Customer Reviews

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Classroom in a Book

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

I purchased this book to help with my transisition from FrontPage to Dreamweaver. The book is a good reference in learning the features of Dreamweaver but it so full of errors that the Adobe Creative Team should be embarassed. If any of them would have actually proof-read the book these errors could of been easily corrected before printing.

This sounds like a rant but when you pay $50+ (I bought before there were savings) for a book you'd expect a $50+ book. Not one that is full of errors.

There aren't any other books to recommend but if you're wanting to learn Dreamweaver and you don't mind the price, and the errors within the book that cause you to re-read pages to find out what you missed (when you didn't, the steps just don't always flow correctly), then I recommend this book.

The book has very simple instructions, and clear pictures. It is very basic and light on information. It is good for beginners. For example, the book teaches you how to build a form into your page, but does not go into how to process the info gathered.

I regret that I cannot give less than a one star rating to this garbage.
There are numerous misprints and errors. It teaches nothing. You learn nothing. You just follow along by rote, like a robot, not understanding how or why. To add to the insult, many of the examples simply don't work.
And in Adobe's usual arms length from the public arrogance , you cannot contact anyone to ask about the contents of this waste of paper or about the program itself.

As another has said it has a number of errors. A number of the lessons examples either don't work at all or are riddled with errors. For all practical pruposes the sections on "intergrating Ajax with Spry" are worthless to teach how to incorporate the spry effects. That is perhaps the newest and nicest feature of CS3 but will remain a mystery if you depend on this book to learn it.

If you've purchased previous CLIAB editions, and love them, you're in for a big surprise. This latest offering from Adobe Press is pure garbage. The supplied files are riddled with errors, and the CSS styles supplied often don't match the lessons they accompany. Working along with the lessons is frustrating, and you may find yourself wondering what's wrong with your Dreamweaver program. This book is a disservice to Adobe customers and the most insincere effort they've ever produced. Don't buy it. I'm personally waiting for the new book, Learning Dreamweaver Cs3 by Jennifer Smith, due out later in July 1007. Fingers crossed.

Wow, some of these reviewers are just plain cranky. I bought this book and am very satisfied with it. I'm no techie-geek, just a person trying to learn Dreamweaver. I used the "Classroom in a Book" series in college and they teach quite well, in my opinion. I am halfway through the book and find it to be just what I expected and am not having any problems learning it this way. There are some errors, but they tend to be minor, and you can download the corrections here (many thanks to reviewer D. Tower!!): http://www.peachpit.com/title/0321499816. I printed them up ahead of time and put each one into the book on the page needed so that I wouldn't run into mistakes while doing the lessons. I'm glad I didn't listen to those negative reviews.

Dreamweaver CS3 is undoubtedly the single best web/html authoring application to have ever been published, i.e., at the time of this writing, but this instructional manual is not worthy of the software. Note that reviewers who give this book high marks seem to do so while making no comparison to anything that is, or potentially might be, better. In other words, `the book has been of some help' (as compared to having no help at all). Well, I'll grant it that much, but that's hardly a ringing endorsement.

I have found it to be clumsy, opaque, disjointed, pretty much annoying. But yes, it's slightly better than nothing. I definitely recommend taking a look at reviews for other Dreamweaver manuals.

First part of the book is pretty good. The further into the book,the errors start showing up. The publishing deadline must have been approaching. Chapter 9 "Integrating Ajax with Spry" lesson did not even work (running Windows Vista).
It is a good basic book. Looking forward to other books that are soon to be released.

I know a thing or two about tutorials/manuals for I often test them as a beta-tester. The following comments are for all five of the CIBs. Yes, I have worked though each one.
As a bare start its ok but its just too much of a skimpy overview for the high price its requesting. This book should have been a PDF, unlocked, with the software. If you want a good intro at a reasonable price, don't buy this book. As for its content, I have found errors that should have been found long before it got to print. If you really want it, than wait a few more months for an updated edition. As for the pdf version, stay away from that too. Its DRM settings are overly restrictive, i.e., only 30 text selections over 30 days. There are much better books coming soon at the price with respect to its in-depth coverage. So buy them. :-)

I bought this book because I remembered using the CIB series to learn Photoshop 3. That book was very good. This one is not, and is definitely not worth the $54.99 list price.

There is very little explanation of WHY you do each task, and most (if not all) of the examples are nearly complete already - you just add the last bit of the project. You don't create anything from scratch, you just follow along and complete the project with little to no explanations about what you're doing or why.

Also, the lesson on creating forms informs you 4 pages into the lesson that although the lesson teaches how to create a form, the form won't actually do anything when you click "submit" because you'll need to "see Dreamweaver Help, 'Building applications visually'" to learn that part.

While constructing forms that can't do anything may seem helpful, I expected a little bit more from a book that lists for $55 and has "Adobe Press" as the author/publisher. I would have thought this book would be the most thorough beginner class you could find, but instead it's more like the first day of the beginner class, where they give the overview of what you'll learn.

I feel especially disappointed when I see other books such as the Dreamweaver CS3 Bible that are four times as thick and $5.00 cheaper.