Foundation Dreamweaver MX 2004
friends of ED, March 2004
As one of the authors of this book, you'll understand if my review is slightly partial, but I think Craig Grannell, George McLachlan and I have put together something really special. I wrote the second half of the book in conjunction with George, all about building dynamic websites with MX 2004 and PHP/MySQL. I also created some of the JavaScript for Craig's half of the book, which is a thoroughly enjoyable and in-depth tutorial on building a static website, using MX 2004's standards-compliant XHTML and CSS features.
The friends of ED Foundation series takes a hands-on approach, and the book teaches you all the ins and outs of Dreamweaver MX 2004 through a case study that builds an online photo gallery. Although readers are expected to know the basics of web design, the book is aimed at the beginner to intermediate level. Even if you're completely new to Dreamweaver, you should have little difficulty in following the detailed instructions. If you're familiar with earlier versions of Dreamweaver, this book will quickly introduce you to the new features, particularly the way the program is now almost entirely CSS focused. I promise you - there's not a single font tag in the book, and tables make only a brief appearance. If that worries you, don't let it. We don't preach. We guide you through the steps, and help you feel just at home with CSS layout as you may have been with old-school designs.
The second half of the book is devoted to the dynamic capabilities of Dreamweaver MX 2004. Rather than skirt over a little of each of the server-side technologies, we chose to concentrate on PHP and MySQL. There are full instructions for installing them on both the PC and Mac OS X (not difficult - honest). We also decided not to dive straight into MX 2004's automatic code generation. That approach may give you quick results, but leaves you banging your head on the keyboard because you don't understand what's happening behind the scenes. Instead, you learn all the basics of PHP through a series of practical examples. By the end of the book, the static website created in the first half is converted to a database-driven version. You will also have learned about sessions, user authentication and dynamic navigation bars. What's more, you'll be able to dig into MX 2004's code and tweak it to get things to work just the way you want.