Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Dreamweaver 8 - Training from the Source
Need to get down and dirty with Dreamweaver 8? Read on...
| Product | Dreamweaver 8 - Training from the Source |
|---|---|
| Company | Adobe Press |
| Web | www.adobepress.com |
| Price | From £31.99 |
| We like | Comprehensive, easy to read, samples on CD |
| We don't like | Nothing on server side integration |
| Rating | |
| Requirements |
Macromedia's Dreamweaver is the professional's web site builder of choice. Its high quality XHTML code, support for CSS and powerful features make it no surprise it's the market leader. However, good as the online help is (and it is good), you can't beat a decent book for learning how it all works.
The book takes a project based approach and step by step builds a complete web site that incorporates most of the features demanded of a modern site. Cleverly, the author chose a subject that requires some more unusual requirements including multilingual text which helped include a useful discussion on the associated standards and configuration issues.
All the stuff you'd expect is here from the basics of site creation and creating new pages through to CSS, graphics, different forms of interactivity, tables (when to use, when not to) and of course, layers. The coverage of layers is particularly good and includes browser workarounds, visibility, Z-order and much more.
Each section follows a standard structure of telling the reader what they will learn, how long to allow to follow it, which files from the CD are needed and after the instruction, a reminder of what you have learned. We liked the estimated time feature as the length of a section isn't always a guide to how long it will take to go through.
To help with the longer term updating of the site, the book covers library items and templates in some depth. Library items are snippets of code or content that can be quickly dropped in to a page as and when required. Templates offer a powerful feature that not only provides the basis for a new page but link to it in such a way that any derived pages are automatically updated when the template changes.
The book finishes up the project with the all too often neglected subjects of site management and testing both for compatibility and accessibility which for many sites will now be a legal requirement.
Finally there are sections on code editing, tidying the XHTML and handling Microsoft Word HTML (basically the devils work) and some good advice on use of search and replace to perform various tasks.
Conclusion
We thought this was an excellent book. For anyone using Dreamweaver 8, whether new or moderately experienced, there will be much here of use. The style, layout and use of illustrations make each task clear and easy to follow and the depth of coverage is top notch. If you are a Dreamweaver 8 user, we'd say this was an essential purchase.
