Customer Reviews

Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As a novice web designer I thought I was in for a tough time but I bought the book anyway because it was the only book focusing on using css with dreamweaver cs4. I have been pleasantly surprised. I have had little trouble working through the tutorial oriented chapters, stopping now and then to check my code against the authors. The book suits people who like to work with split view and gives plenty of practice flipping back and forth. I am now on my second pass through the book. Its the sort of book where you gain deeper understanding of CSS on subsequent passes.

I must admit I swore at it a few times but later appreciated the small "gaps" as opportunities to learn rather than fall into rote learning habits. When you don't fully understand the CSS you can just complete the code and move on then come back later to develop your knowledge.

I still find CSS a little torturous and it will take me a while to get used to the "trial and error" design process. This book is a difficult but good experience. You will need the patience of Buddha. I find myself highlighting paragraphs which I know will be important when I'm on my own developing my site. I can't imagine any books on "just" CSS that would do the job better and all the books on Dreamweaver simply do not train you in using CSS.

You could actually develop a professional website with lean code using only this book and to get the best out of it you should do that even if it is your own fictitious creation.

If you have to buy only one book on Dreamweaver and one on CSS get this book and save yourself getting two books.

If you are looking for clearly written, step-by-step tutorials, this is not the book for you. If you are not 100% completely familiar with the Dreamweaver interface, you will find this book almost impossible to follow. While there is some useful information in the book regarding CSS in general, tying it all together with Dreamweaver is where this book falls flat. Trying to follow the steps for doing even simple tasks is tedious beyond description. Screen shots of essential operations are few and far between, so if you are a visual person you'll be pulling your hair out.

If you are looking for a clearly written easy-to-follow, tutorial type book with tons of screen captures, try "Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Unleashed" by Zal Ruvalcaba. I found it much easier to follow overall.

Having been involved in web design for some time, I found CSS to be challenging, and even more so, determining the best way to do things is not easy. This book has become my Bible for All Things Dreamweaver and CSS .. an intregal part of my "toolkit." I refer to it constantly during development, as many css/design "issues" come up infrequently. And, I really liked the way they displayed the code for each topic covered. For me, it's all about the picture. I would definitely recommend it as a "must have" to anyone using Dreamweaver and CSS. They do spend some time at the beginning of the book reviewing the CSS/XHTML concepts, which is beneficial for beginners.

For anyone to say this book is great for beginners tells me they are clearly not one. As proficient as I am (or, I guess, was) on Adobe GoLive, being forced to make this transition to Dreamweaver has proven to be difficult, to say the least. I am sorry to say that this book only increased that frustration. By page 150 I am having visions of sugarplum fairies and smoke coming out of my brain. I have had to repeat the lessons a few times as the authors assume we are keeping up with the array of overwhelming coding and what seems like Algebra 201. If you are a fan of coding, no problem. If, however, you happen to function intuitively (as GoLive used to let us), you are in for a culture shock. Welcome to code inferno.

To be fair, it is not really the author's fault, as Dreamweaver seems to almost be designed to kiss your artistic abilities goodbye in exchange for endless codes and numbers. Sadly, most of us artists flunked math.

I give this book four stars because the authors, at least, try to make an creative venture out of an otherwise Pythagorean pursuit.

UPDATE:

The other book I ended up using (see my other reviews) worked, for me, like a charm and helped me discover the intuitive side of Dreamweaver! Yes, while not apparent, it does have one.

Where school failed to teach and all in one books only scratched the surface of CSS, this book fills in all the blanks.

I am desperate to get away from using tables for layout and was totally baffled by div tags and CSS. This book was everything I could have wished for as a learning tool for CSS along with Dreamweaver.

I strongly suggest that anyone getting into the web design world buy this book and absorb what the excellent authors have to impart.

Stephanie and Greg have taken their vast knowledge of both CSS and Dreamweaver, particularly CS4 in this case, and created a cogent, clearly written book for all of us interested in web development using Dreamweaver.

I struggled to understand CSS for some time, even though I was using it. I just didn't "grok" the concept fully. This book has been an eye-opener for me. I get it now!

The authors use the CSS layouts that come with Dreamweaver to explain how and why they use CSS to create a specific result, and show us how to customize the layouts as needed. They impart an understanding of CSS that allows a developer to begin from scratch to achieve their own results.

I particularly applaud the emphasis on usability for those who have visual difficulties, and the techniques to make a web page easy for them to work with. Usability in general is something not always thought of, and the concepts within this book promote usability on every page. It becomes an unconscious practice, which is good for us all.

I highly recommend this book for those new to CSS and to Dreamweaver CS4, but also to anyone who feels that they don't know it all. There will be something for almost everyone to learn within the covers.

Once you get to chapter 3 you will find the book breaks down so that an experienced HTML/CSS person cannot follow the steps. In fact the errata on the book's site makes comments as if this chapter was chapter 2 in CS3 version of the book as if all readers bought both which is meaningless. The sample files downloaded from the web site that are supposed to mark your progress in the book do not show what would be the progress through the chapter. In particular once you get to page 101, the side bar rounded corners have lost the sidebar background done earlier in the chapter.

Also the lack of a consistent way of following steps to edit CSS confuses those unaccustomed to the DW CS4 interface. DW CSS has many ways to edit a CSS rule but no one uses all of those even if you want to show them. Some plain suck. Most follow one way to edit a style that is certain and this is what the authors should have selected. One perspective is you are mostly working from the design view, another is you are mostly working from the CSS Styles window and yet another you only work in code. Pick one for instructions and stay with it unless the goal of the instruction is to teach those various ways which is not the intent of the book.

