Recommend a book on Dreamweaver???

[estwig]

It's on the tin really, I'm doing night school to learn Dreamweaver, the speed of learning is a little slow and I would like to up the pace with a book.

I prefer a book to a website for this kinda thing, it's a break from staring at the screen.

So any recommendations would be appreciated.

 

[Faevilangel]

Why not learn the code that dreamweaver outputs (html + css)

Html & css in 24 hours - amazon

If you really want to learn DW then the following

DW CS4 in 24 hours - amazon
DW CS3 in 24 hours - amazon

 

[estwig]

Thank you Faevilangel, I understand the basics of html, night school again, but yea learning css is fair comment.

 

[Faevilangel]

Thank you Faevilangel, I understand the basics of html, night school again, but yea learning css is fair comment.

It's more work than dw but it will give you a broader knowledge and enable you to go further than building basic sites, you would be able to understand the code behind wordpress and joomla and customise themes more freely.

Next step would then be php so a even broader knowledge

 

[sidera]

I would recommend this book : http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596101978/
there are also some good books at sitepoint.com about html and css

 

[H22SolutionsLtd]

David Powers (who also supports the adobe online help forums) has written some great books on DW that are very easy reading.

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-Dreamweaver-Ajax-Essentials/dp/1430216107/ref=pd_sim_b_3

There are separate additions for CS3, CS4, CS5. There is no need to purchase previous additions, just buy the book the relates to your own version.

 

[SneakSMS]

"The Missing Manual" series are pretty good.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dreamweaver...2924/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286647259&sr=8-1

 

[ian_w]

I've found the Lynda.com tutorial videos pretty useful in the past. Makes it so much easier watching it happen in front of you.

 

[stugster]

I agree with what others have said. Don't learn DW. Learn the code behind it, HTML/CSS. Once you understand what's going on there, you can easily learn DW by "learning by doing".

PHP is also essential!

 

[Alby10]

What about the "dummies" guides?

They are well written and are an excellent guide for learning web design elements, such as php, and software such as Dreamweaver.

I agree that learning the coding behind dreamweaver is a good idea, but it isn't essential. I used to teach Dreamweaver as a 2 day course, and could impart sufficient information within those 2 days to allow any of my students to build a very credible website.

 

[antropy]

Excellent advice here - don't learn Dreamweaver, learn the code it outputs. I use Dreamweaver as a text editor and development environment, I've tried plenty of others such as Eclipse but always go back to DW!

 

[TomStuttDesign]

I think just learning html and css is all you need. I started using dreamweaver and it adds its own code into things at times so i use notepad++ and its sooo much better. all you need to learn is html and css.

 

[estwig]

I would recommend this book : http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596101978/
there are also some good books at sitepoint.com about html and css

David Powers (who also supports the adobe online help forums) has written some great books on DW that are very easy reading.

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-Dreamweaver-Ajax-Essentials/dp/1430216107/ref=pd_sim_b_3

There are separate additions for CS3, CS4, CS5. There is no need to purchase previous additions, just buy the book the relates to your own version.

Thank you to everyone for your recommendations, I've gone with the above mentioned books.

I have no intention at all of learning CSS, PHP or any other abbreviated coding language

 

[stugster]

Why are you learning DW?

 

[estwig]

Why are you learning DW?

Because Joomla, my current flavour for making websites, is too restrictive and cumbersome.

 

[stugster]

But Dreamweaver is restrictive and cumbersome in comparison to Joomla if you don't know the CSS part matey.

 

[An Oasis]

But Dreamweaver is restrictive and cumbersome in comparison to Joomla if you don't know the CSS part matey.

That's why they invented CSS packages, who wants to keep up-to-date with any of this stuff /

http://www.ucware.com/

 

[estwig]

But Dreamweaver is restrictive and cumbersome in comparison to Joomla if you don't know the CSS part matey.

Ok, maybe I'll learn a little bit of css, just a little bit mind.

That's why they invented CSS packages, who wants to keep up-to-date with any of this stuff /

http://www.ucware.com/

Thanks for that, nice simple little bit of software, ideal.

 

[cmcp]

Dreamweaver will help you lots, but the code it outputs is crap so you'll eventually end up in code view editing parts yourself.

If it's static websites you're looking to build you'll need to know CSS and HTML, they go hand in hand.

HTML is the easy part, CSS is easy in theory it's learning how each style renders in legacy browsers that's the tricky part.

When you learn how it all comes together (during which time you'll no doubt experience the pitfalls of IE) make sure you google browser inconsistencies and try to build up some knowledge of best practice so everything you build is backwards compatible.

 

[mattfriers]

Dummy version books like the Dreamweaver for Dummies is a good start.