The slogan of the Missing Manual series is “The book that should have been in the box” and Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual lives up to the series’ reputation. Macromedia wouldn’t want to ship this book with the software because it’s a doorstop at 800 pages. Imagine what it would do to the packaging and the pricing of the already expensive software.

One itsy bitsy negative, but this book is not the only one avoiding it. Dreamweaver’s help file doesn’t cover it and neither does the forum on Macromedia’s Web site. There is a feature called download stats listing the size of the file and the time it would take to download it. At what speed? 56k? T1? What? I would assume 56k, but assumptions are not reliable.

At 800 pages, you can expect all the features to be covered through step-by-step instructions, notes, and screen shots. The hard core stuff like building dynamic Web pages, working with databases, and using server programming within Dreamweaver are all there for those ready for a challenge.

McFarland goes the extra mile to note differences between computer systems (Mac vs. PCs) and browsers (compatibility). Looking at the table of contents is proof of the book’s completeness and all I need to do is attest to its readability. First timers to creating a Web site or to Dreamweaver as well as owners of earlier versions will gain plenty of knowledge from this one.

VITAL STATISTICS:
TITLE: Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual
AUTHOR: David Sawyer McFarland
PUBLISHER: Pogue Press LLC
PUBLICATION DATE: February 2004
ISBN: 0596006314
FORMAT: Paperback
PAGES: 800
PRICE: US$34.95

We reported that Carrie wrote an easy to grasp article on Modifying Dreamweaver to Produce Valid XHTML. Francois takes the article a step further and provides all the files to make this happen in Dreamweaver 4. He also created a textpad clip library with all the HTML entities. [Link webgraphics]

O’Reilly books typically target the developer or extreme geek, but the publisher has released books to help those who are trying to get their arms around Web design and related applications. In today’s economy, many of us are finding we have to manage our Web sites without external resources.

Web design applications like Dreamweaver speed up the design process with templates, macros, and word processing style capabilities. Such applications work similarly to a powered up word processor and ease the learning curve for getting started. The challenge is figuring out how to use its features for creating CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), frames, layers, timelines, tables, image maps, positioning elements and clean up tools.

When first learning Dreamweaver, I dove into the text, behaviors and tables management aspects of it. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered the power of using its image maps and style sheet capabilities. Those needing support with HTML won’t find it in this book since its focus, as it should be, is solely on using the Dreamweaver application to design HTML pages, create and manage templates, manage the site’s structure, and create pages that work on all browsers and platforms.

One of the hottest things today is creating Web pages with XHTML markup accompanied by CSS. There are several pages dedicated to tweaking Dreamweaver to produce correct XHTML markup and an entire chapter devoted to using its CSS features. The book briefly touches on the importing and exporting of XML content, also gaining attention.

The authors can’t control what Dreamweaver can or cannot do, but they show you how to use it to work around browser issues such as linking to external style sheets with @import as opposed to using link or using both where one satisfies older, lesser compliant browsers and the other for the newer browsers.

Surprisingly, there is little reference to making Dreamweaver pages accessible except for a downloadable extension that validates the pages. Though the book is not focused on teaching general Web design, it does add a few tips in utilizing Dreamweaver to create accessible pages such as Javascript workarounds for people who have it turned off.

The timelines and interactive chapters lack concrete examples. At least, there are step by step instructions for completing the process.

Dreamweaver befuddles the users working with tables especially when they’re nested. Though we should be moving away from complex tables in design, the book walks you through various ways to create and manage tables using layout and standard views accompanied by advice on when to use which.

The book has everything that we’ve come to expect from O’Reilly’s Web design books: thoroughly clear with step-by-step instructions accompanied with appropriate examples and screenshots.

Those already using Dreamweaver can count on the book to push their knowledge and skills beyond its basic features and make the most out of this powerful application. It doesn’t happen magically, however, but the book’s reference style will make it reliable as a “when you need help” or “when you’re ready to push yourself to the next level” reference.

View samples from Dreamweaver in a Nutshell.

VITAL STATISTICS:
TITLE: Dreamweaver in a Nutshell
AUTHORS: Heather Williamson and Bruce Epstein
PUBLISHER: O’Reilly
PUBLICATION DATE: January 2002
ISBN: 0596002394
FORMAT: Paperback
PAGES: 500
PRICE: US$29.95