The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP [Paperback]

David Powers (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the reviews:

"The scope of this book is an ambitious one: to provide an intermediate-level guide to the entire new functionality of Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 … via cascading style sheets (CSS) and dynamic interaction with Ajax. … this work is best suited for those Dreamweaver developers who know something about PHP, Ajax, and MySQL, but are looking to extend their skill set to use them together. … Powers provides a logical, well-written book that well serve intermediate developers who are looking to expand their skills … ." (Pascal V. Calarco, ACM Computing Reviews, October, 2008)

Product Description

With over 3 million users worldwide, Adobe's Dreamweaver is the most popular web development software in the world, and it just took another step forward with CS3, the new version released in 2007. Having come a long way from its humble beginnings as a simple web design tool, CS3 allows you to rapidly put together standards compliant web sites and dynamic web sites with server-side languages and Ajax, and much more. To complement this great new application, David Powers has written the ultimate guide to itThe Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 teaches you everything you need to know about the application, from setting up your development environment environment to publishing your sites and applications on the web, and everything in between.

• Takes you through your development environment set up
• Covers everything you need to create both standards compliant web sutes, and dynamic web applications
• Teaches several real world techniques using a series of step by step tutorials

What youll learn

• How to set up your ideal development environment, using Mac OSX/Windows, Apache (and IIS on Windows,) Apache, MySQL, and phpMyAdmin
• Creating standards compliant web sites using CS3's XHTML and CSS features
• Creating dynamic web applications using CS3's PHP and Spry Ajax server behaviors
• Building several real world web site functions, such as form validation, random quote generator, search function, user management/login pages, dynamic Ajax gallery, and much more.
• Creating an interface design in Fireworks CS3 and importing it into Dreamweaver CS3.
• How use Dreamweaver CS3's XML functionality, to consume RSS feeds, and create Spry data sets
• Using includes, templates and master detail pages.
• How to publish your site after you've created it

Summary of Contents

• Chapter 1: Dreamweaver CS3Your Creative Partner
• Chapter 2: Building Dynamic Sites with Ajax and PHP
• Chapter 3: Getting the Work Environment Ready
• Chapter 4: Setting Up a PHP Site
• Chapter 5: Adding a Touch of Style
• Chapter 6: Creating a CSS Site Straight Out of the Box
• Chapter 7: Building Site Navigation with the Spry Menu Bar
• Chapter 8: Sprucing Up Content with Spry Widgets
• Chapter 9: Building Online Forms and Validating Input
• Chapter 10: Introducing the Basics of PHP
• Chapter 11: Using PHP to Process a Form
• Chapter 12: Working with PHP Includes and Templates
• Chapter 13: Setting Up MySQL and phpMyAdmin
• Chapter 14: Storing Records in a Database
• Chapter 15: Controlling Access to Your Site
• Chapter 16: Working with Multiple Tables
• Chapter 17: Searching Records and Handling Dates
• Chapter 18: Using XSLT to Display Live News Feeds and XML
• Chapter 19: Using Spry to Display XML
• Chapter 20: Getting the Best of Both Worlds with PHP and Spry

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 784 pages
• Publisher: friends of ED; 1st 2007. Corr. printing edition (June 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590598598
• ISBN-13: 978-1590598597
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #168,821 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

  #51 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Web Development > Programming > PHP
  #43 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Graphic Design > Web Design > Dreamweaver
  #16 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > Ajax

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for a Visual Learner, August 29, 2007

By	Kelley A. Rao - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP (Paperback)

As a developer who is modestly adept with PHP, this book is a welcome addition to my library. With the recent release of CS3, it covers the nuts and bolts of the application(s) including the newly introduced Spry Widgets. Being a visual learner, I especially appreciated the chapter entitled "Creating a CSS Site Straight Out of the Box." The instructions were clear and concise and provided a great foundation for building future CSS based sites.

Every chapter, at least for me, was full of "Ah Ha" moments. I think I've learned more from this book than any other I've read in the past year (and there's been plenty). I even figured out how to get PHP My Admin running, thanks to this book! I recommend it highly.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wealth of Knowledge..., November 30, 2007

By	LCO - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP (Paperback)

If you are VERY comfortable with PHP and MySQL, this may not be the best book for you. (I say that with some reservations, though, because of the vast wealth of knowledge in this book between page 1 and page 729.) Also, if you don't know how to code in PHP, the "Introduction to the Basics of PHP" in Chapter Ten may not be enough instruction for you to comfortably appreciate this book. BUT, if you have some knowledge of PHP (for example, you are a self-taught PHP coder like myself), need the power of PHP and MySQL, and are curious about any benefits there might be from this new technology SPRY (Adobe's implementation of AJAX), this will be an excellent book for you. The writing is clear, concise (in spite of its detailed explanations), and logical.

The strength of Powers' book is providing you with the vast majority of tools you will need to create, test, and implement a dynamic Web site using the power of PHP, MySQL, SPRY, and more. For instance, Chapter Four has detailed instructions on setting up a PHP server on your hard drive to enable you to test your server-side programs. Those instructions begin with downloading the PHP installation files and end with trouble-shooting possible configuration problems, including all necessary steps in between.

The book continues with how to set up a PHP site using Dreamweaver, learning the rules, tips, and benefits of cascading style sheets (CSS), the advantages and creation of a SPRY navigation menu bar, and an in-depth examination of on-line forms and data validation. Since the next logical step is doing something with the form data, the MySQL database product is tackled beginning, again, with its installation, continuing with the use of the phpMyAdmin feature, and ending with the storage of database records (including access control and security issues). As if this was not enough information to digest, the book ends with a guide to and uses for XML and XSLT in your Web site.

One more big plus from this book is that it offers the code (tested and commented) for a number of commonly used functions on Web sites today. If you are looking for a login function, form validation function, mail function, (and the list goes on) you'll find the code in this book.

Again, there is a wealth of knowledge in this book from front cover to back cover - well organized and easy to grasp.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Widgets forever..., September 29, 2007

By	Paul Shortis "Graphic Designer" (Orlando) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP (Paperback)

A fabulous book so easy to follow and informative.
This brings Dreamweaver to today and has dropped completely the outdated use of tables that others (such as H.O.T.) seem to be stuck with when the industry trend is only to insert tables into a page when using excel spreadsheets and such and never to use them for page building.
The extensive introduction of Widgets is a delight and has completely replaced those Javascript drop menu's avoiding all the pitfalls they entailed. The author leads you into dreamweaver in the usual way, most of these titles use, then easily run through tutorials that demonstrate how to build a site from simple CSS templates and from scratch. Step by step the author leads one from simple site to the introduction of widgets (new to DW CS3) through to PHP pages and on to databases and includes.
Very easy to folow and brings one up to date on the new CS3 architecture.