Dreamweaver MX: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

by David McFarland (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Dreamweaver MX (for Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, and Windows) marks the dramatic merger of two bestselling Web-design programs from Macromedia: Dreamweaver, for creating Web sites, and UltraDev, a package of Web-database language modules that were once sold separately. The new, unified program offers even more power,and DreamWeaver MX: The Missing Manual offers even more easily understood, witty lessons for harnessing it. As in his highly regarded Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual, author McFarland livens the book with unique, live examples, that let the reader see and test--on the Internet, itself--real Web pages. There's even a step-by-step tutorial for creating an interactive Web database using Microsoft's ASP programming language, new to Dreamweaver MX. In collaboration with Missing Manual series editor David Pogue, McFarland brings Dreamweaver MX to life with clarity, authority, and good humor.

About the Author
David Sawyer McFarland is president of Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc., a Web development and training company in Portland, Oregon. He's been building websites since 1995, when he designed an online magazine for communication professionals. He's served as webmaster at the University of California at Berkeley and the Berkeley Multimedia Research Center, and oversaw a complete CSS-driven redesign of Macworld.com. David is also a writer, trainer, and teaches in the Portland State University multimedia program. He wrote the bestselling Missing Manual titles on Adobe Dreamweaver, CSS, and JavaScript.

Product Details

• Paperback: 792 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly; 1 edition (November 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596003498
• ISBN-13: 978-0596003494
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #183,630 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This item is part of The O'Reilly Missing Manuals Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT, December 7, 2002

By A Customer

Never done a site before and I purchased Dreamweaver MX hearing that it was the way to go but maybe a little complicated for someone new to building sites. Well, after several evenings with Dreamweaver going through all the tutorials I thought I had gotten in over my head. I figured I'd give it one more shot after getting a manual.

This book made all the difference. The problem wasn't that the software was too complicated, the problem was the lack of clear documentation. This book clarified all the confusions I had and with a few more hours I was able to get a nice site up and running. It's really a crime the manufacturers don't include real manuals any more. Because of this book, I now think Dreamweaver is the greatest (with the exception of their decision not to include a real manual in the first place).

Worth every penny.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intuitive, insightful, full of practical information., March 31, 2003

By	prodesma (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

There are really two types of people in this world. Those that WANT to read a user's manual cover to cover prior to tackling something new (and do so). And those that want to learn by doing and not spend hours reading how to learn. I, uh, have a laptop with a luscious fruit emblem sitting on a titanium casing-needless to say I fall into the latter category by nature.

I feel comfortable knowing my way around design programs (Illustrator, Photoshop, Streamline), but NEVER touch code. I knew the basic ideas of HTML (tags, headlines, body, title, line breaks) but not much more before purchasing this book.

After only a few hours reading the first 140 pages (easy reading), and following the tutorials (very clear and concise), I started developing my desired website. Within a few hours I had the semblance of the components all functioning in a "Preview in Browser" mode. And I'd say 70% of that time was actually designing and saving the files for each nav button, graphic box, and typing the text.

As many other reviews state, this book clearly explains the benefits as well as limitations of web design in general and to Dreamweaver specifically. There are plenty of references to Dreamweaver 4 for those who are upgrading. There are plenty of basic explanations of HTML, how to best utilize Dreamweaver AND HTML, and the perspective of end use (designing a cool web page) is never forgotten in this book.

McFarland and Progue hit the mark in almost every way with their organizational style, intuitive writing, simplistic tutorials, informative Figures and "Workaround Workshops", and understanding of HOW people want to USE an application like Dreamweaver MX. From building a site, to using dynamic pages with forms, to frames, to tables, to uploading your site, to Flash, to Customizing Dreamweaver and hotkeys; it's pretty much all covered.

A nearly 800 page book intimidate you? Don't worry, many sections are not applicable to a basic website. I feel confident that I can continue to add new features and redevelop my site using only this one book in the future. ...

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The missing manual was surely missing!, August 3, 2003

By	alan w. trabilcy "alan trabilcy" (paradise valley, az USA) - See all my reviews

This is one of the few books that I would recommend. It has good content and tutorials that were actually helpful! I purchased the online training from macromedia and it didn't hold a candle to this book.

It has many areas that are necessary for the development of a real web site. Dreamweaver MX should purchase this content and put it in the box with the software!

There are 24 chapters that focused on the feature sets of the software. There is even an appendix with useful links.

Thanks David for taking the time to write a useful, easy to use book.