Best Dreamweaver Guidebook?

[Ron Marshall]

I'm going to set-up a website using dreamweaver, but have no experience with this program (lots of other programming experience though).

Would you please recommend a clear and concise guidebook to get me started.

[chris_4622]

Ron,

Back when I learned it I used the copy that came with the software and the online tutorials Macromedia had. I also have a CSS book by O'Reilly which I could let you use.

Contact me off line if you are interested.

chris

[Andrew O'Neill]

Dreamweaver for Dummies. Worked for me.

[Mike Anderson]

I'm going to set-up a website using dreamweaver, but have no experience with this program (lots of other programming experience though).

Would you please recommend a clear and concise guidebook to get me started.

If you're going to write code by hand it's easy get by without a manual, just use an online tutorial to get started. I use Dreamweaver - 10% of it. Just using it as a (smart) text editor, file manager, and FTP client works great.

...Mike

[Greg Miller]

Do yourself a favor and learn CSS first. Use CSS to build the structure (overall page size and sections within the page (e.g. header, nav bar, main, footer,...)) and look and feel (colors, fonts,...) of your web pages. Use HTML or Dreamweaver only for the content (actual text and photos). Prepare to be frustrated by how your web site will look different in various browsers. Prepare to hate IE for being the only browser that doesn't behave properly when all the others do.

[Frank Petronio]

I don't know anyone who uses Dreamweaver anymore, it is kind of a relic.

[Ron Marshall]

I don't know anyone who uses Dreamweaver anymore, it is kind of a relic.

What alternatives would you recommend?

[Frank Petronio]

Most people start w templates and modify them using a text editor, prep the images in Photoshop.

Slices, tables, WYSIWYG, etc. are not so popular anymore.

[Mike Anderson]

I don't know anyone who uses Dreamweaver anymore, it is kind of a relic.

I think it's pretty good. The text editor is as good as any and has knowledge of most web languages (html, css, javascript, etc.), nice file management panel, 1 click FTP. What more do you want?

...Mike

[Ramiro Elena]

Do yourself a favor and learn CSS first. Use CSS to build the structure (overall page size and sections within the page (e.g. header, nav bar, main, footer,...)) and look and feel (colors, fonts,...) of your web pages. Use HTML or Dreamweaver only for the content (actual text and photos). Prepare to be frustrated by how your web site will look different in various browsers. Prepare to hate IE for being the only browser that doesn't behave properly when all the others do.

+2

Think about updates in your website too. If you want to add content periodically you might want to consider things like Indexhibit.

[Marko]

I agree with Frank and Greg - if you don't want to bother with the code, get one of the template packages such as iWeb. Or even create your site in Wordpress - it doesn't necessarily have to be a blog.

But if you want to create your own, then you definitely need to learn CSS and HTML. You can also start with the template package and then slowly learn the code by tweaking the package output using a simple text editor.

Once there, you won't need Dreamweaver anyway, it's too complex, too big of a resource hog and too expensive. It's just been hyped up by those who always needed a crutch with their web building skills. Personally, I've been using BBEdit for the past decade or so, it is a no-nonsense programming editor fully aware of most programming and web languages' syntax, validation and coloring. It either provides or easily integrates with essential content management, code validation, FTP, and has many other useful features. It's also very fast, configurable and affordable.

[IanG]

+3 CSS is the key, and Dreamweaver is an excellent program and easy to use.

But if you know CSS you can hack and modify Template based systems as well.

Ian