Dreamweaver MX 2004 For Dummies [Paperback]

Janine Warner (Author), Susannah Gardner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0764543423 | ISBN-13: 978-0764543425

* The fun and easy way to get up to speed on Dreamweaver-the award-winning industry standard for Web site design and Web application development
* Covers designing a well-planned site, coordinating the design work, adding graphics, framing pages, formatting text, adding interactivity, working with multimedia files, building a dynamic site, bringing data into the site, and more
* Dreamweaver currently holds approximately eighty percent of the professional Web development tool market, with more than 2.5 million Web professionals using it
* Revised throughout to cover the latest updates and enhancements made to the upcoming release of Dreamweaver MX 2004
* Written by veteran For Dummies author Janine Warner, a leading author in Web site creation and Web application development areas

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...should be a permanent fixture on your desktop..." (Practical Web Projects, January 04)

From the Back Cover

Add multimedia, create templates, and save time with Cascading Sheets

Get up to speed on the latest features of Dreamweaver and build your own site!

Do you want to create a sophisticated Web site that’s easy to develop and maintain? Ready to integrate the latest innovations and add interactivity? Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced Web developer, this easy-to-use reference will get you up and running quickly with Dreamweaver MX 2004, so you’ll be building cutting-edge sites in no time!

Discover how to:

• Design your site and build new pages
• Integrate graphic elements and multimedia
• Create compelling designs with tables or layers
• Save time with Dreamweaver’s library feature
• Add e-commerce capabilities to your site

All this on the bonus CD-ROM

• Trial versions of Dreamweaver MX 2004, Fireworks^® MX 2004, and Flash^TM MX 2004
• Tryout versions of Adobe^® Illustrator^® and Adobe Photoshop^® Elements
• Demo version of WebSpice Objects
• Sample databases, templates, Web links, and more

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies (October 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764543423
• ISBN-13: 978-0764543425
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #933,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #70 in Books > Computers & Technology > Databases > Database Design

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Complex Program, Made Easy, January 18, 2004

By 

Travis F. Smith "Hop Studios Web consultant" (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dreamweaver MX 2004 For Dummies (Paperback)

Here's a little secret: HTML is easy. A good, useable, expandable Web site, though, that's a lot harder, and Dreamweaver is the tool that every professional Web developer I know uses; it's the Mack truck of Web editors. Susannah Gardner and Janine Warner should get a medal for writing a Dummies book for this mega-program, and for doing such a good job with it, that medal ought to be gold. In a mere 390 pages, they cover: Defining and planning Web sites, streamlining your work with templates and library items, working with images, HTML tables, frames, layers, DHTML, JavaScript "behaviors" (as Dreamweaver calls them), integrating with other Macromedia programs like Flash and Fireworks, using forms, and integrating dynamic (i.e. database driven) content. Whew! I recommend the book for anyone who is new to the program, and wants to start out leaning the basics and go all the way to the most advanced uses. However, if you're already an expert Web developer and need more depth on a particular area of Web development, you may want to pick up a different book specific to the task you're trying to do (database integration, for example). What this book does is give you a complete VIP tour of the program, and explain what every part of it can be used for. It's a great first book. Oh, one more thing: The 2004 version of Dreamweaver has a few new changes, including: it handles MS Office importing better, and though it's not yet perfect, it's much better at handling CSS now; if that's important to you, you should upgrade, and get this book.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A rush job, November 9, 2004

By 

Ma WenRui "soukouslover" (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dreamweaver MX 2004 For Dummies (Paperback)

The first 75% of the book deals with plain HTML, forms and other buttons and takes one from 0 to 5 on a scale to 1000. A lot of space wasted on mechanical clicking around the interface. Explain the menus and options and how to use them and don't need to walk through each one as if I've never seen a mouse. Now, if all you want in a web site is a bunch of words, links and pictures, all you need is MS Word and then Save as HTML. So, I imagine the fun part is when you have a database, to make the site smart... The database examples have missing steps and built in assumptions, no clue as to what could go wrong, etc. Needless to say, I spent many hours searching the net to fill the missing spaces left by this book. To my surprise, I found Macromedia's ONLINE UltraDev help a much better resource, with better explanations and a lot more graphics. Thanks Jannine, but no thanks!

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Covers the Basics, December 3, 2004

By 

Andrew (Austin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dreamweaver MX 2004 For Dummies (Paperback)

Having only once created a webpage on FrontPage, I thought I was a bit ahead of the game. Still, I decided to look into a how-to book for dummies like myself.
Fortunately, I had also purchased the Dreamweaver bible. If you want to do more with your site than just pictures with text and tables... then this is a great book.
I found myself having to look at the Dreamweaver Bible to make my site better.
As for content presentation, I would have preferred if they include Cascade Style Sheets with the inital introduction to HTML. The flow would have been much better.
This book does a bad job covering <META> and Keywords.
So, yes, it's ok for the PLAIN basic of all basics. I recommend it merely for the fact that it introduces you Dreamweaver Menu Items and helps you get around the workspace. But it is not the only book you will need- unless you're just interested in creating a little site with little pictures of your little puppy. Even then, the authors do not cover on getting your website on search engines and finding it once it is up there.