Customer Reviews

Adobe Golive 5 Bible

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

All in all a competent reference suitable for a web newcomer as well as an old hand coder who finally has seen the error of his ways (wince). GoLive 5 Bible is as good as any book on the subject and better than some. Like all of IDG's Bible series its strength is also its weakness. In attempting to be all things to all people, this book focues more on beginning explanations than advanced features. Not a bad thing, I'll admit, but I would have liked to have seen more on customizing the program. Also, in adopting a chatty, informal style Shadovitz sometime slips into wordiness (read repeating herself). If I were only given the first chapter to read I would not have bought this book because Shadovitz gives more of a ra-ra sales pitch for GoLive than an overview.

Fortunately, the book quickly improves. Ch. 2 starts where it should for GoLive, with an overview of the program's great site management capabilities, then goes on to outline the other program features. Most of the following chapters are good to very good. Except, why would she leave the advanced site planning tools for the very end, even before WebDav & ASP? Really, just minor quibbles. I like the book.

Happy building.

I'm an Adobe certified GoLive trainer but I still find myself mystified by some of its features and how you're supposed to "work them" to get what you want. Deborah's extremely clear, detailed, step by step instructions for every nook and cranny of the program helps me out time and time again when I'm working on client web sites. I own most of the 3rd party (and Adobe Press) books on GoLive, and this is the one I turn to first.

...simple: when selecting books to be given the honor of
"EDITOR'S CHOICE" ..., we
do a little research.

First, we selected several typical questions from the
GoLive mailing list. Then we chose the key words from
the readers' questions, and looked them up in the index
to the book.

Now we judge the book on how quickly we get the answer
to the question, how many pages it took us to get a solution
that would solve the readers' questions, and how clearly
we could institute the directions in the actual GoLive
program, on a real web site.

Deborah's book got ALL TEN QUESTIONS within 2 pages,
and all implementations were in place within minutes.

The other top 5 GoLive books took at least 3 pages of
study to get to the solutions, and, believe it or not, 2 of
the books could not answer the questions at all!

We give GoLive Bible by Deborah Shadovitz top ratings, and the Editor's Choice Award for December, 2001 in the Designers Bookshelf.

The previous reviewer is full of hot air. This book is great. It covers all aspects of GoLive, from the most basic to the very advanced, in an easy-to-read and easy-to-learn approach. GoLive is an amazing piece of software, and no matter how hard you try, you can NEVER describe ALL of it in one book. However, Deborah Shadovitz's GoLive 5 Bible has a succeeded in addressing all the major points of the software and explaining those minor points which are of use to Web Designers and Developers who use this application in the real world. It beats any other GoLive book I have (and I have them all!).

This is a very good, comprehensive guide to the capabilities of GoLive 5. However, there were an appalling number of typos, probably averaging one a page. It appears that the book wasn't even run through a spell-checker, much less perused by a proofreader. In one instance, the typo affected the meaning of the sentence. It's been awhile since I read the book, so I don't remember which page it was on. This wasn't the case in the other "Bible" I own, _The Photoshop 6 Bible_. By all means, buy the book, but if you're at all compulsive about spelling, you'll have to grit your teeth as you read it.

I have a graphics and design background, and have decided to teach myself about web pages and Adobe GoLive. This book is dauntingly thick at first sight..."oh great, a huge computer manual", I thought...but don't let it scare you off. It's narative style is extreemly clear, unbiased, and well organized- written in a start to finish manner. Shadovitz guides you through Adobe Golive5 with the help of site examples, screen illustrations, and also includes relevant principles for web design when they are needed (including very useful tips on polishing and publishing your site once its design is complete). It's thurough table of contents and index allow you to find most any topic with ease. My only complaint it seems are the typos. Towards the beginning especially, I was at times finding one per page. I got around them easily, but it may stand out some of you. Regardless, I definately recommend this to all who want to learn about Adobe GoLive.

The GoLive 5 Bible is the best book about GoLive there is.
No matter if you are a beginner or more advanced in webpage building, the GoLive 5 Bible gives you all those explanations that you cannot find in the manual or the Help file for the software, and it does it clearly and understandably with many examples and illustrations and a good companion CD with a searchable PDF of the whole book.
Even though GoLive 6 is out by now, you can still use the GoLive 5 Bible for a good reference for a lot of things. It will still be a good reference for yet a long time.

I found this book to be very time wasting. Very few procedures 'get to the point'. At least 20% of the book is personal comments that have little to do with the subject at hand. The text meanders around a subject constantly without completely explaining how to do whatever the subject is. Almost all the figures in the book are from Mac systems while the text is referencing Windows. Most references to items in pull-down menus are for the Mac, which do not exist in Windows. It can take 10 or more pages to get through a procedure. The 'notes', 'cross references', 'tips', etc., have one going all over the book and never finding anything that completely describes whatever it is one is trying to do. The URLs mentioned in the book are very close to all being non-exitant.

The book is not one for those that are at the lower levels of web creating. It is very apparent that is was written by one who is somewhat familier with Adobe GoLive for those that are somewhat familier with GoLive. This book, along with the massively poor operational characteristics of GoLive has forced me to go back to Dreamweaver.

A book written superbly by an outstanding writer. As I read the book, Deborah managed to answer every question I had, leaving me to wonder if she really is a mind reader. She is meticulous in her thought process and detailed in her explanations. She doesn't write to her readers, she speaks to them. I felt as though she was sitting next me while I created each section of my website.

As Siskel and Ebert would say: "TWO THUMBS UP."

Usually Bible software books are pretty complete and extremely informative. However, they dropped the ball on this one. Golive Bible is as helpful as the manual that comes with the software. They both are poorly written with incomplete steps to solve or do things with Golive. When I often found myself using both.