Further the authors have very long winded and hard to follow steps. It is like a class where you are being told what the type 99% of the time. A lot of verbiage trying to indicate what you are seeing and sparse visual feedback of where you should be. The only hope is for you to look at the downloaded code files and compare which unfortunately are incorrect. Chances of finishing chapter 3 by following the steps is near zero and if you do follow it, plan on several painful hours of interpreting the authors' explanation of the actual steps you need to do to follow. One step which should take a few seconds can take minutes.

Another problem is learning by changing partially complete files. It is hard to understand why you are changing something you have not yet learned to make. Very confusing to follow so you have to go on faith only to find you fail. Plus the large goal of developing a complete page in chapter 3 while attempting to show basic principles fails.

I do not know if it will improve in later chapters, but I have found books over the years where the first chapter or two were well checked if they could be followed by the intended reader and then later there is a lazy attempt to make sure of quality. This is a prime example of such a book. Publisher should return money to all purchasers of this book and the authors should demand this book to be checked by intended readers so they can follow it without pain or take it upon themselves to give it so such people.

Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 by Stephanie Sullivan and Greg Rewis takes you beyond simple HTML website design and really gets to the root of designing and creating websites in the newest release of CS4.

Contents 21/25
Ease of Understanding/Practicality 20/25
Pictures/Illustrations 18/25
Additional Features 18/25
Total 78/100

Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 is a great book for going beyond simple website design using the Cascading Style Sheets as a great layout tool. The Cascading Style Sheets are a way to have all your site design and appearance settings in one spot so you can affect changes throughout a website using simple changes to the style sheets.

Mastering these settings and learning how to use CSS is a lot like starting over with a new program for web design but the basics are much the same for HTML. You simply have to get used to thinking and working on one style sheet and using that for your site or you can even use several for parts of your site that are similar.

I have not redesigned my site into full CSS but having a working knowledge of CSS is a must in the newer versions of Dreamweaver as it is highly dependent on it. CSS will be the wave of the future and with how easy site design is using Cascading Style Sheets it will be the more important tool to use and learn.

The book Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 starts with a basic understanding and some quick descriptions of Dreamweaver and especially new features of the Creative Suite 4 version. You move through concepts and basic parts of Cascading Style Sheets and learn how to use them to create a basic template and format for your website.

Using CSS you can literally design one sheet and use it for your entire website but it is a bit different than using templates in HTML. You need to get used to thinking ahead and using the book as a reference and guide as you design a website and learn more about CSS.

Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 is all about comprehensive website design but may not be for every type and style of website which is a shame. Using CSS is fun and easy once you learn the basics and with Dreamweaver CS4 you will be using it whether you like it or not.

Most websites will use the styles and types of CSS contained in the book and this really gives you a beyond basics look at CSS from the standpoint of someone who knows a lot about it. The authors have been working with Adobe for years and are intimately familiar with both Dreamweaver and CSS with plenty of background in the area of website design.

They have laid out for you all you need to know from basic site ideas to putting things together on the pages of Dreamweaver for a website design using CSS. Many of the helpful and informational tidbits in the book are the exact things you need to learn and find out how to use for any website.

The book contains several terms and explains all those things that you need to learn for using CSS and even the common things in Dreamweaver so getting to know both Dreamweaver CS4 and CSS is going to happen. Following along in the book and using the various styles and examples they use will be great for many types of websites you may want to design so learning how to use CSS is easier.

Mastering CSS takes you through all that confusing coding to decipher and make use of every aspect of common Cascading Style Sheets so you can create your own websites. The book makes good use of illustrations to show the exact thing they are talking about on Dreamweaver so you see the effects and code for each topic and feature.

Going through some common web page styles and templates they show on that template that is a part of Dreamweaver all the main features and how to add and change the parts of a website to create your very own pages. Once you apply these style sheets to your website design you can easily alter and change aspects of your web page easily through simple changes on the style sheet without having to change things on every page.

Changing just the style sheets means less hassles and work for website wide corrections or improvements and updates so you can quickly alter one thing across a website with the fewest steps possible. The book helps with other common website features like photo galleries and blogs on a site so you can have a modern and impressive design with the features you want.

I do like Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 as a general reference and step by step tutorial book as much of what is here applies to any website design you can create in Dreamweaver. My main lack in the book is it does not have quite as many illustrations and pictures as I would like but they do explain things well and help you a lot with all that code.

CSS is mainly code and to design and work with a site with code is going to take some patience and work but with this book you can get a good understanding of using CSS in Dreamweaver CS4. I highly recommend Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 as a great book for understanding Cascading Style Sheets and using them in your website design work.

This book is awful. I had a class that used this about a year ago when I was starting to learn Dreamweaver. This book was awful and stressful then -- and in the last year, after learning Dreamweaver on my own, I've come back to this book now and then, just wondering if there might be resource material in it that might be useful (maybe something I missed from last year). The best thing in the entire book is on page 139 -- a very short section on Simplifying the CSS Selectors. Other than that small snip, this book is a total waste of time, because of un-helpful instructions and massive amounts of text that are confusing and chaotic ... and boring!

I just finished "Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4" and feel like I've been taken to a whole new world in web site building. I am embarrassed about how old-fashioned and full of unnecessary junk the sites that I have built are. I can't wait to go back and fix them up.