Bruce Von Stiers

I have gone on and on about the Visual QuickStart Guides from Peachpit Press. To me, this is one of the best computer self help series on the market today. On the heels of Macromedia’s release of Studio MX, Peachpit Press has released a new book on Dreamweaver. This book is titled Visual QuickStart Guide Macromedia Dreamweaver For Windows and Macintosh. The author of the book is J. Tarin Towers.

The book has 704 pages There are 19 chapters along with an Introduction and a 20 page Index.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the QuickStart Guide format, let me tell you a little about it. The books are set up with two-column pages. One column will have text in it. The other column will have an illustration of what is being described in the first one. These illustrations are usually screen shots from a particular program operation that the author is explaining. The text is usually written in a concise format that is easy to understand, yet conveys all the needed information.

The first chapter gives you an introduction to the tools that are used in the Dreamweaver program. You will learn about the Document Window and things like the Insert Toolbar. Tarin takes you through the Property Inspector and what it can do. According to the author, you will “use the Property Inspector more than any other panel” because of the various elements on your web page.

The second chapter shows you how to use the program to set up a local site. This is where you will link all of your pages together. Learn how to import and export your site information, along with some basic file management.

The third chapter gets you into the swing of things by having you begin building a web page. Learn how to insert a graphic and lay out a table on your page. You will find out how to quickly change a page’s background color. Chapter 4 is called Editing Code. You will get your feet wet in the lively world of HTML in this chapter. You will find out that there is something called the Quick Tag Editor that could save you a few step in the design process. Then the author covers the Snippet Panel, a place to store bits of coding that are mighty useful to have around.

A little later on you will learn how to work with images in Dreamweaver to make your web pages have some personality. Then you will learn all about inserting links into a page and getting them to actually work. Find out about fixing up your fonts and placing text on a web page. For those with a lot to say, there is a chapter on paragraphs and block formatting of text.

You will learn how tot insert various multimedia elements into your web page. Find out about image rollovers and how to make them work on your web page. You will also learn how to add java applets to your pages. Things like style sheets, tables and frames all get their own chapters. There is a chapter titled Automating Dreamweaver that deals with the Libraries which are a collection of HTML files that can be reused. There is even a chapter on customizing the Dreamweaver program to your liking.

The last chapter finishes your very quick and basic learning experience by showing how to manage the web sites that you will be maintaining. It tells about getting connected to your server properly and the right way to upload and download files to the web site.

This book is not the end all for learning about Dreamweaver MX. It is a good way to get started though. It has a ton of basic information that brand new users will find invaluable. And folks who are already a little familiar with Dreamweaver will probably find a trick or two that they either didn’t know or had forgotten.

Visual QuickStart Guide Macromedia Dream For Windows and Macintosh is available at stores like Barnes and Nobles and WaldenBooks. It can also be purchased from the Peachpit Press web site at www.peachpitpress.com. The book has a list price of $ 24.99 U.S.