Useful Books and Software

It's like a gift-bag of Project Seven's best offerings with step-by-step tutorials detailing how things work. For example, the authors show how to use cascading style sheets (CSS) and cookies to make user-controlled visual themes, how to build Dynamic HTML (DHTML) drop-down and fly-out menus, and even how to make menus that collapse and expand or have a tree functionality similar to that found on Windows or Mac operating systems. These aren't just eye-candy tricks either; they're also the sorts of interfaces that Web site visitors will intuitively understand. Other practical lessons show readers how to save bandwidth by using CSS to make an imageless navigation system or how to make a clickable DHTML tabbed interface. Also, the authors do not neglect compatibility issues. The book's not about showing off--these are practical methods that also give a site a fresh look.

The project files are all included on the CD-ROM, along with finished results. The real deal is found in the custom Dreamweaver extensions, creating with just a click content that would otherwise require a lot of valuable time to write in JavaScript.

Although readers should have experience with Dreamweaver, the book is written in a clear manner that outlines carefully what will be accomplished at each stage and why you might want to carry out any given task in a certain way. Since the tutorials all rely on the custom extensions, readers do have to follow along faithfully. In essence, this is a cookbook-style manual, using some prepackaged ingredients, and with each recipe producing the desired meal. Each chapter ends by explaining how readers can modify the results with their own design flavorings. --Angelynn Grant

This book answers many of the top advanced-level questions posted on the Dreamweaver Newsgroup through a series of 30 projects. Projects are grouped into design issues for easy reference. Each project will be from 3 to 10 pages in length and be designed in a 2-column format with step-by-step instructions on the left and corresponding graphics (or code) on the right. In addition, sidebars will be used to provide additional tips and tricks. Any effect, technique, or tip can easily be customized to fit a reader's own design needs.

Publisher: New Riders Press
Authors: Al Sparber, Craig Foster, Murray Summers, Linda Rathgeber
Release Date: 2001-05-15
ISBN/EAN: 0735710465 / 9780735710467

New Price: $0.36 / Used Price: $0.37

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Hands-On Training is the latest, updated version of the highly acclaimed tutorial from leading Web-design trainers Garo Green and Abigail Rudner. Thousands of readers have learned how to use Dreamweaver by simply following the step-by-step exercises in this foolproof book. Advanced sections of the book show how to create interactive, moving elements in your Web site, and how to download and use the hundreds of free extensions available online to Macromedia Dreamweaver users. And throughout the book, readers learn useful bits of information about HTML, online type, Web color, and more, while Quicktime movie tutorials demonstrate complex techniques.

New Price: $9.00 / Used Price: $2.44

New Price: $3.95 / Used Price: $0.01

New Price: $1.39 / Used Price: $0.89

Lowery begins by explaining Dreamweaver, the current HTML standards, and new features such as dynamic styles and JavaScript behaviors. He provides a tour of the interface and helps you set your preferences, starting you off in the planning and creation of your first site. Later he goes into more detail about HTML, showing how to use Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programs, plug-ins, ActiveX, Java applets and scripts, and VBScript. (DHTML gets its own section too.) There's a series of explanations on specific Dreamweaver capabilities, from creating objects to customizing behaviors and tags.

General interest Internet topics get their due, and the book covers multimedia elements, including how to add video, audio, and Shockwave movies to your Web page. For larger-scale Web sites, the sections on Cascading Style Sheets and XML will be useful, and information on dynamic databases and e-commerce issues wrap the book up nicely.

The appendices offer primers on the HTML editors BBEdit and HomeSite--advanced HTML editors for Mac and Windows users (respectively)--and on Dreamweaver Attain, a companion Dreamweaver program that helps you create instructional Web sites. The companion CD-ROM includes demos of Macromedia's Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash 3; sample code used in the book; and Dreamweaver behaviors, objects, commands, style sheets, and inspectors. --Kathleen Caster

Dreamweaver™ 2 Bible is the authoritative guide to the premiere Web site development and management tool. You get full coverage of Dreamweaver 2's page-layout capabilities, new templates and commands, and site-management functions. The book also provides detailed instruction and examples for the following: implementing CGI scripts, JavaScripts, applets and controls on your Web pages, working with frames and Cascading Style Sheets, using Dynamic HTML, XML and SMIL, and more.

