Beginning Dreamweaver MX 2004 [Paperback]

Charles E. Brown (Author), Imar Spaanjaars (Author), Todd Marks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 6, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0764555243 | ISBN-13: 978-0764555244 | Edition: 1

What is this book about?

This outstanding team of authors shows you how easy it can be to create and maintain dynamic, powerful Web sites using Dreamweaver MX 2004. Our hands-on tutorials guide you step by step through building three complete Web sites: a personal site, a dynamic sports site complete with user preferences, and a configurable online catalog built from reusable components. Along the way, you will learn all the skills you need to work confidently with Dreamweaver MX 2004.

You will also learn about Dreamweaver MX 2004's built-in support for ASP, ASP.NET, JavaServer pages, and PHP, and ColdFusion MX programming languages.

What does this book cover?

In this book, you will learn how to

• Understand and manipulate the code Dreamweaver MX 2004 generates
• Create, implement, and modify Cascading Style Sheets
• Add dynamic effects with DHTML
• Apply authentication and authorization techniques to protect your sites from unauthorized users
• Store, retrieve, and display dynamic data
• Design your sites with a modular system
• Install and use Dreamweaver MX 2004 extensions

Who is this book for?

If you are new to Web development, this is the perfect guide to help you start creating attractive, functional Web sites quickly and easily using the Dreamweaver MX 2004 tool.

If you have already done some Web site programming in the past but you're new to Dreamweaver, this book will show you how to develop your sites with the skills you already have, but in far less time and with fewer bugs using Dreamweaver MX 2004.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“…the quality of information provided is impeccable…” (PC Utilities, June 2004)

“…hands-on tutorials take readers through creating three complete Web sites….”  (Mac World, May 2004)

From the Back Cover

This outstanding team of authors shows you how easy it can be to create and maintain dynamic, powerful Web sites using Dreamweaver MX 2004.

Our hands-on tutorials guide you step by step through building three complete Web sites: a personal site, a dynamic sports site complete with user preferences, and a configurable company Web site built from reusable components. Along the way, you will learn all the skills you need to work confidently with Dreamweaver MX 2004.

You will also learn about Dreamweaver MX 2004's built-in support for ASP, ASP.NET, JavaServer™ pages, PHP, and ColdFusion® MX programming languages.

What you will learn from this book

• This book will show you how to:
• Understand and manipulate the code Dreamweaver MX 2004 generates
• Create, implement, and modify Cascading Style Sheets
• Add dynamic effects with DHTML
• Apply authentication and authorization techniques to protect your sites from unauthorized users
• Store, retrieve, and display dynamic data
• Design your sites with a modular system
• Install and use Dreamweaver MX 2004 extensions

Who is this book for?

If you are new to Web development, this is the perfect guide to help you start creating attractive, functional Web sites quickly and easily using the Dreamweaver MX 2004 tool.

If you have already done some Web site programming in the past but you’re new to Dreamweaver, this book will show you how to develop your sites with the skills you already have, but in far less time and with fewer bugs using Dreamweaver MX 2004.

Wrox Beginning guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think, providing a structured, tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 792 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; 1 edition (February 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764555243
• ISBN-13: 978-0764555244
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,452,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very good book for the beginners, July 4, 2004

By 

Shubhada Savkar (Dubai, U.A.E.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning Dreamweaver MX 2004 (Paperback)

I have found the structure of this book immensly helpful. Its unique feature is that it guides you to systematically develop three complete web sites. Most of the other books tell you various ways of dealing with `parts', but this book deals with the `whole' - which is exactly what the beginner needs. For the same reason you will need some patience to follow this book - everyday you will pick up from where you left yesterday. But then you will see the site taking shape in front of your eyes.

The book guides you step by step through various stages of the development process of each web site and after each particular stage it explains `how it works' behind the screens. So the reader knows exactly what is happening and why it is happening - he is not blindly hitting the keys only because `the book says so'.

Another great feature of the book is the online support available on the p2p forum. At times when I got stuck and didn't see the expected results on screen, I posted my queries on the forum and got them answered in no time. At other times I could just go through the queries posted by the other readers - which was again very helpful, because all were referring the same book. So many of my queries got answered without even posting them on the forum.

The book has three web sites developed step by step. The first one is static and the other two dynamic. I found the the first two sites much straight forward and well explained. The last site deals with building a structure of a dynamic site which can later on be developed with just the data from the data base. I found this chapter a bit complicated and felt that it could have been explained in more detail. However since I got a readymade structure at my disposal, I know I can develope many more sites based on this structure, by just filling the values in the database.

When I bought this book, I was a complete novice in the field of Dreamwever. When I finished the book I had the satisfaction of having developed three complete web sites. Since these three web sites are all completely different in nature from each other, I got a wide experience in developing static as well dynamic sites. Most importantly this book lent me a confidence to build web sites using Dreamweaver. Go for it if you are a beginner and if you want the satisfaction of having developed a web site on your own.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Author's support on this book is amazing, July 6, 2004

By 

hang10web (Midwest, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning Dreamweaver MX 2004 (Paperback)

Despite the fact that some reader reviewers don't think you should have to read a book from beginning to end, this book is set up that way. In fact, the introduction, and back cover indicate that you will build 3 complete websites in the book, so its obvious that you can't just jump around and hope to keep everything straight. (I don't do web development that way, either.)

What I do want to point out about this book, is Imar Spaanjaars - one of the 3 authors on the book, who is absolutely amazing. I subscribe to the book's support forum at p2p.wrox.com, and Imar never fails to answer a dreamweaver question, or provide a solution - even when it does not involve the book. To me, that alone was worth the price of the book.

Thank you Wrox for a great Dreamweaver book, and thank you in particular to Imar.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars covers graphics and hooking to databases, October 20, 2004

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning Dreamweaver MX 2004 (Paperback)

If you really are new to Dreamweaver, there might be some understandable trepidation at the size of this book, that claims to be for beginners! But the bulk is due in no small part to the authors choosing to describe 3 case studies. The implementation of code for each case illustrates various ways to use Dreamweaver.

One interesting point of the book, compared to others on Dreamweaver, is that it seems to give equal emphasis to both the visuals that you can make, and to hooking pages all the way back to a database. Most Dreamweaver books concentrate on the former. But here is exhaustive detail on using ASPs or JSPs on the web server. It also looks at integrating Dreamweaver with PHP and MySQL, a popular combination. Graphics designers may not be so enthralled by some of this back end stuff, but on large websites, it is essential.