Most Helpful Customer Reviews
149 of 150 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
FINALLY, SOMEONE GETS IT RIGHT - ALMOST (REVISED REVIEW), August 27, 2007
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I can't tell you how many books I've trudged through to "learn" innumerable new applications only to find out that the book or the tutorial CD has errors. I never knew if I was making the mistake, or if the book was wrong. It was incredibly frustrating to spend $50 on a book, only to find that it was useless because you couldn't depend on anything in the book but the page numbers.
FINALLY someone takes the time -- and has enough respect for his audience -- to get it right. I own 3 Dreamweaver CS3 books and this is, by far, the best, most comprehensive and most error-free. In fact, I haven't found a single error yet -- and, believe me, I've looked.
The great thing about this book is that all of the tutorials are online. So there's no CD to lose or scratch. You can download the tutorials as many times as you want, no password needed.
There are just enough tutorials in this book to give me the information I need, but not so many that it becomes a rote "how-to" book. There's real information here combined with real-world applications in the form of tutorials. I'm actually in the middle of one right now and I'm so impressed with this book, I just had to stop and write a review for it!
If you want to learn Dreamweaver CS3 -- and learn it RIGHT THE FIRST TIME -- buy this book. Or steal it. Just get it.
REVISED: After making my way through this book in its entirety, I did discover some fairly significant errors. McFarland does post some of the corrections on his website, but he also moved the website and it's a little difficult to find. All-in-all this is still the best of the books that are out there, but its star got a little tarneished the farther into the book I got.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
64 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Diamond Of Dreamweaver Books, August 17, 2007
At nearly 1000 pages and 26 chapters, 'Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual' by David McFarland is one of the rare books that I can EASILY give a Highest Possible Recommendation for. It has been known for quite some time that Dreamweaver is THE #1 resource for creating a professional web site in the most efficient way possible and with the fewest steps so that you can get your site created with netters surfing to it in the shortest amount of time. Now learn how to use Dreamweaver as efficiently as possible and get a peek at all the newest features in CS3!!
The material contained within is simply staggering: Basics, CSS, Forms, Flash, Automation, Database connectivity, and server-side XML and XSLT, it's all here!!
The Missing Manual is my favorite line of books because of the logical separation of content, the writing, and the design. My only gripe with this book would be the lack of color which could have easily been put in for only a small amount more added to the retail price, but this is not enough to knock my recommendation down. If you use Dreamweaver or want to learn more about what CS3 has to offer, pick this book up TO-DAY!!
***** HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No Bull Instruction, September 25, 2007
This is the second book I've studied by this author (the other is "CSS, The Missing Manual"). I've used Dreamweaver from the very first version, and as a Marketing Communications/Graphics/Web professional for more than 18 years, I'm no novice where web design and production is concerned. Now that web design has finally emerged from the table-dominated HTML world, it's great to have an instructional resource like this to aid the transition to CSS-based page layout.
Both of McFarland's books are excellent instructional manuals (and I seriously recommend that you buy both). They combine concise, easy-to-understand explanatory text and superb tutorials to present the material in a manner that only the dimmest bulb could fail to appreciate. I've read many intstructional texts over the years, and this is the most fully competent and effective manual I've yet encountered.
It helps if you have some experience with Dreamweaver, but even if you don't, this is the book you should buy. I can't imagine any other manual that could possibly give you a better -- and usefully functional -- overview than this one. Buy it and study it. If you do, all your web friends (pretenders) will be knocking on your door, asking you to share your expertise.
The "Missing Manual" series, at least as far as I've been exposed to it, is excellent. I just bought the Flash CS3 manual, and I will report on that shortly.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
