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Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual

By David Sawyer McFarland
February 2004
Pages: 848
Series: The Missing Manuals
ISBN 10: 0-596-00631-4 | ISBN 13: 9780596006310
(Average of 2 Customer Reviews)

Description

Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual enables both first-time and experienced web designers to bring stunning, interactive web sites to life. What sets this new edition apart is the crystal-clear writing, welcome humor, and exclusive features. With over 500 illustrations, a handcrafted index, and the clarity of thought that has made bestsellers of every Missing Manual to date, this edition is the ultimate atlas for Dreamweaver MX 2004.
Full Description

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Featured customer reviews

Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual Review,  April 03 2004
Submitted by Guenter Schott   [Respond | View]

Armed with this book, both first-time & experienced Web designers can bring stunning, interactive Web sites to life

Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX 2004 offers a rich environment for building professional web sites, with drag-and-drop simplicity, clean HTML code, and dynamic database-driven Web site creation tools. It comes with everything except perhaps the most important feature of all: a printed manual.

Enter Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual, the book that enables both first-time and experienced Web designers to create stunning, interactive Web sites that will stand out. What sets this new edition apart is the crystal-clear writing, welcome humor, and exclusive features like these:

Live examples. With a step-by-step annotated tutorial, readers follow the construction of a state-of-the-art commercial Web site, complete with Flash buttons, Cascading Style Sheets, and dynamic databases.

Tricks of the trade. The book is bursting with undocumented workarounds and shortcuts.

Design guidance. Readers can create any modern Web feature, including forms, animations, pop-up windows, and more. This book lets you know which browsers, situations, and audiences are appropriate for each.

With over 500 illustrations, a handcrafted index, and the clarity of thought that has made bestsellers of every Missing Manual to date, this new edition is the ultimate atlas for Dreamweaver MX 2004.

Please understand that I am not implying that the actual software program does not come with any help features. On the contrary, the program comes with a built-in assistance feature, from beginner tutorials to a complete browser-based help system. But this very comprehensive book covers most of the same ground more thoroughly, and I, for one, prefer a written easy-to-understand guide. As a registered owner of Dreamweaver, you’re entitled to free help by E-mail for two problems within a period of 90 days.

Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual

By David Sawyer McFarland

February 2004

Series: The Missing Manuals

ISBN: 0-596-00631-4

850 pages


Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual Review,  March 01 2004
Submitted by Dale Farris   [Respond | View]

By Dale Farris, Secretary

Golden Triangle PC Club

March 2004

Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX 2004 offers a rich environment for building professional Web sites. The program offers drag-and-drop simplicity, produces clean HTML code, and incorporates the dynamic, database-driven power of the product formerly known as UltraDev. Unfortunately, it comes without one of the more important features of all: a printed manual.

The MX 2004 version of Dreamweaver is really 2 programs in one. First, it is the latest version of Dreamweaver, complete with all the fabulous layout, design, and productivity tools that made a hit of Dreamweaver 4 and its predecessors. Second, it incorporates the program formerly known as Dreamweaver UltraDev. This program, once sold separately, offers advanced programming technology for data-driven Web sites.

These 2 newly merged programs add up to a serious tool for creating dynamic, database-driven Web sites. You can now turn your company's database of products into a dynamic online catalog, or turn a cherished recipe collection into an online culinary resource for the public. You can create Web pages for updating and deleting database records, meanwhile keeping designated areas of your site secure from unauthorized visitors. Most reassuring of all, Dreamweaver MX 2004 does the programming for you.

Dreamweaver MX 2004 happily opens Web pages and Web sites that were created in other programs without destroying any of the carefully crafted code. While Dreamweaver has always prided itself on leaving HTML code exactly as written, Dreamweaver MX 2004 offers greater support for hand-coded Web pages. In fact, many of the new features in Dreamweaver MX 2004 are aimed specifically at people who like to work in the raw code.

What's New in Dreamweaver MX 2004?

