Dreamweaver in a Nutshell (Paperback)

by Bruce Epstein (Author), Heather Williamson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Dreamweaver in a Nutshell provides a concise, accurate handbook for Macromedia’s market-leading Web authoring tool. The authors assume a basic knowledge of Web concepts, and the book is sharply focused on creating and maintaining Web sites with Dreamweaver, rather than drifting into general topics like attractive page design or how to make a site popular. Each chapter begins with a brief overview, and then offers reference information combined with comments and tips. Illustrations are taken from both Windows and Macintosh versions of Dreamweaver, and there are frequent notes on browser compatibility. The high-end Ultradev edition of Dreamweaver is not covered.

The book is in four main parts. The first covers core features like the user interface, essential page objects, tables and forms, frames and layers, and embedded controls. The next part is about managing Dreamweaver, including team authoring, version control, templates and libraries, and cascading style sheets. Part III looks at Dreamweaver behaviors, a great way to add intelligence and interactivity to Web pages. Subjects include JavaScript, image effects, layers, and animation with timelines. The fourth part shows how to customize and extend Dreamweaver, showing how to modify and create menus or import third-party tag files. This is not only useful for reference, but also give an insight into the inner workings of Dreamweaver. Finally, three appendixes offer keyboard shortcuts, HTML character entities, and a handy site construction checklist.

Shorter than many Dreamweaver titles, this Nutshell title seems to convey just as much information. It makes an excellent resource for any Dreamweaver user. --Tim Anderson, amazon.co.uk

From Library Journal
Macromedia's Dreamweaver is the professional web designer's editor of choice, producing cleaner code and integrating site management tools and advanced options that others lack. This guide minimally covers the product's related software tools, Fireworks and UltraDev, focusing instead on succinctly mapping out Dreamweaver 4's every feature and shortcut. Beginning users or those seeking a tutorial would be better served by Lon Coley's How To Use Dreamweaver 4 and Fireworks 4 Visually in Full Color (Computer Media, LJ 6/1/01). This comprehensive reference is recommended for larger public libraries where web design titles are in demand.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 500 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 1st edition (December 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596002394
• ISBN-13: 978-0596002398
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,370,597 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One for the desktop, not the bookshelf, January 8, 2002

By A Customer

I've used Dreamweaver since version 1.2, and while DW keeps getting better, it's also undoubtedly becoming more complex. This book has stopped me from being one of those people that just stays with the basic feature set, into really knowing and using every aspect of Dreamweaver.

Like many (most?) of the O'Reilly books, this is one of those books you'll want to keep handy on your desk. If you want just one book on DW, this is the one. CSS, Javascript behaviors, DHTML timelines, site management. It's all in here.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dreamweaver in a Nutshell, January 6, 2002

By	"roper204" (Oregon) - See all my reviews

I got this book for Christmas and it saved my job. My boss just assigned me to update our company web site using Dreamweaver, and this book answered all of my questions, and then some, about how Dreamweaver works, and how to make our web site even better using its tools.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Take Dreamweaver skills to a new level, November 6, 2002

By	Meryl K. Evans "Content Maven behind meryl.net" (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Web design applications like Dreamweaver speed up the design process with templates, macros, and word processing style capabilities. Such applications work similarly to a powered up word processor and ease the learning curve for getting started. The challenge is figuring out how to use its features for creating CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), frames, layers, timelines, tables, image maps, positioning elements and clean up tools.

When first learning Dreamweaver, I dove into the text, behaviors and tables management aspects of it. It wasn't until much later that I discovered the power of using its image maps and style sheet capabilities. Those needing support with HTML won't find it in this book since its focus, as it should be, is solely on using the Dreamweaver application to design HTML pages, create and manage templates, manage the site's structure, and create pages that work on all browsers and platforms.

One of the hottest things today is creating Web pages with XHTML markup accompanied by CSS. There are several pages dedicated to tweaking Dreamweaver to produce correct XHTML markup and an entire chapter devoted to using its CSS features. The book briefly touches on the importing and exporting of XML content, also gaining attention.

The authors can't control what Dreamweaver can or cannot do, but they show you how to use it to work around browser issues such as linking to external style sheets with @import as opposed to using link or using both where one satisfies older, lesser compliant browsers and the other for the newer browsers.

Surprisingly, there is little reference to making Dreamweaver pages accessible except for a downloadable extension that validates the pages. Though the book is not focused on teaching general Web design, it does add a few tips in utilizing Dreamweaver to create accessible pages such as Javascript workarounds for people who have it turned off.

The timelines and interactive chapters lack concrete examples. At least, there are step by step instructions for completing the process.

Dreamweaver befuddles the users working with tables especially when they're nested. Though we should be moving away from complex tables in design, the book walks you through various ways to create and manage tables using layout and standard views accompanied by advice on when to use which.

Those already using Dreamweaver can count on the book to push their knowledge and skills beyond its basic features and make the most out of this powerful application. It doesn't happen magically, however, but the book's reference style will make it reliable as a "when you need help" or "when you're ready to go to the next level" reference.