Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4
Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 by Stephanie Sullivan and Greg Rewis takes you beyond simple HTML website design and really gets to the root of designing and creating websites in the newest release of CS4.
Contents 21/25
Ease of Understanding/Practicality 20/25
Pictures/Illustrations 18/25
Additional Features 18/25
Total 78/100
Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 is a great book for going beyond simple website design using the Cascading Style Sheets as a great layout tool. The Cascading Style Sheets are a way to have all your site design and appearance settings in one spot so you can affect changes throughout a website using simple changes to the style sheets.
Mastering these settings and learning how to use CSS is a lot like starting over with a new program for web design but the basics are much the same for HTML. You simply have to get used to thinking and working on one style sheet and using that for your site or you can even use several for parts of your site that are similar.
I have not redesigned my site into full CSS but having a working knowledge of CSS is a must in the newer versions of Dreamweaver as it is highly dependent on it. CSS will be the wave of the future and with how easy site design is using Cascading Style Sheets it will be the more important tool to use and learn.
The book Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 starts with a basic understanding and some quick descriptions of Dreamweaver and especially new features of the Creative Suite 4 version. You move through concepts and basic parts of Cascading Style Sheets and learn how to use them to create a basic template and format for your website.
Using CSS you can literally design one sheet and use it for your entire website but it is a bit different than using templates in HTML. You need to get used to thinking ahead and using the book as a reference and guide as you design a website and learn more about CSS.
Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 is all about comprehensive website design but may not be for every type and style of website which is a shame. Using CSS is fun and easy once you learn the basics and with Dreamweaver CS4 you will be using it whether you like it or not.
Most websites will use the styles and types of CSS contained in the book and this really gives you a beyond basics look at CSS from the standpoint of someone who knows a lot about it. The authors have been working with Adobe for years and are intimately familiar with both Dreamweaver and CSS with plenty of background in the area of website design.
They have laid out for you all you need to know from basic site ideas to putting things together on the pages of Dreamweaver for a website design using CSS. Many of the helpful and informational tidbits in the book are the exact things you need to learn and find out how to use for any website.
The book contains several terms and explains all those things that you need to learn for using CSS and even the common things in Dreamweaver so getting to know both Dreamweaver CS4 and CSS is going to happen. Following along in the book and using the various styles and examples they use will be great for many types of websites you may want to design so learning how to use CSS is easier.
Mastering CSS takes you through all that confusing coding to decipher and make use of every aspect of common Cascading Style Sheets so you can create your own websites. The book makes good use of illustrations to show the exact thing they are talking about on Dreamweaver so you see the effects and code for each topic and feature.
Going through some common web page styles and templates they show on that template that is a part of Dreamweaver all the main features and how to add and change the parts of a website to create your very own pages. Once you apply these style sheets to your website design you can easily alter and change aspects of your web page easily through simple changes on the style sheet without having to change things on every page.
Changing just the style sheets means less hassles and work for website wide corrections or improvements and updates so you can quickly alter one thing across a website with the fewest steps possible. The book helps with other common website features like photo galleries and blogs on a site so you can have a modern and impressive design with the features you want.
I do like Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 as a general reference and step by step tutorial book as much of what is here applies to any website design you can create in Dreamweaver. My main lack in the book is it does not have quite as many illustrations and pictures as I would like but they do explain things well and help you a lot with all that code.
CSS is mainly code and to design and work with a site with code is going to take some patience and work but with this book you can get a good understanding of using CSS in Dreamweaver CS4. I highly recommend Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS4 as a great book for understanding Cascading Style Sheets and using them in your website design work.