Dreamweaver MX Bible [With CDROM]

Agreed, this is not a book for people starting out designing their first ever website. That's true and a very important point. However, it shouldn't result in a low star rating - the book is not aimed at beginners!This book is aimed at the professional user of DWMX, and as such, it does a great job. DWMX has become a huge product - the tool of choice for large web projects. Therefore, a book which details all of DWMX's commercial features will NECESSARILY be overcomplex and confusing for a beginner. This book will not spoon-feed you with a 'Hello World' project-based introduction to web page building. It WILL help you organize code versioning within your project or plan for a more easily maintainable web project etc etc.As a web-development professional currently working alone, I find the book very useful.

Biblical in heft, this iteration of the Dreamweaver Bible covers pretty much all the features available for Dreamweaver MX. For past users of Dreamweaver, much of the book is a re-run of previous iterations, which serves to make a fair chunk of this one redundant, anything new not obvious. But this sort of thing can't be avoided so that new users are properly catered for.The writing is clear and not too chummy, like many books of this type can be, in order to make them less intimidating. The examples are comprehensive and plentiful And many hints and tips are given.The CD is comprehensive with a properly Bookmarked .PDF version for when out and about. My only gripe was the lack of information included with the extension folders, only Massimo Forti bothering to include a detailed description of what was what. Everyone else - the author as well - sticking to quasi-cryptic file names. Come on JL!To get even better use from the Dreamweaver Bible, it's a good idea to look up the Macromedia news groups, and maybe give Jakob Neilson's useit website a visit.

...I'm a working web designer using Dreamweaver, I teach Dreamweaver at universities, and I write books about Dreamweaver and web design. The DW MX Bible is *the* resource that professional web designers use for Dreamweaver design. We *need* the kind of accurate, specific, concrete, detailed documentation and advice provided in the DW Bible....The description of cascading style sheets does a good job in synthesizing the critical relationship between external and local formatting as managed by Cascading Style Sheets. Similarly, it's necessary to understand the naunces of font support and substitution when assigning fonts.This book does not claim to be the Complete Idiot's Guide to Dreamweaver MX (in the interests of full disclosure, I wrote that book). And perhaps some readers will want to start with a simpler and less detailed approach to Dreamweaver. But everyone who moves to the level of professional web design with DW MX needs this book. I do have my own minor criticism of the book. I would have liked to see a little advice on how to find and connect with reasonably priced web hosts that provide good support for DWMX's UltraDev features - which scripting language is easiest to work with, what options are available for developers without local servers... But whatever it's omissions and weaknesses, this book is the single most valuable resource for anyone serious about using Dreamweaver on a professional level.

I am not a hobbyist - I am a professional web developer with real cients, and I have been picking up the Dreamweaver Bible since version 2.I read a lot of web development and programming titles, and for Dreamweaver, the Bible is hands-down always the best.Granted, its a big book, and there are things in the book that I already know - there always are. But time and time again, I find myself going back to this book to remind myslef of something I forgot, or a tip or trick to make things easier.This particular version - MX, has a lot of changes from version 4, and that was where this particular book really made a difference for me, as all the new features are called out with a special icon so I could pick them up quickly.Since the book 'starts at the beginning' I could see where this would be a good book for beginnnig web designers or even developers who might want to use DW as their new editor of choice for PHP, ASP or the like.Thanks Joe.

I feel that the last review is somewhat misleading; whatever you might think about the use of the word Bible in a book title (and that was a choice the publisher made for an entire line of books, not just this one), the important thing is that Joseph W. Lowery is almost undoubtedly THE authority on Dreamweaver and Fireworks.Lowery has closely following the development of these excellent products for years and has been personally influential in lobbying Macromedia for much-needed improvements. Most serious web professionals will be sure to buy the MX editions of his books even though they already own the previous versions, simply because they know that they can reliably turn to them whenever they have a problem; in that sense, these books ARE bibles!From the perspective of new-comers to DW and FW, Lowery entertainingly explains both the detail and the broader picture in a straight-forward and clear manner, step by logical step. He is a very good writer. In my case, the "Dreamweaver 3 Bible" made an important contribution to my path from beginner to skilled professional. Lowery's books remain, even now, an essential reference.Don't be put off by the low ... score resulting from previous reviewer's low marking of this book. I have no connection to either the author or publisher but, in any case, ask around; Anyone who knows their stuff will recommend both the Dreamweaver MX and Fireworks MX Bibles. All of his previous books have scored perfect fives, this low score is an anomoly based on one persons' misguided objections.