Dreamweaver is hot. It seems like every article on Web design focuses on this wildly popular authoring application. So Dreamweaver 2.0 HOT: Hands-On Training is an apt title for Web design guru Lynda Weinman's latest how-to manual, a cross-platform tutorial that teaches in a concise and straightforward manner.

Everything necessary to create a Web site is covered: image placement, color schemes, links, tables, frames, rollovers, cascading style sheets, DHTML, and more. Even complicated page structuring is made easy. For example, Dreamweaver uses layers for What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) layout, affording maximum flexibility in placing objects. These layers can be converted to tables for better browser compatibility or used as is in more complicated dynamic pages. Dreamweaver 2.0 HOT clearly explains the differences between layers and tables and shows how and when to convert between the two. The book also makes creating multiple swap rollovers and dynamic animated Web pages seem simple.

Dreamweaver 2.0 HOT shows how to take advantage of one of the greatest benefits of using Dreamweaver: the ability to create page templates and a library of frequently used objects (for example, images, navigational bars, and banners). Successfully using these features is key to getting the most out of the application. Also, the book repeatedly demonstrates the importance of working from within Dreamweaver's powerful site management window.

There are over 70 lessons here that are most effective if read while sitting at the computer. The accompanying CD-ROM contains all necessary files and images as well as a demo version of Dreamweaver 2.0, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Quicktime 4, and Netscape Communicator 4.6. An added bonus for beginners is the 12 Quicktime movies that go through various sequences from the lessons, some with a voice over by Weinman.

It's not easy to make step-by-step instructions work for users of many levels, but Dreamweaver 2.0 HOT succeeds. The steps in each lesson are succinct while still covering all the necessary commands. And many of these lessons and all of the chapters work independently of each other; an experienced Web developer can skim or even skip ahead without getting lost.

The tone of the book is casual and encouraging (e.g., "no more funky pixels, Mom!"), but not to the point where it slows down reading; it's peppy but not gabby. If it occasionally errs on the side of too many exclamation points, Dreamweaver 2.0 HOT makes up for it with the incredible achievement of rendering a complex and extremely powerful application manageable within hours. --Angelynn Grant

Topics covered: Creating, maintaining, and updating Web sites using Dreamweaver 2.0, including proper use of site management tools; use of Dreamweaver tools, menus, palettes, and commands; designing with layers, tables, frames, cascading style sheets, DHTML, and plug-ins; simple, animated, and pointer rollovers; use of templates and libraries in Dreamweaver; analyzing the HTML, including META tags and troubleshooting; and shortcuts and helpful tips. CD-ROM includes all files and images for lessons, tryout version of Dreamweaver 2.0, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Quicktime 4, and 12 Quicktime movies showing complex menus and actions.


Book Description
Dreamweaver is the rare application that appeals to programmers and designers alike. And there's no better teacher to guide you through this award-winning HTML editor than Lynda Weinman, one of the industry's most sought-after Web trainers and authors. With Dreamweaver 2 H.O.T. (Hands-On Training) -- the debut entry in the new lynda.com Hands-On Training series -- you'll feel like Lynda is sitting right there next to you, walking you through the program and sharing her invaluable perspective. The book is broken down into a series of exercises that explore Web design, site structure, style sheets, rollovers, dynamic content, and much more. You'll also get Lynda's expert tips, warnings, and background information about the techniques covered in each lesson. An accompanying CD-ROM includes source files for the exercises, as well as QuickTime movies that demonstrate key concepts.


From the Back Cover
Are you looking for concrete training that goes beyond theory and reference materials? Learn Dreamweaver by following classroom-proven exercises that will teach you to build sophisticated web pages. This book is geared toward people who have never written HTML or those who would like to switch from coding by hand to a visual HTML editor. Complete with insider tips, illustrated with detailed graphics, and accompanied by a CD-ROM that's loaded with guided exercises, demo software and QuickTime movies, this book ensures that you'll learn all the key features of Dreamweaver 2.


Excerpted from Dreamweaver 2.0 Hands-On Training by Lynda Weinman. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
From Chapter 8, "Style Sheets": Cascading Style Sheets offer a more flexible and accurate way to define the appearance of your text and formatting than standard HTML. If, for example, you wanted all the text in your Document to be blue and all the headlines to be green, with standard HTML you would have to go through the elements on the page one by one and assign those colors to the text. Using Style Sheets, you can redefine all the body elements in the entire Document to turn blue with just one instruction, and then perform the same single step for the headlines to turn green.

The Style Sheets specification also offers more control over type than standard HTML. With Styles, you can specify the amount of space between lines of type (also called the line height in Dreamweaver), the size of the type in pixels instead of points, and specific fonts for specific page elements. Anyone yearning for more control over typography is going to be drawn to using Styles as opposed to the type tags discussed in Chapter 7, =B3Type.=B2

There is a dark side to Styles, however. It is only supported by Netscape 4.0, 4.5, and Explorer 4 and 5. If someone looked at your Styles-based page with an older browser, they wouldn=B9t see any formatting whatsoever beyond the default colors, sizes, fonts, and positions. Dreamweaver has a great solution to this, however. It=B9s the only program I know of that can convert Styles to HTML tags automatically. Dreamweaver offers the best of both worlds, it allows you to design with Styles and convert to backwards-compatible HTML. Ya gotta love it!

This chapter offers exercises in setting up Styles and Style Sheets. Style Sheets are collections of rules which define the Styles of a Document. You will get a chance to redefine the Styles of HTML tags, create custom Styles called classes which can be repeatedly applied to tags, link to an external Style Sheet, and convert everything you did to HTML.

Many Web developers think highly of Style Sheets, yet they do not use them as often as you would think. Until the support for them is more consistent, using Style Sheets is a challenging decision you will have to make. You could create two Documents: one with Style Sheets and one without. Using a Dreamweaver Behavior, you could deliver the Style Sheet to the people with current browsers and an HTML page to those who have older browsers. This chapter will show you how to do this, too.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Embraced by both programmers and Web designers, Macromedia's Dreamweaver is one of the hottest HTML editors around. Lynda Weinman, one of the industry's hottest Web designers and authors, takes on Dreamweaver 2.0 in the debut of her hot new series, Lynda Weinman's Hands-On Training (H.O.T). The book presents a series of exercises that explore Web design, site structure and management, HTML, JavaScript behaviors, Forms design, Cascading Style Sheets, working with color schemes, and much more. Lynda also offers tips, warnings, and background information about when and why to use the techniques shown. With an accompanying CDROM that includes support and graphics files for the exercises, QuickTime movies showing key techniques, and a full working demo of the program, Dreamweaver 2.0 Hands-On Training is an indispensable reference for all Web designers and graphics professionals.

Learn Dreamweaver with hands-on exercises developed by one of the industry's leading Web design teachers. Lynda Weinman offers certification training in Web design, Photoshop, ImageReady, Dreamveaver, Flash, and Fireworks at her state-of-the-art training center in Ojai, California. Lynda Weinman has a huge following, based on the wild success of her Designing Web Graphics book and more recently through her high-profile Ojai-based training center activities, videos, personal appearances

FROM THE CRITICS

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