Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Hands-On Training [With CDROM]

I come to Dreamweaver as a reasonably good HTML programmer, and an advanced beginner in PHP and MySQL. I was looking for a Dreamweaver book that would get me up to speed quickly on the ins and outs of the program, without a lot of unnecessary text and gobble-de-gook thickening the volume but not imparting information. On that basis, Dreamweaver HOT succeed - it is an entirely comprehensive book for the beginning Dreamweaver-er, especially if you have no HTML experience and come to the application as a Designer. If you are a bit more advanced, you'll find this book quite easy to skim through, as its easy design makes jumping redundant parts possible, but ultimately you'll find it a little bit lightweight.Overall, the book is well laid out with sections tackling each of the major areas you'd be interested in learning: tables, CSS, the odious frames, rollovers, etc. I knocked this off In a long afternoon - despite being 645 pages - as it is very image heavy, which seems to make sense for the material. The layout is very nice and "webby", if that adjective makes sense. The authors are obviously knowledgeable and come across as sympathetic without being patronizing (unlike the Dummies books which I used to adore but now despise.)The authors, from their backpage promo photos, appear to be 20-somethings, and the book is written at that level. A lot of "sweet", "nice!", and "cool" interjections in here, and some hipster commiseration with the fact that you're inside reading a *computer programming* guide rather than, say, listening to Blonde Redhead down at the alternative coffee shop. These never come across as cloying or goofy, though, and in my opinion make the somewhat dry subject matter a little easier to slog through.There is a lot of hand-holding in this book for the designer. The authors are very careful to flag any missteps or strange things you might come across. They explain each feature from two or three different angles, without being repetitive. And they are very thorough in making sure that nobody could be left behind due to poor Macromedia design, conflicting web standards or misunderstood terminology, e.g., "As you work through Dreamweaver MX, you will notice references to a local root folder, a root folder, and root. All these terms are interchangeable. Each refers to a folder on your hard drive that contains all of the HTML, images, etc. for your Web site. This can be any folder on your computer. It can be empty, or it can have an entirely completed Web site. Don't be confused by this slight difference in terminology."None left behind.The authors also do a reasonably good job of guessing what a designer might be looking to accomplish, laying out the steps to get there, and placing flashing warning lights near common mistakes:"As you have just seen, the purpose of this exercise was to get you comfortable inserting different Form objects and modifying some of their properties. Remember, to make a form perform its functions, you would nee

I'm in the middle of the book and I must say that of all the 4 Dreamweaver MX tutotial books that I've bought this one is by far the best and the most effective of them all. It guides you step by step seeing to it that you understand each topic before moving on to the next that no matter how complex some topics are, they will appear so simple and basic, hence, very easy to comprehend. How I wish I've discovered this book earlier (before I bought those other books)for that would have saved me a lot of precious hours and cash in learning Dreamweaver MX. To the authors and publishers of Dreamweaver MX Hands-On Training, you really did a great job deserving of a 5 star rating!

Dreamweaver MX Hands-On Training is definitely a book I would recommend to anyone wishing to learn Dreamweaver MX. The book is intended for beginners and intermediates.The explanations are clear and easy to understand. The many screen shots are invaluable. The exercises were developed to naturally flow. Doing an exercise in the previous chapter assists with the following chapters. The CD includes all the software, files, and images needed to learn Dreamwaver and secondly, to build a great web site.The website that you build by following the exercises in this book is amazing! The website one builds is one model of what an excellent website looks like.I originally wanted to purchase the TeachYouself Visually book but I'm glad I purchased this book instead. The authors are definitely effective teachers who know their material.

Dreamweaver MX HOT (Hands-On Training) is a great book.I am only on page 156, and the book has gone through the basic fundamentals, showing different ways DW MX can accomplish different tasks.I highly recommend this book as an addition to your collection. I have bought maybe 6-7 books, returned some, kept others, this is one I will keep. It shows you images (blank & white) of how your page should look as you move through the exercises. It is really a book to have if you are looking for the tutorial approach as opposed to just a reference book!Thumbs up!