Rating: 
Summary: Wow! Save time, make money, learn loads!!
Review: If you are a true lover of computer books or someone looking to learn Dreamweaver, you are going to be very happy if you make the choice to hit that 'Put in Cart' button!Each chapter is packed full of information. In fact, it is so thorough that this is the only downside of the book! Imagine that, too much information a downside! The reason some may find it to be a downside is because people new to the program will find that later parts of some chapters will be too advanced and advanced users will find that earlier sections may contain too much detail. But, I'm tellin' ya, it's worth every penny and then some. Pick a chapter any chapter and I'll give you an example. Oh, the chapter on Tracing? Okay! A lot of designers use programs like FireWorks and PhotoShop to lay out site ideas for their clients and then pop them on a CD or web page for the client to choose from. DreamWeaver has a powerful utility that takes advantage of these images as a 'Tracing' image to be used when the designer is ready to start building the site. Inside DreamWeaver MX covers this process in detail and even though it is a process I am familiar with, it has taught this old dog new tricks! As I mentioned earlier, there are parts of this section that reviewed things I already knew, but even those early sections contained information valuable to my skills because they decreased the time it takes to complete a project. I always say, found time is found money! This is only one small section in a huge book. I haven't even mentioned the details it has for processes like ASP.NET, XML, plus tons of additional e-commerce and site design information. Inside Dreamweaver MX is definitely something that anyone interested in building sites would benefit from, even if you don't use the program! Happy building!
Leslie
Rating: 
Summary: Inside Dreamweaver
Review: Inside Dreamweaver is a gigantic book that covers everything from basic HTML construction, to DHTML Animation and behaviors, to creating dynamic pages using server side scripting languages such as ASP or Cold Fusion. The sheer scope of its coverage should make it a valuable reference for Dreamweaver users both new and old. Among the new features in Dreamweaver MX is the ability to create dynamic, database driven, pages in either ASP, PHP, Cold Fusion, JSP, or ASP.NET. While the specifics of any of these languages is out of the scope of this book, Inside Dreamweaver provides a valuable starting point, and explanation for these technologies. As someone who's been using Dreamweaver in both personal and professional environments for several years now, I've found several areas of this book to be incredibly helpful. Specifically, the chapter on animating layers, which is something I've played around with on several occasions, but never fully understood. This is the most complete book on Dreamweaver I've ever seen. While I would agree that it is lack in a few areas, it certainly provides a solid foundation and a valuable reference. I also found the interviews to be a nice touch as well as informative.
Rating:
Summary: An absolute must for novice and professionals alike...
Review: Inside Dreamweaver MX is an absolute must for novice Dreamweaver users and professionals alike. It's direct and uncluttered approach makes for a book which is both suited to reference and cover to cover reading. As a user of Dreamweaver since it's conception I didn't expect to find much here that would interest me, but I was pleasantly surprised. In particular the 'Under the Hood' chapter and the 'Appendixes' proved a great read. The authors have managed to cover pretty much all bases, and I was pleased to find that the chapters on building dynamic sites, were not just in ASP, but also ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP and JSP. Many authors would have settled at covering this topic with just one language example! Novices will be pleased to know that the authors also offer some valuable advice on managing projects and sites as a part of your Dreamweaver 'workflow' and comment from leading community figures backs this advice nicely. The book also covers the newer features in Dreamweaver MX (such as the extended templates functionality) extensively where other publications simply skim the surface. I used to be quite pessimistic about the value of books which 'seemingly' acted as an alternative to the product manual, but Inside Dreamweaver MX really goes the extra distance.
Rating:
Summary: This book answers all questions
Review: Inside Dreamweaver MX is the book that should be included as the manual for Dreamweaver MX. At over 1100 pages long, the extent and depth of material is covered is amazing. It ranges from how Dreamweaver MX is organized (dissecting the workspace, explaining preference settings, setting up the panels, site management, etc), to designing pages in Dreamweaver MX (using Cascading Style Sheets, frames, layers, JavaScript, dynamic pages, etc.) Nothing is left out. Each chapter gives background of the concept at hand. It then has steps to accomplish a given task. Then there are optional exercises (CD contains files) to give you an actual hands-one experience. The exercises really give you confidence in learning the concept. Both beginners and advanced users will find the book helpful. Beginners can use it to create good, solid professional web pages. Advanced users can use this as a manual to answer the question at hand. The book is laid out in a very readable and understandable format. Screen shots emphasize what is being discussed. Note to PC users: all screen shots are taken from a Mac. At times there are differences between the two platforms. However in most cases they are the same. Note and tip boxes are scattered throughout for additional reinforcement and consideration about the topic. For those who want to venture into creating dynamic pages, there's an entire section on using Dreamweaver to this end. This includes an introduction to dynamic site. What follows is a chapter dedicated to creating a website based on each of the various application servers. (ASP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP, and JSP.) The exercises for this section include a small database to use. Step by step you put the pieces together that Dreamweaver MX utilizes in order create pages based on a database. Bottom line: whether you're just beginning or a serious developer, you will want this book on your shelf. It's thorough and can be used as either a tutorial or a resource. No matter what's your level of expertise, you will find Inside Dreamweaver MX very handy.
