Rating: 
Summary: Top notch teaching manual
Review: Listen Software Solutions: The book is perfect for teaching: 1. It has two to three visual screen shots for each page 2. Step by Step instruction lead the student through the concept 3. Notes and definitions to provide clarity and help tie concepts together. The book starts off simple by explaining and demonstrating the dreamweaver development environment: workspace, planning your site, and moving files. The book assumes you have little or not knowledge of HTML or Javascript. So they cover: edit HTML, working with images, working with links, fonts and characters, paragraphs and block formating, forms, and javascript behaviors. This was ok. But the section on Style Sheets was excellent. I've create style sheets from scratch, but using dreamweaver made the task very easy. Since, I've already have a strong understand of javascript and html. The book was more about learning how to use the dreamweaver tool rather than learning how to code a web page.
Filling out forms and modifying behavior events was helpful in terms of learning how to use the dreamweaver tool. I found the multimedia section fun. The authors do an excellent job explaining and demonstrating timelines, keyframes, layers, and behavior events. This was a very user friendly book to read and use. The book has a learn by example approach to learning how to use dreamweaver.
Rating: 
Summary: Shakes head in disappointment...
Review: The main reasons I purchased this book was b/c of its affordable price and good reviews. I further examined it and read its "STRAIGHTFORWARD" attributes. However, after having read some chapters, I realized that it's not so straightforward as it's advertised. Though somewhat relevant, many of the chapters' contents are random and should not have been placed there b/c it actually slows your learning curve. Yes, I think when you learn something, you should do so well. However, time is important to me, and this book can be very time consuming. I have many DW books now b/c of the confusion I had at times of reading this. It's not organized in the best way.
But by common sense - Please realize: how good can a ($$$) book possibly be. It does cover a wide range of topics, but it's not presented in the best, time saving method possible. If you're a smart person, and don't need a lot of RANDOM comments thrown at you, I recommend DW Virtual Classroom. Though not as comprehensive as DW VQS, it will get you up and running in matter of days or 2 weeks at the latest. And of course, you should move on to INTERMEDIATE-ADVANCED DW, in which I recommend Inside DW and DREAMWEAVER MAGIC; both by NEW RIDER. To be real good with DW, you need to learn DW EXTENSIONS, and INSIDE DW covers exactly that, as well as comprehesive reference and exercises on other DW topics.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT SO TO THE POINT NOR STRAIGHTFORWARD
Review: The main reasons I purchased this book was b/c of its affordable price and good reviews. I further examined it and read its "STRAIGHTFORWARD" attributes. However, after having read some chapters, I realized that it's not so straightforward as it's advertised. Though somewhat relevant, many of the chapters' contents are random and should not have been placed there b/c it actually slows your learning curve. Yes, I think when you learn something, you should do so well. However, time is important to me, and this book can be very time consuming. I have many DW books now b/c of the confusion I had at times of reading this. It's not organized in the best way.
But by common sense - Please realize: how good can a ($$$) book possibly be. It does cover a wide range of topics, but it's not presented in the best, time saving method possible. If you're a smart person, and don't need a lot of RANDOM comments thrown at you, I recommend DW Virtual Classroom. Though not as comprehensive as DW VQS, it will get you up and running in matter of days or 2 weeks at the latest. And of course, you should move on to INTERMEDIATE-ADVANCED DW, in which I recommend Inside DW and DREAMWEAVER MAGIC; both by NEW RIDER. To be real good with DW, you need to learn DW EXTENSIONS, and INSIDE DW covers exactly that, as well as comprehesive reference and exercises on other DW topics.
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but with omissions
Review: The topics covered are very well written and easy to follow. I used it to get up to speed on DW4 and have been mostly pleased with it, but be warned that many basic DW4 concepts are not covered (how to make image maps and how to import a site that is already published on the web come immediately to mind). If Ms. Towers adds these to the next edition she will indeed have written a 5-star book. I would suggest you supplement this title with either "Teach Yourself Visually Dreamweaver 4" or "Dreamweaver 4/Fireworks 4 Visual JumpStart" to have a more complete set of DW4 reference works on hand.
Rating:
Summary: Shakes head in disappointment...
Review: Unless you are Evelyn Wood, having to read 600 pages ('visual' or not) isn't such a quick start for many. This book certainly could have been much shorter based on content value/quality. As if 600 pages worth of a 300-page book weren't enough... Getting referred every couple of pages to a Web-site-based appendix (additional cyber appendices A through G) for basic/simple topics that should be in the book (like coverage of the image map editor) was frustrating, especially when one considers some of the redundant actual book content. The book carries a lot of baggage over from earlier editions, including incorrect discussion on a variety of topics/technology. The book claims to _not_ be a manual re-hash, but it parrots many descriptions (almost verbatim) written by the MM documentation team. Many of the sections also seem structured/patterned after the manual. Towers borrows noticeably from other existing sources, too. For example, her language describing style sheets and CSS style rules is almost identical to Elizabeth Castro's in the VQS HTML 4 book(s). This is more than coincidence, since both descriptions use the exact same inaccurate terms. It just doesn't seem to me like it was edited well, technically or otherwise. And I didn't sense that the author was fundamentally grounded in many aspects of the material she presented. Even though the VQS line is inexpensive, there are much better books/authors. I suggest spending a couple of dollars extra elsewhere.
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