The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS4 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP (Essentials)
- Media: Book (Paperback, 1000 pages)
- ISBN: 1430216107
- Publisher: friends of ED
- Release Date: Dec 1, 2008
Product Description
Dreamweaver CS4 is a massive step forward in terms of integration with the rest of the CS4 suite (Flash, Fireworks, Photoshop, etc.), and also includes a whole host of exciting new features of its own. The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS4 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP concentrates on getting the best out of Dreamweaver CS4, rather than going into every menu item and toolbar icon. The emphasis is on developing websites compliant with the latest web standards, using CSS, JavaScript libraries (with particular emphasis on Spry, Adobe's implementation of Ajax), and PHP.
The book covers all aspects of the new user interface, including workspace layouts, iconic panels, the related documents feature, Live View, Code Navigator, and Live Code. It also shows how to use the improved CSS editing features, and JavaScript code introspection. There is also coverage of other new features, such as version control through Subversion integration, and the improved support for Photoshop integration through the use of Smart Objects.
What you'll learn
- Streamline your workflow with the Related Files toolbar, Live view, and the Code Navigator
- Bring your pages alive with Ajax widgets from Spry, jQuery, and the Yahoo! User Interface Library
- Use server-side includes, templates, and Adobe's InContext Editing online service
- Create dynamic web applications using Dreamweaver's PHP server behaviors
- Build real world web site functions, such as form validation, random quote generator, search function, user management/login pages, dynamic Ajax gallery, and much more
- Consume RSS feeds and create Spry data sets
- How to publish your site after you've created it
Dave Powers is a very sensible and creative dreamweaver guy
David has written a very complete guide to using Dreamweaver. His guidance is very complete from the initial deployment of a server on your localhost to the xml he covers at the end of this book. I would recommend this book and give Mr. Powers five stars.
Ken Carlson
Ken Carlson
Submitted 23 Jul 2010
Great for beginner, very good to catchup new stuff in DW
First of all, to give a useful review of this book, I should note I will present it for two type of developers:
- PHP web beginners
- Experienced web developers with decent or no knowledge about Dreamweaver CS4
Let's see how could this book help PHP web beginners. I gave this book to my friend - PHP beginner. He was really satisfied with the content of this book. In one book he had all the information about Dreamweaver, how Dreamweaver evolved through older versions
and information how to define web site, how to handle page layout, reuse Dreamweaver templates. The book contains really useful information how to use CSS panels and tips and tricks for handling your CSS code and refactor styles using Dreamweaver.
The book is not meant to give you full overview of CSS design. For this topic I would recommend CSS Mastery. Also, this book gives you an excellent introduction how to use Ajax functionality in Dreamweaver, how to use Spry Ajax Framework and how to implement useful Ajax snippets into your code.
After chapters about client-side code comes chapters about PHP and MySQL in which you can learn PHP and MySQL basics - basic PHP syntax, creating code pieces, MySQL database and all things needed for starting your first real PHP-MySQL project.
It's really nice to see how to use Dreamweaver wizard for getting data from MySQL database by using PHP code.
What I really like in this book that it contains a lot of tips and tricks for each topic covered by specific chapter. These tips can be quite helpful and I'm sure a lot of experienced developers are not familiar with these tricks.
Here's my review for experienced web developers with decent/no knowledge of Dreamweaver.
I should be in this group :) In the past few years I didn't have so many opportunities to work with Dreamweaver. I've been working more with PHP code than I was making HTML/CSS design and all I needed was Zend Studio or PDT. Also, in the past few years from CS to CS3 version Dreamweaver didn't offer me so many new functionalities. By the time I started using CS4, there was a lot of new and useful features and I wanted to investigate how they work and how can these new features can help me on my new projects.
That's why this book was very helpful. Like I said, it contains a lot of tips and tricks for each topic covered by specific chapter. I didn't take much time investigating topics about PHP and MySQL but these chapters also contain useful information, for example how to quickly create a decent overview of you database data.
Overall, if you decide to use this book for fulfilling your knowledge gaps and when you upgrade your knowledge with CS5 features, you will have really good standards for developing your code with Adobe Dreamweaver.
- PHP web beginners
- Experienced web developers with decent or no knowledge about Dreamweaver CS4
Let's see how could this book help PHP web beginners. I gave this book to my friend - PHP beginner. He was really satisfied with the content of this book. In one book he had all the information about Dreamweaver, how Dreamweaver evolved through older versions
and information how to define web site, how to handle page layout, reuse Dreamweaver templates. The book contains really useful information how to use CSS panels and tips and tricks for handling your CSS code and refactor styles using Dreamweaver.
The book is not meant to give you full overview of CSS design. For this topic I would recommend CSS Mastery. Also, this book gives you an excellent introduction how to use Ajax functionality in Dreamweaver, how to use Spry Ajax Framework and how to implement useful Ajax snippets into your code.
After chapters about client-side code comes chapters about PHP and MySQL in which you can learn PHP and MySQL basics - basic PHP syntax, creating code pieces, MySQL database and all things needed for starting your first real PHP-MySQL project.
It's really nice to see how to use Dreamweaver wizard for getting data from MySQL database by using PHP code.
What I really like in this book that it contains a lot of tips and tricks for each topic covered by specific chapter. These tips can be quite helpful and I'm sure a lot of experienced developers are not familiar with these tricks.
Here's my review for experienced web developers with decent/no knowledge of Dreamweaver.
I should be in this group :) In the past few years I didn't have so many opportunities to work with Dreamweaver. I've been working more with PHP code than I was making HTML/CSS design and all I needed was Zend Studio or PDT. Also, in the past few years from CS to CS3 version Dreamweaver didn't offer me so many new functionalities. By the time I started using CS4, there was a lot of new and useful features and I wanted to investigate how they work and how can these new features can help me on my new projects.
