Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 Unleashed

• Cover Type: Paperback with 1032 pages
• Published by: Sams
• Edition: 3rd Edition October 17, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0672327600
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0672327605
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 2.2 inches
• Weighs: 3.2 pounds

Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 Unleashed is your complete reference guide to developing dynamic, data-driven web sites and applications with Dreamweaver 8. Based on the newest version of Dreamweaver, you will find comprehensive and up-to-date instruction on developing complex applications, as well as how to collect information from users, personalize their online experience, and use a variety of built-in site management tools to create the ultimate web site experience. With Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 Unleashed, you will learn how to fully exploit Dreamweaver 8 by working with frames and framesets, layers, incorporating multimedia and animation, and adding dynamic elements such as a shopping cart.

About The Author
Zak Ruvalcaba is the founder and president of section Media, a media development and training firm in San Diego. He teaches and gives design lectures on various technologies and tools, including Dreamweaver, Flash, and ASP.NET, for the San Diego Community College District.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Unleashed (Paperback) I'm a very experienced computer professional, but I've never developed my own website from scratch. I've always thought it was a more design-oriented task than to do much with software development. When I agreed to help a club I'm involved with build a website, I decided to tackle learning Dreamweaver. A book called "Unleashed" makes me figure that it's about getting the most power out of a tool. This book falls short of that goal as its treatment of the subject is very broad and not that deep. I found just enough information to get me started with the features I wanted to use, and a few tips on how to use them properly. The title has a few walkthroughs which make basic pages and a couple of simple sites. After working through them, I felt like I could competantly build my own sites and get to work, but I didn't think that I had "unleashed" anything. The book's shallow coverage is almost necessary as Dreamweaver is a very rich product. But the book makes matters worse by trying to cover every aspect of the secondary technologies that Deramweaver touches. The book uses pages and pages of space to cover installing five or six different web servers -- as if those products don't come with their own documentation. Another fault that spreads the book thin is the use of different authors on a chapter-by-chapter basis. A guy named Thomas Myer drops out of the sky to write Chapter 16 as an "Introduction to Web Applications", and there's no surprise that it fits awkwardly with the main author's Chapter 18 on using "Dreamweaver MX for Application Development". More and more publishers use multiple authors as a technique to reduce the time-to-market, and perhaps the cost, of developing a new title. Unfortunately, the technique just as often dilutes the value of the book. At the very least, it reveals the publisher's priorities. I can't ding the title or the author for this shortcoming, but the publisher needs to hear about it: the binding is terrible. I used my copy pretty regularly at the computer for about two weeks and was surprised to find that it's already losing pages! They simply slip out of the binding, incorrectly glued. I'm well aware of the production costs of a book, but it's hard to feel good about dropping forty bucks on something that comes apart in my lap. The book gets four stars from me, but I needed an entry-level tutorial and not a high-end reference. I found other books that fill the latter role, and if you have a need for a book to introduce you to Dreamweaver, this can fill that requirement well.