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The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP

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Author: David Powers
Publisher: friends of ED
Category: Book

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Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

19 reviews
Sales Rank: 2903

Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 784
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.9
Dimensions (in): 9 x 7.6 x 1.7

ISBN: 1590598598
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.786
EAN: 9781590598597
ASIN: 1590598598

Publication Date: July 22, 2007
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What youll learn

How to set up your ideal development environment, using Mac OSX/Windows, Apache (and IIS on Windows,) Apache, MySQL, and phpMyAdmin
Creating standards compliant web sites using CS3's XHTML and CSS features
Creating dynamic web applications using CS3's PHP and Spry Ajax server behaviors
Building several real world web site functions, such as form validation, random quote generator, search function, user management/login pages, dynamic Ajax gallery, and much more.
Creating an interface design in Fireworks CS3 and importing it into Dreamweaver CS3.
How use Dreamweaver CS3's XML functionality, to consume RSS feeds, and create Spry data sets
Using includes, templates and master detail pages.
How to publish your site after you've created it

Summary of Contents

Chapter 1: Dreamweaver CS3Your Creative Partner
Chapter 2: Building Dynamic Sites with Ajax and PHP
Chapter 3: Getting the Work Environment Ready
Chapter 4: Setting Up a PHP Site
Chapter 5: Adding a Touch of Style
Chapter 6: Creating a CSS Site Straight Out of the Box
Chapter 7: Building Site Navigation with the Spry Menu Bar
Chapter 8: Sprucing Up Content with Spry Widgets
Chapter 9: Building Online Forms and Validating Input
Chapter 10: Introducing the Basics of PHP
Chapter 11: Using PHP to Process a Form
Chapter 12: Working with PHP Includes and Templates
Chapter 13: Setting Up MySQL and phpMyAdmin
Chapter 14: Storing Records in a Database
Chapter 15: Controlling Access to Your Site
Chapter 16: Working with Multiple Tables
Chapter 17: Searching Records and Handling Dates
Chapter 18: Using XSLT to Display Live News Feeds and XML
Chapter 19: Using Spry to Display XML
Chapter 20: Getting the Best of Both Worlds with PHP and Spry

Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Essential Book For Your Dreamweaver Library. June 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I have had some experience in using Dreamweaver since version 8, and I wanted to 'marry' my meager PHP+MySQL experience in using Dreamweaver CS3 beyond what I was currently doing; creating static XHTML+CSS websites.

This book has exceeded my expectations and then some! With it, I am now able to easily create dynamic websites, all within the GUI comfort of Dw CS3. (Ok, some ad hoc hand coding may be needed.) I didn't really want to learn more about PHP programming, MySQL queries, Ajax, etc. I just wanted to know how to use tools available in Dw CS3 to manipulate web technologies, and this book delivers. Real-world examples in the book helps drive this knowledge further.

A mild caveat; this book really is an intermediate-level book. It would be helpful if you were already familiar with the technologies used in creating dynamic websites. i.e., having passing knowledge of PHP, MySQL, XHTML+CSS, Javascript, and Dw CS3. That said, the book does include a PHP and MySQL primer.

Some minor snits;
This book covered the installation of a LAMP stack on a local machine. (Either Windows or Mac) I would have liked to see a chapter on installing a LAMP server (Ubuntu is great!) on a laptop or a computer running in a home network. After some fair amount of trial and error, I was able to have a testing server on another machine, freeing up my main machine for Dw CS3 and other tasks.

It would be nice if the book could have followed up with more examples of extending Dw CS3. The book did show one example of how to add in a customized server behavior, and I wanted to see more of that. Less hand-coding, and more GUI coolness via these extensions would help making working in Dw CS3 a more enjoyable experience.

5 out of 5 stars

This Book Saved Me! April 25, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I'm currently taking a class in PHP/MySQL and it's use in eCommerce, and this book has really helped me along the way! The author shows you the ways in which Dreamweaver can help you to reduce your development time, but still produced some really great, dynamic sites. He goes into detail on some of the code as well, which is helpful. Additionally, the author is very honest and recommends other resources for items he covers in a limited manner. If you want to learn more about connecting to a database or just using PHP for simple mailing forms, as well as some nice CSS tips, this book is for you!

5 out of 5 stars

The very best programming/instructional book I've ever read March 18, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I have read many books on programming. While I have gleaned some value from just about every book, the page-count-to-learning ratio hasn't been great. And on a few occasions, I hit a roadblock where I simply wasn't getting what author was telling me I should be completely proficient with at that moment...anyone else experience that?? Makes me feel like a coloring-by-the-numbers code monkey. I've gone back to some of those books once I have gained some proficiency on the topic (elsewhere) to find that those authors made things unnecessarily complex. Who knows why, but it sure pisses me off.

I give you this background, so that when I say that this book is absolutely without equal in delivering actionable, easy-to-understand content on almost every single page, that is no exaggeration. I lost count of the number of times I came up with a question, only to read the very next sentence which usually went something like this, "...you are probably wondering why this is the case. Here's why..." It was incredible! And the exercises start to ween you off of the minutia at precisely the right pace (for me, anyway). It was a great confidence builder when the author wrote, "You should be comfortable with these steps at this point..." and I totally was.

Truly excellent work by David Powers and Tom Muck (who did the technical review). And they've kept their errata/updates site up-to-date with DW CS3, which definitely came in handy as I encountered current-version discrepancies with things like Spry 1.6.

One miss was, the very last exercise did not work for me. After thoroughly reviewing the sample code, my code, etc. I submitted it as errata...waiting for a response.

5 out of 5 stars

Great Book March 15, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I haven't finished this book yet. I have completed the chapter on how to setup a testing server for php. So far I am very pleased with the book it has allowed me to setup a server and test my php code. This book is well worth the price just for this.

5 out of 5 stars

A Perfect book March 12, 2008
This book is a wonderful assistant for people they like to dive into DW and PHP. It completes all my questions and it's tips are rule!