome. After going through the examples, I realized I could have written the same tutorial for a text-type editor, like HomeSite, without half the caveats. (Of course, my tutorials would have been longer but they probably would have also been a little more concise.) Part of my problem (and here is a bias) with tools like Dreamweaver is that they do not force someone to really learn the underlying code (in the case of JavaScript) or markup (in the case of CSS or HTML). Granted, you can look at this by going to the code view but Dreamweaver does not encourage this and neither does this book by presenting everything in easy to handle extensions. This may seem an odd complaint and I am sure that I am pretty much alone in voicing it but I much prefer to type in markup and/or code directly and get my hands dirty so that I understand the logic. (I cannot count how many times I have had to interview someone who knew how to do something in GoLive!, FrontPage, or Dreamweaver - but only visually. They had no idea how to actually type in all the markup+logic because they simply never bothered to look and figure it out.) Having said that, the tutorials in this book are excellent and that is mainly because they are all cross-browser compatible. However, in reality, the projects/tutorials only skim the surface of what you can do. For example, the first project - the CSS Cookie Monster - does not really cover automatically increasing font sizes at the users' behest without changing the theme or even reloading the page. (This can be done by using the DOM and can degrade gracefully for older browers.) The project also does not show you how to allow the user to keep the same theme but just change the font type or font size dynamically. (Consider the "Blogger Template" available at Glish for a contrasting example. However, you also have to consider that the "Blogger Template" is not as cross-browser compatible as the projects in this book.) One complaint for me is that the book, while providing good and interesting examples that are visually appealing, falls short of making sure that strict usability and accessibility guidelines are followed at all times. Granted, this was not the authors' intention but it is something that would-be designers will have to watch out for. (And, in my experience, most do not.) As just one example, the authors rely on tables for layout a lot and yet one of the usability goals of CSS (as stated in the W3C WAI guidelines) is to stop doing that! The point is that CSS should be used for the layout. The authors, however, have a good reason: they wanted cross-compatibility with as many browsers as possible. A valid goal although one that is in contradistinction to the "Browser Upgrade Project" that is very necessary in the world of the Web, particularly as we get into new types of browsing mechanisms (PDAs, cell phones, WebTV, etc.) and accessibility laws (such as the 508 guidelines and the need for compliance with screen readers for the disabled). It is great to talk about cool (and even functionally cool) Web design - but you also have to talk about usable and accessible Web design, particularly since the latter is now law in the United States. The CD that comes with the book is more to inflate the price of the book because it mainly offers the site assets (such as PNG files) and the extensions the authors have written to make your life easier. These are, of course, great things and necessary if you want to follow the strict examples. But a little cost could have been saved for the reader by making these downloadable via a Web site and just charging for the book proper. This would have been hard to do, however, because the authors do not show you the actual code in their book - they want you to use their extensions. And, again, they are very helpful extensions. Until you want to do the same stuff outside of Dreamweaver. On the plus side, the examples in the book are very easy to follow even if you are not an experienced Dreamweaver user. I had no trouble at all going through each of the projects. It probably sounds like I am overly badmouthing the book for reasons that, to many designers, will seem silly or spurious. The book really is quite good, particularly if you are a Dreamweaver fan and prefer that tool over more text-based tools (like HomeSite or AceHTML), but I had to leave it with three stars because I felt that, for the money spent, I was left a little disappointed when all was said and done. I just felt that there was not quite enough there. What was there was good, but also somewhat limited for the price of the book.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Have
Review: This book is a must have for the intermediate Dreamweaver user. The tutorials are extremely easy to follow but show you how to do some of the coolest DHTML on the web. All of the DHTML tricks are supported in the most popular browsers. I have been enlightened.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Learning Tool
Review: As an intermediate-level user or DW, this book has been an invaluable tool in helping me to ascend closer to the expert level. The book is laid out in a project format -- the absolute best way to really learn some of DW's finer points. My only complaint is that there weren't more projects in the book. I'm eagerly looking forward to another edition -- and I hope they make it much larger than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Beginner to advanced, in 12 Hands-On projects... Get it!
Review: With no previous experience in using Dreamweaver(DW) and some knowledge of HTML, I went out to look for some DW books. After reading several pages of this book, I discovered that the results you can produce and the skills you can gain was simply AMAZING. I was able to create, modify & design, really, really brilliant and professional web designs by the time I completed the first 2 chapters. This book gives you: -Step-by-step instructions -Screenshots of almost every step -Tutorial in easy-to-follow beginner language -Professional design techniques: like how to optimize webpage design, how to make websites easy to navigate, etc. -Professional editable graphics: the CD contains editable image files you can either use for your own websites or for you to learn how to create similarly optimized images that's small in size so that they load faster. -Links to websites that exploit DW's tools to create cutting-edge web designs which can help/inspire you as you go on to design your own websites. Some of the sites recommended have free tutorials. -An extremely good book. I was turned non-user/beginner to advanced in 12 projects for about [price]. Some people pay thousands for web design training and still cannot come close to producing professional looking sites like the ones I was able to create JUST by reading this book. It's worth every penny. And if you think you need to learn CascadingStyleSheets(CSS), DynamicHTML(DHTML) or Javascript before reading this book, let me tell you that you'll be wasting time and money. With HTML knowledge, I was able to pick up knowledge in CSS on my own through the Hands-On projects of this book. And because you'll be using Macromedia's DW & Fireworks software, you don't need to know Javascript/DHTML at all to be able to create high-impact websites. The CD does NOT contain Dreamweaver4 30-day-trial software.
Rating:
Summary: Great examples and so much more!
Review: It's rare that I do book reviews, but this one will have to be an exception. It's great to find a book structured as well as this book is. All the code samples work according to the documentation and that's a blessing because the topics are quite complex at times. Al Sparber, et all are to be commended for their work here. I hope a book on UltraDev 4 is on the horizon too. I will definitely be looking for more books from this author.
Rating:
Summary: Top Notch
Review: I must say that this book gets a high ranking spot in my work area. It is not for the beginner nor is it sold as a beginners book. If you want truly interemediate to advanced material and innovative ideas this is it. The book is thin but powerful. I highly recommend this title for anyone wanting to advance their Dreamweaver skills and the supporting forum is par excellance!!
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