Dreamweaver MX 2004 offers a host of new features aimed at both the novice Web designer and the seasoned HTML guru. The most significant changes are in the Cascading Style Sheet tools. Creating and editing styles is easier, and the new CSS rule inspector lets you see which CSS rules affect the current selection. To make sure your pages work with a variety of Web browsers, the improved cross-browser validation feature can warn you if the HTML or CSS you have used in building a page will not work in a certain browser. Bringing material in from MS Word and Excel is easier, and a new start page makes it easier to open recent documents. New PHP/MySQL commands let you add password-protection to your PHP/MySQL Web sites.

All these new features in the software are superbly explained in this important book.

Why Dreamweaver MX 2004?

While there are literally dozens of other Web page design programs, Dreamweaver MX 2004 has become one of the leading programs, because of its many super features. These include:

Visual Page Building

Complex Interactivity, Simply

Roundtrip Code

Site Management Tools

Database-Driven Web Sites

Have It Your Way

The Missing Manual Series

This "Missing Manual" series is now a joint venture between Pogue Press and O'Reilly & Associates. With O'Reilly's already established reputation for solid, substantial computer books that are a cut above all the rest, and the wonderful attention to new users that characterize all these "Missing Manual" works, this venture should prove very successful for these publishers.

As with any operating system you buy these days, you get no user guide with the software. Instead, you are expected to read the online help system built into the software. While this decision is understandable, as a means of keeping down the costs of the software, for many users of the software however, using electronic help files is just not enough help. 

To the rescue comes these wonderful guides that serve as the manual that should have accompanied the software. Filled with hundreds of screen shots, this guide includes numerous step-by-step instructions for using almost every Dreamweaver MX 2004 feature, including those you may not even have quite understood, let alone mastered.

Super Features

What helps set apart this super book on Dreamweaver MX 2004 is author McFarland's crystal-clear writing, welcome humor, and exclusive features.

These include:

Live examples - Step-by-step, annotated tutorials guide you through the construction of a state-of-the-art commercial Web site, complete with Flash buttons, Cascading Style Sheets, and even dynamic databases (in your choice of programming languages)

Tricks of the Trade - The book bursts with undocumented workarounds, shortcuts, and hilarious Ester eggs in Dreamweaver itself

Design Guidance - With this book - and Dreamweaver MX 2004 - you can create any modern Web feature you can name: forms, animations, pop-up windows, and so on. The book lets you know which browsers, situations, and audiences are appropriate for each.

Uses and Purpose of the Book

Armed with this book, both first-time and experienced Web designers can bring stunning, interactive Web sites to life. With over 500 illustrations, a hand-crafted index, and the clarity of thought that has made bestsellers of every Missing Manual, Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual is the ultimate atlas for the excellence-driven Web designer.

Until version 4 of Dreamweaver, the program still came with a printed manual. With the MX edition, all you get is a simple "Getting Started" booklet. You will find the real information only in the program's online help screens. While this is not uncommon today, as a cost-saving measure, this also makes finding help a bit more difficult, since looking for help on your issue may be more difficult in searching online help files, than looking for help in a secondary printed manual.

The purpose of the book is to serve as the manual that should have been in the box. The book will provide instructions for using ever feature in Dreamweaver MX 2004, including those you may not even have quite understood, let alone mastered, such as Libraries, Layout view, Behaviors, and Dreamweaver's dynamic Web site tools. In addition, you will find clear evaluations of each feature that help you determine which ones are useful to you, as well as how and when to use them.

The book is designed to accommodate readers at every technical level. The primary discussions are written for advanced-beginner or intermediate users. However, if you are a first-timer, special sidebar articles called Up To Speed provide the introductory information you need to understand the topic at hand. If you are an advanced user, on the other hand, keep your eye out for similar shaded boxes called Power Users Clinic. These offer more technical tips, tricks, and shortcuts for the experienced computer fan.

Dreamweaver MX 2004 works almost precisely the same in its Macintosh and Windows versions. Every button in every dialog box is exactly the same, and the software response to every command is identical. In the book, the illustrations have been given evenhanded treatment, rotating among the three operating systems where Dreamweaver MX 2004 is at home, including Windows XP, Mac Os 9, and Mac OS X).

