20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing., June 5, 2005
This review is from: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Hands-On Training (Paperback)
Once upon a time, right around the turn of the century, I took a class in web design. The principle texts were from Lynda Weinman's Hands-On Training series, and I was generally pleased with the methodical nature of the instruction, and the insightful way it explained WHY you were doing what you were doing. Lynda's Dreamweaver 2 H.O.T. was no exception.
My work took me in a different direction, and six years later, I find myself pretty much retraining from scratch. Naturally, I chose the same book for retraining in Dreamweaver MX 2004. My first discovery was that the book was riddled with errors and oversights. There is an errata URL that itemizes a variety of errors and corrections, and none of those I discovered are listed there.
OK. So the book has a number of embarrasing, uncorrected mistakes and gaffes. Most appear to be carryovers from previous editions, suggesting the author and editors got sloppy and may not themselves have followed through the steps. In a classroom environment, where an instructor is handy to help you figure out the mistakes and what the author intended to say, it's still very educational to find and correct the mistakes yourself.
So, I completed the book, and keeping my marked-up copy as a reference, have the foundation I need to build a web site. But something was missing... Something about buttons... Imagemaps and hot spots! Way back when I learned Dreamweaver 2, the H.O.T. book covered those tricks. They're completely absent from this edition. And rollovers. This edition only skirts the subject.
What else has the author left out?
This book does a fine job of explaining what it does manage to get straight, but there are some glaring omissions, and if you're self-training, there are some mistakes that could leave you dead in your tracks trying to figure things out.
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50 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Cutesy and Wordy, February 17, 2004
This review is from: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Hands-On Training (Paperback)
I should warn you up front that MX 2004 is the first version of Dreamweaver I've used, and this is the only book on Dreamweaver I've gone through. Veterans of Dreamweaver may have a different perspective on this book.
That said, the book isn't wearing well for me. I have so far worked through Chapter 7, and taken frequent peeks at the chapters to come. At first, I was impressed by the detailed and numerous screen shots, but then I began noticing all kinds of small discrepancies between the text and the screen shots.
Furthermore, I'm using the Mac version of the software. If you only read Chapter 1 in the bookstore, it looks as if Mac and Windows screen shots get about equal time. In point of fact, don't expect to see any Mac screen shots after Chapter 2, and some of the ones that are included are misleading and/or mislabeled. I realize that there must have been great time pressure to get this book out near the release date for the software, but it would have been nice to have a Mac user work through and proofread this book.
Finally, I find the writing style irritating. There are lots of smileys in the text, which make it seem much less professional to me, and the author tries to keep a conversational tone, but it often just seems too cute.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good but not Great...., July 11, 2004
This review is from: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Hands-On Training (Paperback)
This book is good if you are a beginner and dont know the software at all but...if you are looking for some advance learning this book is not for you.
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