Customer Reviews

Dreamweaver CS4 Digital Classroom, (Book and Video Training)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After the first chapter (called lessons in this book) I understood what I needed to know to actually use the software. After five lesson, I'm creating web sites and using cascading style sheets. The book has you follow steps and you use the lesson files on the disc that comes with it, but it's more than simply clicking. There is lots of explanation, so you know why you're doing what is instructed, and you can watch videos for each chapter to see someone walk through parts of the lesson. With videos clips, tutorial files, and the book for around $30, it's a good buy, as I felt like a teacher was right there with me. Every time I had a question, it was addressed at just the right time. Good book.

"I'm relatively new to web design and I needed to learn how to make a simple website for my small business. I got a copy of Dreamweaver CS4 for my birthday and then bought this book based on the Amazon reviews. It's taken a few days for me to get used to the software but this book has helped immensely. I'm someone who learns well with step-by-step directions and this book provides that, but it also adds some background on *why* we are doing something in a certain way. It fits my learning style to be able to work with real lesson files and I was able to make my own web pages using the steps here.

I do wish the videos were longer but they are helpful to have as a reference, so I'll take 1/2 a star away for that. I also wish there was more information on how to get a site up and running on a service provider (?) but I don't think that's the books fault as apparently there are many different ways to do this. (To be fair, there is a chapter on this but it just didn't apply to my case).

However these criticisms shouldn't take away from the fact that this book made working with Dreamweaver fun. Highly recommended."

Dreamweaver CS4 Digital Classroom really gets to the heart of the matter
in explaining Dreamweaver to users of many levels, as well as explaining the added benefits of CS4. Because the author is also an instructor, he understands and explains the more challenging material. Author's pace, enclosed DVD, and Self study exercises and Review Questions allowed me to reinforce the lessons, and, in my case, revisit the exercises where I still needed a little work. This book has helped me understand Dreamweaver!

Originally a happy GoLive user, I am now by necessity forced to migrate to Dreamweaver. I was not fully looking forward to this prospect. I was about to travel and figured I'd buy a couple of books to take with me and make my time useful. Sadly, I left this one at home and took another book instead. I returned home completely frustrated and very discouraged from the harrowing experience the other book put me through. It is true what they say: you may know your subject inside and out, but you may not necessarily be a good teacher. Many authors or on-line instructors assume way too much about their students' way of learning or past knowledge. They simply forget that not all of us are coding experts (or even desire to be). Like me, some artists need to resort to Dreamweaver out of necessity. Artists, as a rule, are not left brain ruled and most of us hated math with a passion in school (I flunked a few times). The other book I was using felt like Algebra 201 all over again!

Enter Mr. Osborn's book! After I closed the other book half way through, I opened this one. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! This instructor clearly knows how to teach. He assumes nothing, takes you by the hand, has diagrams for everything he is explaining, tools and all, and makes this otherwise Pythagorean enterprise more bearable for 'the rest of us.' Completely user friendly. Unlike with the other book (and some on-line tutorials), I have not yet had to Google myself crazy to make up for what was lacking. This book is quite complete in its instruction. While it may, as some other reviewer stated, not teach you everything you could possibly learn about Dreamweaver (I doubt any book out there does), it seems thus far to be doing quite a close call for me.

If you are new to CSS, or migrating from another web design program, don't miss this book!

After seeing all the positive reviews for this book, I shortlisted it as one to check out. I am an instructor and find myself spending countless hours reviewing books in an effort to choose one that will become a required text in my classroom.

I was very disappointed to discover that this book focuses on AP(absolutely positioned) Divs (formerly layers) as the main method of laying out a CSS web page. In all my years of research, all I've ever read is that this is absolutely NOT the recommended, most reliable, supported, or "best practices" method of laying out a page. As another user commented, the float/clear method is the most widely used and supported.

AP Divs are incredibly easy to use (which I suspect is why this book is pushing them) but it's misleading to teach this as being a standard method. Since CSS layouts are by far the thing that requires the most explanation in my class, I can't possibly use this book.

Other than that, the book seems great. Such a shame.

As a professional web designer I often have clients who use Dreamweaver as their go-to internal dev tool for basic level site updating and mark-up creation. I will recommend this book to them in the future because it is really a CSS/web standards introduction in disguise (shhh). The heart of the book, chapters 4,5,6 offer one of the best walkthroughs of CSS and HTML fundamentals I've seen, and chapter 6 in particular helps me demonstrate the proper use of tables for data and not layout. Maybe, just maybe......

I am a novice (Beginner) to Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. I bought this book (Dreamweaver CS4 Digital Classroom) along with another book on learning Dreamweaver CS4 called, 'Dreamweaver CS4 For Dummies' which I was totally lost on.

After getting frustrated within the very first chapter with the first book I chose to read (Dreamweaver CS4 For Dummies), I put that one down and decided to read this book - Dreamweaver CS4 Digital Classroom. I immediately knew that this was the book to read to learn how to use Dreamweaver CS4.

Don't waste your money like I did on other books that don't make any sense. This book is AWESOME!!

If you really want to get the most out of Dreamweaver CS4, do yourself a favor and try to learn a little about CSS - Cascading Style Sheets. It will definitely put you in the drivers seat of learning Dreamweaver CS4 with much more sense.

An excellent book that is written in a clear and concise manner! I'm very happy with the content. The lessons do an excellent job of explaining web principles and the concept of CSS which is so important in efficiently managing we sites!

Great step-by-step based booked. Comes with all the files you need, everything is written in a straight-forward, easy to understand style!

The book came promptly using Amazon PRIME. However, the disk was unreadable due to marking from the plastic pouch it was kept in (the disk for Photoshop from the same publisher was perfect, si I assume this was an unusual problem). I called the Wiley number in the book, gave some voice responses and they sent me a replacement disk no charge very promptly. The book and lessons are excellent and helped me get up and running with my web site in only three weeks. I highly recommend this book.