Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Mac users avoid this book
Comment: This book's advertising is misleading. Except for the appendix, the book completely ignores instructions for the Macintosh user. As a result, I have literally spent weeks searching for the necessary adjustments to accomplish the demos on a Mac. This book should be advertised as for Windows users only. It should be an excellent text for them.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great book on creating dynamic web sites
Comment: I had a little knowledge of PHP and MySQL and had worked through part of an introductory book on the subject, but I really hate programming (even though it seems I'm forced to learn *something* as I progress in my web development career). So I picked up PHP Web Development w/ Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 because I thought it would take some of the pain out of creating a dynamic web site (database-driven) from scratch.
While the stuff I learned from the other book (syntax basics, etc.) gave me a pretty fair foundation, this book opened up new horizons. It's so great to be able to use Dreamweaver to automate so much of what goes into a dynamic site. Also, this book discusses the free PHPMyAdmin which makes creation and administration of databases a snap (BTW I'm a Mac OS X user).
Not only was I able to work through the exercises in relatively short order, I was pleased to find that one of the authors (David Powers) checks into the Apress forums on the Apress.com website and personally helped me when I got to hurdles. That may not always be the case, but it was an extra benefit I found after purchasing the book.
I think the book was written in just the right style. I had a little bit of PHP/MySQL experience (which helped) but the book went detailed each step I was supposed to take so even if I didn't have that experience, I was able to follow along. The great thing about PHP and MySQL is that they are both FREE and open source so IT COSTS NOTHING to put together a dynamic, database-driven site. This book helps you do just that. I still have a long way to go as far as being able to put together my own site from scratch, but this book was fantastic. I will go back to page one and re-read it just to make sure Iget the concepts down.
I recommend this book very highly (and have never written a book review before so that speaks for itself).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good Not A Rave
Comment: Having read the rave reviews for the this book of these other authors on Amazon, I was excited get started with this book learning how to actually use the tools that Dreamweaver provides for PHP based website creation. I admit I was a little disappointed but did learn alot about how to use Dreamweaver with PHP especially after repeating the examples more than once.
To be fair, the only part of the book that I wanted was how to use Dreamweaver's PHP features which cannot be figured out on one's own. The book includes chapters on web standards such as CSS and XHTML as well code reuse, debugging and error handling, and extension use and writing. I read the web standards chapter and glanced through the others because code reuse and debugging are easier to figure out and more or less similar to other development environments or roll your own situations. Also to fully disclose I'm not more than a beginner at PHP, but have programmed in other languages. I have worked through the O'Reilly intro book and a self-assigned exercise I invented for myself. I was really hoping for a leg-up with Dreamweaver. I found the results using this book mixed. So much for disclaimers.
There are two example applications used in the book. Sometimes the notes on the examples boil down to "do this step now so that it will work later" and not enough generalized explanation of the tools used to get the work done. I would have appreciated a little more bird's eye discourse on how the tools in Dreamweaver (behaviors, recordsets, and the fields and buttons and other form elements used with them) are supposed to be used together.
The other note I have is the books writing is for some reason sometimes hard to follow because it seems they have left something in their commentary out. Now this of course may not be true in your case as it was for me.
What I did learn from this book is enough to use the basic php tools in Dreamweaver, so I do overall give it a plus, just not a rave. For example, I learned that each page maintains its own recordsets and recordsets can be cut and pasted between pages. I learned that field entry validation is accomplished by a simplified javascript behaviour which for real applications would probably have to be reworked. (The book does tell us where to get a better third party form validator though). Most valuable for me were the example applications which when studied and restudied should yield some confidence with Dreamweaver's imposing toolset interface.
My opinion is that as a tool for PHP, Dreamweaver is better if the user already knows enough PHP and javascript to modify the basis that Dreamweaver offers. It's still good if you don't but better if you do. Overall, this book has added to my ability to work with Dreamweaver in PHP so I would recommend it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: At last... a designer's guide to web development!
Comment: If you are a graphic designer without any background in PHP, MySQL and database-driven web applications wanting to charge more for your work, this book is for you!
Static websites are commonplace but if you really want to be able to offer your clients the chance to manage their own content and build thousands of pages themselves using simple forms, you will not only be able to charge more for the services you offer but also have the knowledge that as a designer you are more likely to get more clients.
This book will help you through the use of practical tutorials to build dynamic websites, linking design to database. It covers simple steps, from showing you how to set up your local or home computer to test all your dynamic pages (this is a HUGE help to anyone who has attempted to get PHP, MySQL and Apache working under both OSX or Windows), to building a fully-functioning site with restricted areas and pages built on-the-fly from a database.
In short, I highly rate and recommend this book to anyone wanting to get up and running in the world of web development with no prior knowledge of programming but a real desire to expand their skill set.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Meanders a bit around the target
Comment: I'd like to give this book five stars because I think the coverage of Dreamweaver in the area of PHP development is well written and effective. The problem is that the book meanders off topic here and there. Getting deep into basic Dreamweaver features like basic editing, HTML layout, and CSS, well before getting into PHP. It's not until chapter five (page 153) that we really start to get into PHP.
The coverage then goes off topic again after the introduction to PHP, to get into writing Dreamweaver extensions. Which while interesting, is probably not what the reader was expecting from the title of the book.
It's hard to compare this book with a straight PHP web development book because the PHP coverage is from the Dreamweaver GUI perspective, where you can use the server behaviors features to drag-n-drop fields onto the page.
For those looking for a soup to nuts book that covers using Dreamweaver to build dynamic PHP pages, you have found your book. For those looking for coverage of the PHP specific features of Dreamweaver, this book is worth the look. If you are looking for a reference or introduction to PHP, this is not the book you want.
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