Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual

Macromedia Dreamweaver ranks among the most popular tools for developing and managing Web sites, but because it's different from the ordinary office productivity software with which we're all familiar, there's a need for an explanatory book on the program. Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual takes that role, showing its readers how to build and modify everything from tables to basic Flash animations. To the credit of author David McFarland, the book usually manages to carry out its instructive role while neither confusing nor patronizing its readers. There's enough detail in these pages to guarantee they'll remain useful for a long time, and enough patient text and graphics (mostly small, detailed screen shots) to help users up the steepest parts of the Dreamweaver learning curve.

As is the case with all of the Missing Manual books, this one uses an excellent style for its procedures. Rather than treating procedures as sequences of inflexible directives, as do many user-lever books, this book allows for the fact that the person reading the procedures has a brain and may want to do something that deviates from the example. For that reason, McFarland explains the options that appear at each point along the way as he details a procedure, and explains why you might want to take alternative actions. He's also good about explaining HTML conventions, like the supremacy of specified table width over specified column widths. One might wish for more coverage of the server-side routines to which forms submit their contents, but what's here is excellent. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to use Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 to create and maintain Web sites. Billing itself as "the book that should have been in the box," this volume explains text formatting, hyperlinking, tables, frames, forms, and other aspects of site design and management via the Dreamweaver interface.