Table of Contents

The twenty-four (24) chapters, organized into six parts, include the following:

Part One - Building a Web Page

1) Dreamweaver MX 2004 Guided Tour

2) Adding Text to Your Web Pages

3) Text Formatting

4) Links

5) Images

Part Two - Building a Better Web Page

6) Cascading Style Sheets

7) Page Layout 101

8) Page Layout 2004

9) Frames

10) Under the Hood: HTML

Part Three - Bringing Your Pages to Life

11) Forms

12) Dreamweaver Behaviors

13) Flash, Shockwave, and Other Multimedia

Part Four: Building a Web Site

14) Introducing Site Management

15) Testing Your Site

16) Moving Your Site to the Internet

Part Five: Dreamweaver 2004 Power

17) Snippets and Libraries

18) Templates

19) Automating Dreamweaver

20) Customizing Dreamweaver

Part Six: Dynamic Dreamweaver 2004

21) Getting Started with Dynamic Web Sites

22) Adding Dynamic Data to Your Pages

23) Web Pages That Manipulate Database Records

24) Advanced Dynamic Site Features

Part Seven contains the Appendix, Getting Help.

Target Readers

The focus is on accommodating readers at every technical level and the primary discussions are written for advanced-beginner or intermediate PC users. Special sidebar articles called Up To Speed provide the introductory information new users need to better understand the topic. For advanced PC users, the Power Users' Clinics offer more technical tips, tricks, and shortcuts for these veterans.

This is an excellent book for users of Dreamweaver MX 2004, and for anyone interested in designing complex Web sites. First-time users of Web page design programs will likely NOT want to start with Dreamweaver MX 2004, unless they have a lot of hand-holding assistance and formalized training available. Microsoft's FrontPage HTML editor is a good example of a Web page design program more useful for first timers.

Book Contents

840 pages; tons of figures and tip sidebars; introduction; appendix; index; cover colophon

Author

David Sawyer McFarland

Editor

David Pogue

About the Author

David Sawyer McFarland is the president of Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc., a Web development and training company in Portland, Oregon. He has been building Web sites since 1995, when he designed his first Web site: an online magazine for communication professionals. He has served as the Webmaster at the University of California at Berkeley and the Berkeley Multimedia Research Center.

In addition to building Web sites, David is also a writer, trainer, and instructor. He has taught Dreamweaver at Intuit, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, the Center for Electronic Art, the Academy of Art College, Ex'Pressions Center for New Media, and the Art Institute of Portland. He has also written articles about Dreamweaver and the Web both for Macworld magazine and CreativePro.com.

He welcomes feedback about his book be email: missing@sawmac.com.

About the Editor

David Pogue is the weekly computer columnist for the New York Times and the creator of the Missing Manual series. He is the author or co-author of 25 books, including 6 in this series and 6 in the "For Dummies" line. In his other life, David is a former Broadway show conductor, magician, and a pianist.

www.davidpogue.com

ISBN

February 2004 - 3rd Edition

0-596-00631-4

List Price

$34.95

$50.95 CAN

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Media reviews
"One of the beauties of the Missing Manuals is that there is always something new to discover and the research is quite thorough...I kept finding snippets of information, in the way of Tips or Notes, that would give just that bit extra."
-- Graham K. Rogers, Bangkok Post


"There are a lot of good books, but I keep returning to the Missing Manual series because they are inexpensive, easy to read and full of cool tricks and tips."
-- Bob Brooks, The South Bay Apple Mac User Group


"I have never seen a manual for any program, hardware or OS which is anywhere close to this series in its helpfulness to the reader. Anyone other than the well trained techs can find this book valuable."
-- Ray Bowler, Vice President, Des Moines Macintosh User's Group

"This manual was my first choice after careful evaluation of all the text manuals that I could find in person. It is comprehensive, well-organized, and includes good textual and graphic explanations that are useful for both a novice and intermediate web designer."
--Bill Degenhard, Catholic Library World, March 2005

"Incredible Price! Remarkable Value! Fantastic Missing Manual! If you have Dreamweaver MX 2004 don't click another key until you've ordered this book! Fantastic!"
--Diana F. Arsenault, Charlotte County Computer Group Corporation, April 2004


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• Table of Contents
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• Appendix B: Menus (PDF)
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"One of the beauties of the Missing Manuals is that there is always something new to discover and the research is quite thorough...I kept finding snippets of information, in the way of Tips or Notes, that would give just that bit extra."
--Graham K. Rogers, Bangkok Post