Rating:
Summary: Good for Static page development.
Review: Inside Dreamweaver MX, is a good book, and it cover nearly everything that relates to static pages, but its very light on server technologies such as, ASP, ASP.net, PHP,JSP,CF. Inclosing, If you build static pages this is book is very thorough.
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Summary: Overview of Dreamweaver MX
Review: INSIDE DREAMWEAVER MX
AUTHOR: Laura Gutman, Patricia J. Ayers, Donald S. Booth
PUBLISHER: New Riders
REVIEWED BY: Barbara Rhoades BOOK REVIEW: The very first chapter begins by explaining what a user will find new in Dreamweaver MX. A few of the new items are an improved interface, dockable panel groups (like Photoshop), customizable insert bar and toolbars and enhanced CSS support. There are, of course, the normal chapters included in any instructional book such as creating and working with a document or images, links, building a table, CSS, layers and frames. This book goes farther and also has information on plugins, Java, and building in Cold Fusion or JSP. Like to write your own code? There is a chapter on doing that in Dreamweaver. The CD that is included with Inside Dreamweaver MX contains the files to do the exercises, a trial version of Dreamweaver MX and a list of resource links. Inside Dreamweaver MX will provide a reader with good basic knowledge of using this new Dreamweaver program. By reading the book and working through the exercises, the reader will be able to determine if this is the program they want to use to design web sites.
Rating:
Summary: I loved it!
Review: Seriously one of the most incredible reference books I've ever come across!
I chose to follow this book chapter by chapter as there is so much that's new in Dreamweaver MX, but I will keep it near as a reference manual for a long time.
Written in very accessible language, exercises interspersed with the text to break up the long lists of instructions, a CD full of the files that you need to complete the exercises, this book covers everything! Not only did it fully cover Dreamweaver and the upgrade to MX but integrating with Flash, Java, ASP, Coldfusion, Animating Layers... I really could go on for pages and pages here.
I recommend this book wholeheartedly, for anyone who wants to work with Dreamweaver MX, weather you're brand new to the program or upgrading or even just want to really understand all the options that DW gives you for building websites.
You're covered whether you like to code by hand or drag and drop or a little bit of both (I prefer a little bit of both). Before I got this book, I would have considered myself a power user of Dreamweaver, but I really had no idea - especially with behaviors, extensions and CSS implementation. It's really incredible.
A great book that really gets inside a terrific program - I'm giving this book the highest rating!
Rating:
Summary: Will fill in the blanks and add advancement of your skills
Review: Since the book was published in 2002 and I was working with Dreamweaver MX 2004 there were some differences in the directions and what I actually was able to do. This could be the reason for so many differing oppinions on this book. However once I was able to adjust from 2002 to 2004 we were off and running great. This book was able to fill in the blanks of what I already knew in web site design and taught me new advanced features; while teaching me Dreamweaver. I am now sold on using Dreamweaver instead of just scripting all my code as I have been doing. This book has good structure and the ability to build each chapter in such a way that each level up seems easy and quick to master. I would read the chapters and then follow the tutorial directions. Each chapter felt as easy as the first even when I was learning completely new material.
Rating:
Summary: Will fill in the blanks and add advancement of your skills
Review: Since the book was published in 2002 and I was working with Dreamweaver MX 2004 there were some differences in the directions and what I actually was able to do. This could be the reason for so many differing oppinions on this book. However once I was able to adjust from 2002 to 2004 we were off and running great. This book was able to fill in the blanks of what I already knew in web site design and taught me new advanced features; while teaching me Dreamweaver. I am now sold on using Dreamweaver instead of just scripting all my code as I have been doing. This book has good structure and the ability to build each chapter in such a way that each level up seems easy and quick to master. I would read the chapters and then follow the tutorial directions. Each chapter felt as easy as the first even when I was learning completely new material.
Rating:
Summary: Overview plus interesting interviews
Review: There are so many DW MX books out now that it is difficult distinguishing them. This one has some notable strengths and weaknesses. This huge book does indeed cover most DW features but often only lightly. Perhaps the sheer size of it made it hard for me to figure out the organization of the material. I was pleased to see the large number of warnings and tips on DW bugs and pitfalls. Perhaps Macromedia product management would not approve but the average serious reader will love this aspect of the book. As a person who feels more comfortable working the code directly, Ch. 33 "Writing Code in Dreamweaver" is an excellent resource. The extensive section on server-based features "Dynamic Dreamweaver" was also valuable. The book's example code gets bad marks for W3C standards compliance. Learn the tool from this book, not the code. The authors constantly used example code using deprecated tags and techniques. Ch. 9 "Building Tables" was especially bad in this respect. The authors were so eager to teach us the wasteful practice of using tables for layout that they neglected completely to show us DW's extremely powerful and labor-saving features for manipulating true data tables. Ch. 10 followed in the same vein. The authors broke up the material with lots of interviews with people like us, people working the Web. This was a great idea and added impact and motivation to the book.
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