Customer Reviews

Build Your Own Standards Compliant Website Using Dreamweaver 8

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It's refreshing to construct a site using Dreamweaver and standards as they are, without an equal amount of hacks and tricks to kludge the site into cross browser compatibility. Rachel Andrew's straightforward and step by step guide shows how to do it right and in the right order.

Rachel spends about the first third of the book getting me up to speed on Web Standards and XHTML, and rightly so. This part of the book gives me the "whys" behind my choices of foundational coding including "strict" or "transitional" and "ems" or "points". It is one of the clearest and easiest to read treatment of Standards, Accessibility, and XHTML that I've ever seen.

The project site for the tutorial is straightforward and easy to use. It included common elements like header, navigation, and main content area so the concepts are easy to apply right away to my real world projects.

I enjoyed following Rachel's suggested workflow. Create a semantic document that includes all the features my site will need. Then organize it into content blocks that make sense. Then position them. My workflow routine has been the other way 'round: make the structure, then plug in the content. It seems like a content to design workflow will help avoid distracting elements that could be unnecessary.

Expert css coders may find this book too basic, but it's a must have for css or Dreamweaver 8 beginners and those transitioning from using tables for layouts. This book helped me get my ducks in a row and my priorities straight.

Rachel is not totally reliant on Dreamweaver 8 as a stand-alone to get my job done. When a third party application makes sense, she has no qualms about integrating it the right way. Even though she does not take me all the way through making a working form, she got me a lot further than other tutorial books. She even directed me to samples of Perl/CGI, ASP, and PHP scripts that come with directions on how to implement them on my own server. Offering specific resources for further study is a great way to soften the blow of "...is outside the scope of this book."

The chapter on alternate style sheets is a keeper also. She got me to think through the different user needs as well as media types and create specific css documents to address them.

Build Your Own Standards Compliant Website is a tutorial book that got me engaged enough to stop and think about web design from several different levels: workflow, coding, use of third party applications, and scripts. It did a great job of educating me for confident use of css and Dreamweaver 8.

Are you a Dreamweaver novice or a more experienced user? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Rachel Andrew, has written an outstanding book that will help you expand your knowledge and learn how to use Dreamweaver 8 to create sites that are accessible, standards compliant, and use CSS for layout.

Andrew, begins by taking a look at Web standards: what they are, why they're important, and who they're designed to help. Then, she shows you how to develop your site--thinking specifically about the layout and the structure of the site, and setting up your tools so you're ready to get started. The author continues by discussing XHTML, clarifying how it differs from HTML, and how you can work with it in Dreamweaver 8. In addition, she walks you through the process of using Dreamweaver 8 to create a document that validates as XHTML. The author also explores Dreamweaver 8's Cascading Style Sheets tools. Then, the author shows you how to use Dreamweaver 8's powerful CSS tools to create a style sheet for your document. Next, she provides some more information on the use of tools to help you create accessible Websites, discusses the process of validating documents for accessibility, and considers the ways in which users' differing needs can be met through good design. Next, the author shows you how to create a page design that you can use as a template for any internal pages that are developed for the project. Then, she briefly describes how to create a form using a variety of the accessibility features that Dreamweaver 8 offers. Finally, she looks at the ways in which you can utilize the power of CSS to provide visitors a variety of alternate style sheets with which to use the site.

After reading this excellent book, you'll learn how to use Dreamweaver 8 the right way. In other words, this book will help you do all of this without compromising accessibility or standards compliance.

I like to grab a book like this when a new version of Dreamweaver comes out to keep up with the tool -- although most of my coding is done with a very old but highly customized version of Homesite. Dreamweaver always comes in handy tossing out a wireframe or dealing with legacy table code.

This book has an interesting focus: using Dreamweaver to create a working site that can meet certain levels of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Rachel Andrew does that well. In addition, she sets out to make a site that is visually appealing with the conventional glitter that most of us have come to expect. She does that well too. The fact that it is the same site is the cool part.

Beginners at this accessibility thing (as most of us are) will appreciate Chapter 7. Andrew clarifies the differences of the conforming WCAG guidelines and details corresponding settings in the tool. She makes it easy to get moving in the right direction.

This book does an excellent job of explaining web standards & accessibility, why they are important and how to apply them using Dreamweaver 8.

The author did a fantastic job in clearly explaining concepts, and going step-by-step through the process of building a fully functional Website in Dreamweaver 8 with a focus on CSS Layouts.

Along the way, I picked up many excellent ideas on how to improve workflow and maximize productivity in Dreamweaver 8.

Overall, a very useful & practical read.

If you're relatively new to web standards and Dreamweaver this is a pretty good place to start. I think the book is well written and has good examples. It does a good job of explaining the standards and how to implement them. For me, it was a bit light and a lot of it was review but I have quite a bit of experience. For the less experienced I think it's a good buy. Of course, at the time of my review this book is outdated if you're using Dreamweaver CS3 or later.

Since I've purchased other books by Rachel Andrew and have concluded that they are excellent 'help' books for beginners to advanced site builders, I thought I'd try this one out also. It's nice because it guides you pertinent to web standards using CSS, Xhtml and more within Dreamweaver.
The book is easy to understand and guides you step by step.

I borrowed a copy from our public library and kept renewing it just so I could have it longer. The book is concise and instructions are very easy to follow. I decided to buy a copy so I can have it handy and never worry about library overdue fees. Highly recommended reference material!

You don't have to be a professional programmer to produce an accessible, acceptable web site using Dreamweaver 8: all that's required is a working knowledge of the program and Rachel Andrew's BUILD YOUR OWN STANDARDS COMPLIANT WEBSITE USING DREAMWEAVER 8. It's a step-by-step guide which begins with setting preferences and proceeds through the basics of accessibility, navigation links and styling, working with Dreamweaver's CSS panel, and more. One might anticipate a complex guide - but BUILD YOUR OWN STANDARDS COMPLIANT WEBSITE is easy to use, whether you're reading cover-to-cover or hopping about for a quick fix to a problem.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Having coding experience in Dreamweaver 2004 and recently upgrading to DW8 I anxiously awaited the release of Rachel's (the books author) book entitled 'Build Your Own Standards Compliant Website using Dreamweaver 8'. My background in code design prior to 2005 was that of a "what ever works" or rather to quote a recent Apprentice lackey, "Fake it till you make it" In 2005 - standards, compliance and validity matter and will so if your site design is to last the coming revolution. This book helps you do just that! If you are fumbling through validating and understanding basic HTML/XHTML structure, this book is for you!

The topics this book covers are important. It's important to be web standards compliant. It's important to make your sites accessible. But I found that the chapters were too terse and quick, and that the screenshots were too numerous and large. So for the dollars you are getting valuable information, in a very terse text.