That's why this book was very helpful. Like I said, it contains a lot of tips and tricks for each topic covered by specific chapter. I didn't take much time investigating topics about PHP and MySQL but these chapters also contain useful information, for example how to quickly create a decent overview of you database data.
Overall, if you decide to use this book for fulfilling your knowledge gaps and when you upgrade your knowledge with CS5 features, you will have really good standards for developing your code with Adobe Dreamweaver.
Submitted 14 Jun 2010
Great Expansion from previous PHP for Dreamweaver book
I have David's PHP for Dreamweaver 8 book and have been able to successfully build CMS' with this book for many of my clientele. When I purchased this book, he pretty much took everything from the old book and put it into this one and expanded for compatibility with PHP 6, MySQL queries, and XML, besides the usage of Sprys and RSS feeds.
What was missing from the old book that is in this book is an expansion on the understanding of JOINs (briefly), but it does get to the point simply, so you can learn how to get the information you want with minimal query.
My favorite part of the book that was missing from his older version was Ch.17 HANDLING CHECKBOX GROUPS, SEARCHES, AND DATES. He gives a step-by-step setup and guide on how to create and process forms via email and dbase and the usage of dates within MySQL in relation to PHP.
For a 900+ page book, this is a definite bible for Dreamweaver CS4 users who wish to MySQL/PHP. Kudos to David Powers!
What was missing from the old book that is in this book is an expansion on the understanding of JOINs (briefly), but it does get to the point simply, so you can learn how to get the information you want with minimal query.
My favorite part of the book that was missing from his older version was Ch.17 HANDLING CHECKBOX GROUPS, SEARCHES, AND DATES. He gives a step-by-step setup and guide on how to create and process forms via email and dbase and the usage of dates within MySQL in relation to PHP.
For a 900+ page book, this is a definite bible for Dreamweaver CS4 users who wish to MySQL/PHP. Kudos to David Powers!
Submitted 22 May 2010
not for the novice
Coming from many years of print design I'm still struggling to understand web design. This book is not for someone like me.
Submitted 15 May 2010
Improves upon the earlier version of the book.
I bought the Dreamweaver CS3 version of this book and loved it. However, when Dreamweaver CS4 came out, I decided to get the updated book. While this book is completely revised and updated for Dreamweaver CS4, there is still some common content between the two books, and hence my 4-star rating.
Right off the bat, this book starts off with an introduction of the *new* features of Dreamweaver CS4, giving me a 'jumpstart' in using Dreamweaver CS4 and getting comfortable with it. The CS4 version dropped mainly three chapters from the CS3 book; Building Dynamic Websites with PHP & Ajax, Getting the Work Environment Ready, and Setting up MySQL and phpMyAdmin. The 'dropped' content wasn't as so much as cut out of the book entirely, but re-edited to suit other chapters in the book in a more seamless fashion. (i.e., instead of a full chapter on MySQL, the book now touches on it in talking about creating/accessing a database.) On thing that seemingly did get cut out from the CS4 book entirely was the 'Getting the Work Environment Ready' chapter, so readers may want to borrow a book (or two!) from a library about creating a LAMP server on the same machine or elsewhere.
The CS4 book has added new content, and updated other chapters. The new content mostly covered...
* Creating a Web Page and Adding Content
* Using Spry Dynamic Effects and Components
* Going Beyond the Basics with Spry and Ajax
* Working with Templates and InContext Editing
* Deploying Your Site on the Internet
* Generating XML with PHP
What I loved most about the new content focused on Spry, Ajax, and Dynamic website building. One particular thing I've loved about the book was that the author made several attempts to explain what the Dreamweaver server-side PHP (or client side Spry) code was actually doing, and how to 'tinker' with them in achieving a desired result.
Overall, this book will give you a solid introduction in using Dreamweaver CS4 in creating standards-compliant dynamic websites with a minimum amount of pain associated with hand coding.
Right off the bat, this book starts off with an introduction of the *new* features of Dreamweaver CS4, giving me a 'jumpstart' in using Dreamweaver CS4 and getting comfortable with it. The CS4 version dropped mainly three chapters from the CS3 book; Building Dynamic Websites with PHP & Ajax, Getting the Work Environment Ready, and Setting up MySQL and phpMyAdmin. The 'dropped' content wasn't as so much as cut out of the book entirely, but re-edited to suit other chapters in the book in a more seamless fashion. (i.e., instead of a full chapter on MySQL, the book now touches on it in talking about creating/accessing a database.) On thing that seemingly did get cut out from the CS4 book entirely was the 'Getting the Work Environment Ready' chapter, so readers may want to borrow a book (or two!) from a library about creating a LAMP server on the same machine or elsewhere.
The CS4 book has added new content, and updated other chapters. The new content mostly covered...
* Creating a Web Page and Adding Content
* Using Spry Dynamic Effects and Components
* Going Beyond the Basics with Spry and Ajax
* Working with Templates and InContext Editing
* Deploying Your Site on the Internet
* Generating XML with PHP
What I loved most about the new content focused on Spry, Ajax, and Dynamic website building. One particular thing I've loved about the book was that the author made several attempts to explain what the Dreamweaver server-side PHP (or client side Spry) code was actually doing, and how to 'tinker' with them in achieving a desired result.
Overall, this book will give you a solid introduction in using Dreamweaver CS4 in creating standards-compliant dynamic websites with a minimum amount of pain associated with hand coding.
Submitted 18 Apr 2010