The CD-ROM accompanying Dreamweaver 2 Bible features shareware, demos, and nearly 300 Dreamweaver extensions, including behaviors, objects, commands, style sheets, browser profiles, inspectors, and queries. You also get a Web resource directory and all the sample code from the book.

New Price: $5.99 / Used Price: $0.01

Enter Dreamweaver 8: The Missing Manual, the completely revised fourth edition of this bestselling book by experienced web site trainer, Macromedia Certified instructor, and Dreamweaver Advisory Council member David McFarland. This book enables both first-time and experienced web designers to create visually stunning and highly interactive web sites.

With crystal-clear writing and much welcome humor, this new edition offers features such as:

• Live examples: With McFarland's step-by-step annotated tutorials, you'll learn how to construct a state-of-the-art commercial web site, complete with working forms, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and dynamic databases.
• Tricks of the trade: The book is bursting with undocumented workarounds and shortcuts for easing the process of building, maintaining, and updating professional web sites.
• Design guidance: You'll learn to create virtually every modern web feature, including forms, animations, cascading menus, and more--and you'll find out which browsers you need to provide special coding or do extra testing with.

No matter what your level of expertise is, you'll also learn how to manage your entire web site-whether you've just launched or if it's been around for awhile and takes up thousands of pages. Beginners with no web design experience will appreciate the step-by-step guide to designing, organizing, building, and deploying a web site; long-time Dreamweaver users will appreciate the advanced, real-world techniques for controlling the appearance of their web pages with CSS.

With more than 500 illustrations, a handcrafted index, and the clarity of thought that has made bestsellers of every Missing Manual to date, this is the ultimate atlas for the complex and powerful Dreamweaver 8.

New Price: $24.55 / Used Price: $5.31

Everything necessary to create a Web site is covered: image placement, color schemes, links, tables, frames, rollovers, cascading style sheets, DHTML, and more. Even complicated page structuring is made easy. For example, Dreamweaver uses layers for What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) layout, affording maximum flexibility in placing objects. These layers can be converted to tables for better browser compatibility or used as is in more complicated dynamic pages. Dreamweaver 2.0 HOT clearly explains the differences between layers and tables and shows how and when to convert between the two. The book also makes creating multiple swap rollovers and dynamic animated Web pages seem simple.

Dreamweaver 2.0 HOT shows how to take advantage of one of the greatest benefits of using Dreamweaver: the ability to create page templates and a library of frequently used objects (for example, images, navigational bars, and banners). Successfully using these features is key to getting the most out of the application. Also, the book repeatedly demonstrates the importance of working from within Dreamweaver's powerful site management window.

There are over 70 lessons here that are most effective if read while sitting at the computer. The accompanying CD-ROM contains all necessary files and images as well as a demo version of Dreamweaver 2.0, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Quicktime 4, and Netscape Communicator 4.6. An added bonus for beginners is the 12 Quicktime movies that go through various sequences from the lessons, some with a voice over by Weinman.

It's not easy to make step-by-step instructions work for users of many levels, but Dreamweaver 2.0 HOT succeeds. The steps in each lesson are succinct while still covering all the necessary commands. And many of these lessons and all of the chapters work independently of each other; an experienced Web developer can skim or even skip ahead without getting lost.

