Customer Reviews

Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004

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

 

 

Although I am learning a lot from this book, it is a struggle. The step by step instructions are not always clear and sometimes omit important information. Other times the text is just sloppy. For instance, the authors say to name a file, say, file1. Through the rest of the example they refer to the file as file_1. Saying a button is the second from the right on a vertical toolbar is another. It's a good thing you can download the project files from the publisher's website to see what they really are talking about. If I didn't already have experience with Dreamweaver 4 and Fireworks 4, I'd probably be really lost.

Hands up those of you who have been to one those free Macromedia seminars where a team of speakers attempt to present all the wonders of Studio MX 2004 over a period of a few hours? Absolutely riveting stuff. Database driven Flash, Cold Fusion interaction, calendars and booking systems, streaming media, fantastic looking demo sites, css tricks, templates, Flash chat rooms. Now hands up those of you who could remember how to do any of it 10 minutes after leaving the conference centre. Frustrating isn't it?

Enter "Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004". This book is set to become a classic. It will change the way you work with "Studio MX 2004" forever. For a start you will find yourself using the entire package to it's full potential as opposed to just tinkering around the edges.

The book revolves around the building of a Web Site for the "Oakbridge Recreation Center". Excited yet? Stick around. This is not just any old Web Site. This is state of the art Cold Fusion / Flash / DMX / MySql masterpiece complete with a Virtual Tour of the facilities based on the visitors interests, an online booking facility and the piece de resistance .... an online meeting facility flexible enough to offer services ranging from a text input chat facility to streaming video and audio.

Scared yet? Don't be. The authors go out of their way to guide you step by step through the process using ample diagrams and screen grabs. Their writing style is up close and personal, almost as if they were sitting next to you having a chat. Their approach throughout is to let the software do all the hard work.

This book is a trip of discovery and along the way you will encounter Flash Remoting, The Flash Communication Server and the use of Flash MX 2004 components, dynamic templates, Dreamweaver's new CSS capabilities, the advantages of using Fireworks as your primary graphics tool and much much more. Just take a look through the Table Of Contents to get a feel for the scope of the book.

This book is aimed at the intermediate user. The guy who has used Dreamweaver and messed with a bit of Flash and is now ready for greater things. If you own Studio MX 2004 you NEED this book.

"Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004" is by far the best book I've read on building dynamic websites to date. Only one other book I know of goes into so much detail regarding the overall process of developing a website, "Building Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX", which is also written by the remarkable trio who wrote this book.

I really appreciated how the books focus on teaching its readers how to integrate Macromedia's latest tools with one another melded seamlessly into the dynamic workflow being presented throughout the book; As well as how it not only showed you "how" to do certain tasks related to the project (step-by-step), but goes that extra step and tells you "why" you should do it that way. Throughout the book the authors took a "let the software do the work" approach to their instruction, which made the whole development process seem a lot less daunting and quite efficient.

Although I'm usually quite thick skinned when I read a book, I actually found it refreshing the way the authors talked straight to you as an equal, and by the use of illustrations really helped get across the concepts that may have been over the less technical minded readers head. Overall the tone of the book was one that made you feel good about what you were learning and that it wasn't beyond your reach. Although if you are a novice this book would most definitely not be the place to start learning the ropes.

The real meat of this book came in the form of the topics that were covered during the course of the project. Some of the more exciting topics covered included the use of Flash Remoting, incorporating the Flash Communication Server through the use of Flash MX 2004 components, dynamic templates, and putting Dreamweaver's new CSS capabilities to the test. Add this to the great coverage of the dynamic development process and you'll find that you're hard pressed to find anything you don't like about the book...

Overall the bottom line is if you are a web professional looking for a book to fully explains the process of building dynamic web sites/applications, and how to use Macromedia's latest and greatest tools seamlessly together, this is a book you are going to want to add to your library.

This book is an excellent guide for the site producer who wants to take their website to the next level. The dynamic website is becoming more and more common, but putting one together can be a daunting task. The authors of this book take the reader through the necessary steps, from site planning and navigation structure, to implementation by the use of a fictional but realistic client website project. The liberal use of graphics and screenshots aids the reader in understanding how dynamic sites are built, along with how the various Macromedia software applications work together as a suite of tools.

This book is not for the novice site builder, nor is it meant to be. The ideal reader of this book is the site producer, author, artist, manager, programmer - whomever is responsible for porting over their static website into a dynamic, more easily-maintained site. This book will not make you into an artist, a database administrator, or a Flash programmer, but it will teach you how to integrate the tools - perhaps integrate your team - into a more efficient organization with better workflow. You'll be able to offer your site visitors more reasons to stay and look around.

I can recommend this book to anyone who uses Macromedia software regularly. The writing style is accessible and instructive without being condescending. The reasoning behind the exercises is explained, and all exercises have real-world application. The database section covers the most common types of database applications. The graphics section explains the advantages of using Fireworks as the primary graphics editing tool, and throughout, the authors look to giving you the knowledge to create a living, dynamic website. This book deserves a place on all serious site creators who use the Macromedia set of software tools and want to take their website up a notch.

We purchased this book hoping (from the great reviews it got in Amazon) it would be the missing link to learning the techniques advertised, however the book does a fairly poor job of presenting the advertised techniques and makes quite a few mistakes. After using the excellent "Training from the source" books published by Macromedia, this book is a real let down. The book seems more like a pat on the backs for corporate style departmentalized development than it does a training manual. The authors start off wasting several chapters telling you that you can't develop competent websites by yourself as an individual web developer anymore then waste more space convincing themselves that wasted space was valuable. They do eventually get to some technique development but when they do they don't make their presentation in a straight forward fashion. If we were not already developers used to Macromedia Studio MX 2004 tools and capabilities this book would have been impossible to benefit from. Having such knowledge, this book is of little help. We would have given the book a two star rating except for the fact that we bought it because of the five star ratings we saw on Amazon (that's all it had then), and we cannot understand how it could ever get more than three. If we would have had any idea how little help this book would be we would not have bought it. If these authors would have stuck to presenting the techniques advertised in a step-by-step progression, editorially reviewed their work for accuracy and eliminated all of the fluff regarding departmentalization for development, they might have created a valuable product. As it is, it's not worth recommending. Macromedia's Training from the Source books like:

Stewart (below) had already written my review for me before I logged in to do it...he's right on the money. I'm not new to web development or Cold Fusion and am so fascinated by Dreamweaver MX 2004 (absolutely buy the beyond excellent "Missing Manual" book for it, BTW) that I bought Studio MX 2004 and I hoped this book would get me up and running. After 115 pages of cryptic how-to's that assume you already know how-to, and a lot of discussion about how to deal with your client and draw a flowchart (the diamond shape is a decision box, it sez here...really!), I threw up my hands and realized I had made a bad buy. If you already know the individual products in Studio well, this may be of great help to you. If you're coming from Cold Fusion Studio and have limited exposure to graphic design, run far, far away from this one.

Once again, this writng team has pulled off an excellent book! This book is an excellent referecne for anyone in the web production industry, from project managers, to programmers to designers. It gives an excellent overview of the entitre production process, with actual task-based projects.

While this book will not make you an MX 2004 expert, it will do a wonderful job of showing you how all the pieces of the MX 2004 suite work together, and how this software package can save you time.

I was very impressed with the way the book is broken out into production phases - from the minute the phone rings with a new client asking questions - to the finished project.

This book is not jsut a reference, but a production tool in itself. I know I will make use of many examples during my own web design courses.