Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual [Paperback]

David Sawyer McFarland (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Macromedia Dreamweaver ranks among the most popular tools for developing and managing Web sites, but because it's different from the ordinary office productivity software with which we're all familiar, there's a need for an explanatory book on the program. Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual takes that role, showing its readers how to build and modify everything from tables to basic Flash animations. To the credit of author David McFarland, the book usually manages to carry out its instructive role while neither confusing nor patronizing its readers. There's enough detail in these pages to guarantee they'll remain useful for a long time, and enough patient text and graphics (mostly small, detailed screen shots) to help users up the steepest parts of the Dreamweaver learning curve.

As is the case with all of the Missing Manual books, this one uses an excellent style for its procedures. Rather than treating procedures as sequences of inflexible directives, as do many user-lever books, this book allows for the fact that the person reading the procedures has a brain and may want to do something that deviates from the example. For that reason, McFarland explains the options that appear at each point along the way as he details a procedure, and explains why you might want to take alternative actions. He's also good about explaining HTML conventions, like the supremacy of specified table width over specified column widths. One might wish for more coverage of the server-side routines to which forms submit their contents, but what's here is excellent. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to use Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 to create and maintain Web sites. Billing itself as "the book that should have been in the box," this volume explains text formatting, hyperlinking, tables, frames, forms, and other aspects of site design and management via the Dreamweaver interface.

Review

'The front cover book of the book says that it is 'The Missing Manual - the book should have been in the box' meaning that it should be found within the software box and I am inclined to agree, as the manuals supplied by Macromedia, leave a great amount to be desired. So Macromedia take note, and hopefully replace the manual that comes with the software, with this book.' www.four-runner.com

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 420 pages
• Publisher: Pogue Press; 1 edition (October 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596000979
• ISBN-13: 978-0596000974
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,170,264 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE BEST EVER, November 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

I have never been tempted to take the time to write one of these online reviews until I read this book. It's been so helpful to me in my work and has saved me so many hours of unnecessary labor that I thought I ought to tell people about it.

I've got lots of these kinds of books - from the dummy books to the huge bibles - but Dreamweaver:The Missing Manual is leagues better than any of them!

By the first few pages, I knew that this book would be fabulous, and it is. I like it because it is written for an intelligent reader, yet it uses non-techy language. Plus, there are lots of humorous references, which makes reading it fun.

Importantly, it doesn't assume technical knowledge on the part of the reader. It explains the whys along with the hows. This is of utmost value to me - I find the "whys" missing in many books. Often, a tutorial will say, "Do this. Then do this. Then do this." Well, any monkey can follow 1,2,3 instructions, but if you don't know WHY you're doing something, you won't be able to apply it to something else later on. I am constantly frustrated by that. I wanted more than a beginner's book, but I wanted the complex stuff explained in simple language. This book does that.

I started to bookmark the pages where I learned something valuable and realized I was marking the whole damned book - that's the type of book this is.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for the novice and the pro, March 10, 2002

By	Bonnie Bucqueroux "political malcontent" (Mason, MI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

Other reviewers seem to think this book is fabulous, too, but only for beginners. Yet within the first two chapters, I found two tips that will save me far more than the purchase price. As a designer of online training courses, I became a fan of Dreamweaver years ago, when Macromedia added Coursebuilder, which makes it easy to add tests to your website. So I was among the first to upgrade to version 4.0. While there is much to love in the upgrade, one frustration was the handy little button on the Object panel that inserted Break tags -- HTML coding that skips you to the next line without leaving a blank line in between. I remember wasting an hour under deadline looking for it, finally settling for the keyboard shortcut. But there in McFarland's book, not only do I find out where it is hidden, but I learn about other goodies I had never spotted before. Yes, indeed, I want more about SSI -- but that's why I hope McFarland write's a follow-up. And, yes, there are things like the DW FTP function that are awful -- but that's Macromedia's fault, not the author's. If all the other books in the Missing Manual series are as good as this, I will need to add a new bookshelf.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Guide, August 22, 2001

By	Todd Hawley (San Francisco CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

DreamWeaver 4: The Missing Manual is a book that is easy to follow and gives many great examples of how to perform various tasks using DreamWeaver (DW). As a novice DW user (but not at web design), I found the tutorials to be very helpful in learning more about this complex product. Among the topics covered? Basics like text fomatting, adding links, and images. The book's second part goes into more advanced subjects like Tables, Frames, and Cascading Style Sheets.

It also explains forms and inserting JavaScript into your code, as well as incorporating other types of media (like Flash & ShockWave) into your file. There were certain items I'd seen in web site code done in DW that I'd never understood and thanks to this book, I certainly do now.

If you're a novice (like me) or even an intermediate DW user, this book is well worth having not only to learn more but to keep as a handy reference.