The tone of the book is casual and encouraging (e.g., "no more funky pixels, Mom!"), but not to the point where it slows down reading; it's peppy but not gabby. If it occasionally errs on the side of too many exclamation points, Dreamweaver 2.0 HOT makes up for it with the incredible achievement of rendering a complex and extremely powerful application manageable within hours. --Angelynn Grant

Topics covered: Creating, maintaining, and updating Web sites using Dreamweaver 2.0, including proper use of site management tools; use of Dreamweaver tools, menus, palettes, and commands; designing with layers, tables, frames, cascading style sheets, DHTML, and plug-ins; simple, animated, and pointer rollovers; use of templates and libraries in Dreamweaver; analyzing the HTML, including META tags and troubleshooting; and shortcuts and helpful tips. CD-ROM includes all files and images for lessons, tryout version of Dreamweaver 2.0, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Quicktime 4, and 12 Quicktime movies showing complex menus and actions.

Dreamweaver is the rare application that appeals to programmers and designers alike. And there's no better teacher to guide you through this award-winning HTML editor than Lynda Weinman, one of the industry's most sought-after Web trainers and authors. With Dreamweaver 2 H.O.T. (Hands-On Training) -- the debut entry in the new lynda.com Hands-On Training series -- you'll feel like Lynda is sitting right there next to you, walking you through the program and sharing her invaluable perspective.

The book is broken down into a series of exercises that explore Web design, site structure, style sheets, rollovers, dynamic content, and much more. You'll also get Lynda's expert tips, warnings, and background information about the techniques covered in each lesson. An accompanying CD-ROM includes source files for the exercises, as well as QuickTime movies that demonstrate key concepts.

Publisher: Peachpit Press
Author: Lynda Weinman
Release Date: 1999-09
ISBN/EAN: 0201354527 / 9780201354522

New Price: $3.90 / Used Price: $0.01

David McFarland wrote this book, but the influence of esteemed series editor David Pogue is obvious in the careful coverage of features and frequent touches of humor (books about applications can be whangingly dull; the books in Pogue's Missing Manual series consistently manage to avoid this problem while maintaining comprehensiveness). The two men treat Dreamweaver's numerous features (and the even more numerous ways of putting them to use) cleverly, with a combination of procedures and side information that clarifies many oddball situations as well as straightforward conditions. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to create HTML (XHTML and CSS, strictly speaking) documents using Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004. In addition to the basic stuff (text, images, links, and frames), the book shows you how to build forms for data submission and embed Flash movies and Java applets. There's also a lot of helpful emphasis on Dreamweaver's productivity features, like snippet libraries and file transfer utilities. A special section shows you how to do some server-side work with databases.

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 bring stunning, interactive web sites to life. 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.

New Price: $8.70 / Used Price: $1.21

Learning is doing--which means you're guaranteed to expand your skill set exponentially as you work your way through the 18 project-based tutorials that form the core of this volume on Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX 2004. With its powerful combination of visual layout tools, application development features, and code editing support, Dreamweaver MX 2004 really is a Web designer's dream, and Macromedia's official guide shows you how to transform your dream projects into real-life success stories by creating and maintaining Web sites in an environment that integrates both visual editing and code editing. By re-creating the book's sample Web site, you'll learn the skills and techniques necessary to create your own widely accessible sites. In addition to the basics of creating a Web page that incorporates text, graphics and tables, you'll learn about all that's new in Dreamweaver MX 2004: dynamic cross-browser validation, improved CSS support, built-in graphics editing, and more. The companion CD-ROM contains all of the lesson files as well as a free trial version of Dreamweaver MX 2004.

New Price: $18.00 / Used Price: $3.95

Whether you are new to Dreamweaver or a seasoned professional, Inside Dreamweaver MX will help you use the new and powerful Dreamweaver MX to its fullest extent. Not just another rehash of the documentation, this completely revised and comprehensive book broadens your understanding through hands-on projects, tips, and techniques. These pages are your guide to:

Inside Dreamweaver MX's carefully designed exercises will demystify advanced techniques. Insightful interviews with industry leaders and enlightening deconstruction of a variety of web site elements will help you uncover common web design pitfalls and avoid them in your own work.

New Price: $3.79 / Used Price: $1.47