Useful Books and Software

This book takes a practical approach to learning Dreamweaver. Over three sections, it takes a step-by-step approach to the development of three different web sites:

• A static hobbyist site, designed for publishishing and sharing recipes and cooking tips
• A dynamic soccer fan site, designed to display upcoming events and news, and which each individual visitor can personalize
• A corporate web site built from dynamic, configurable building blocks

This book is primarily for complete beginners to web site programming who have access to Dreamweaver MX and want to learn how to create dynamic web sites with it. But the book doubles as a comprehensive reference to the features of Dreamweaver MX, so it will also be a useful resource to more experienced web developers who want to learn how to use the latest version of Dreamweaver.

As you work through the book you'll learn how to program using Active Server Pages (ASP), but this will prove useful even if you eventually want to use Dreamweaver MX to create web sites with JavaServer Pages (JSP), ASP.NET, PHP, or ColdFusion MX. Programming in any of these languages is very similar in Dreamweaver MX, and the core concepts you learn in building web sites with ASP are applicable and easily transferred to other languages. To help, the book includes four appendices that provide fast paced guides on how to get started using JSP, ASP.NET, PHP, and ColdFusion MX with Dreamweaver MX.

With this book you'll quickly be creating powerful, dynamic web sites with Dreamweaver MX - the latest version of Macromedia's powerful, integrated web development and editing tool.

You'll learn how to use the tools and features of Dreamweaver to construct three complete sites using HTML, JavaScript, Active Server Pages (ASP), and databases.

We start by creating a hobbyist site - The Cooking Place - that you can use to list your favorite recipes, ingredients, and dishes. As you build this site you'll learn how to use Dreamweaver MX to:

• Plan, create, and set up a web site
• Add web pages to the site and edit their content
• Use Stylesheets and templates to create a consistent style across the site
• Use tables, frames, and layers to lay out web pages
• Add dynamic effects - like drop down menus - to web pages using JavaScript and DHTML
• Interact with users via forms on web pages
• Create dynamic ASP web pages to respond to user actions and input

As you progress through the book, the sites you create become ever more ambitious. The second site you build is a fan site for soccer that provides information on upcoming events for fans around the world.

As you build this site you'll learn how to use Dreamweaver MX to:

• Add logic to your ASP pages, so that you can display different information to different users, based on their location, or even the time of day
• Keep track of users as they move around the site, so that you can learn what parts of your site are the most popular
• Secure parts of the web site so that only authorized users are allowed to see sensitive information
• Personalize the web site for individual users - so that the site appears in the colors of the user's favorite team or so that the user only sees events in their home country
• Store and extract information about users and upcoming events in a database - and use this information to dynamically create web pages

The final site in the book shows off many of the advanced features of Dreamweaver MX, as you walk through how to design a modular, extensible, and scalable site, and create a set of dynamic building blocks that can be quickly modified and reused in different sites.

As you build this site - which is used to display a set of images that users can view and purchase - you'll learn how to use Dreamweaver MX to:

• Create a set of building blocks whose look and content is determined dynamically by the settings in a database
• Create a content management page that you can use to mange the database that stores information about the images on the site, including their title, price, and how they should be laid out
• Put the building blocks you created earlier to a variety of uses, including a news blogger, a media display, and a product display
• Use Dreamweaver Extensions to make our building blocks easy to reuse and to add e-commerce functionality to the site

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By applying Web Standards and best-practices, readers will learn to create fast-loading, easy-to-maintain and cross-browser compatible Websites.

This book focuses on using XHTML & semantic markup, CSS Layouts, and accessibility guidelines to show users how to make the most of Dreamweaver 8.

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• Use a relational database—Microsoft Access or MySQL—as the driving force behind a site
• Use Dreamweaver’s built-in server behaviors and application objects to assist in the rapid development of dynamic Web applications
• Read and hand-code ASP VBScript, ColdFusion Markup Language, and PHP scripts well enough to understand how dynamic Web pages work, troubleshoot errors, and customize scripts
• Collect and  manipulate user-entered data, performing calculations on the fly
• Use SQL to pass information between your pages and the database
• Validate forms using client-side and server-side scripts
  

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Covering all of Dreamweaver 4's new features, this definitive reference is the one-stop solution for everyone from the novice to the professional Web developer.

There's a reason that Macromedia Dreamweaver appears on most Web developers' resumés: It offers both tremendous productivity and extensibility in a professional development environment. Dreamweaver 4 Bible covers this remarkable product from soup to nuts, guiding you through the basics of the program all the way to implementing sophisticated techniques.

Over 1,100 pages in length, Dreamweaver 4 Bible comes with a trial version of Dreamweaver 4, making it a one-purchase training resource for anyone looking to learn and master the product. A good chunk of the first portion of the book is devoted to providing the lay of Dreamweaver land and examining the development interface, configuration options, and effective use of the help system. Although one of Dreamweaver's strongest claims to fame is its ability to create fully functional Web sites with little or no HTML coding, the book wisely educates you on HTML basics nonetheless.

As your knowledge of Dreamweaver grows, the book's presentation style evolves. Early on, material is presented via discrete tasks, such as adding a navigation bar, adjusting font size, and adding an e-mail link. Later on, general techniques are discussed, such as using rollovers and exploiting cascading style sheets. All of the examples are accompanied by excellent narration, tips, notes, and pointers to examples on the CD-ROM. If you're diving into Dreamweaver, take the plunge using this fine resource. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• HTML basics
• Tables
• Forms
• Links
• Frames
• Images
• Behaviors
• Fireworks
• Flash
• Shockwave
• Video
• Audio
• Dynamic HTML
• Layers
• Timelines
• XML
• Templates
• Collaborative development

New Price: $6.00 / Used Price: $1.45

Get up to speed fast and start creating dynamite Web sites!

Do you want to create a sophisticated Web site that's easy to develop and maintain? Whether you're a beginner or an experienced Web developer, this friendly guide shows you how to utilize Dreamweaver's newest enhancements to build and manage state-of-the-art, professional Web sites quickly and easily.

• Set up your site and create new pages
• Work with text, graphics, and links
• Define and apply styles using CSS
• Add audio, video, and Flash® files to your site
• Use Dreamweaver's database features

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