Hi I'm looking at building my first web page using dreamweaver CS6 and was wondering if anyone can recomend any good books on the market that would hlep me.

Ive been looking at dreamweaver cs6 classroom in a book & dreamweaver cs6 for dummies.

 

Would I be wasting my money on these or not?

 

Thanks

Matt

In my opinion, If you're serious about web design, then you shouldn't be buying books about a program. Instead, you should be learning the various web languages.

 

So unless you already know how to code and you're wanting to further your knowledge on an editor that you'll be using, then yes, I'd say you're wasting your money on those books.

Edited August 23, 201214 yr by Pete Prosper

Many Thanks for your reply Pete.

 

I am new to web building. my current job is a sign maker/graphic designer so was going to see how i was a web building.

 

Can you recomend something to me to get me started?

 

Thanks

Matt

Well it's going to take some work and study. The common trap is people thinking building a good website is as easy jumping into Dreamweaver, and moving shapes around as you would a design in photoshop. Instead, you'll want to learn the following basic web languages:

• HTML 5 and XHTML
  
• CSS
  
• Javascript and JQuery
  

If you know the first two languages, then you can successfully design a website and have it look really nice. The third mostly deals with user interaction and is often used to create visual effects and other dynamic behavior. So, here are some resources for you...

 

 

Book Resources:

• Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML: Honestly, I haven't read this book but I'm told it's a really great introduction and beginners guide. I chose to learn HTML with online resources, actually
  
• The Ultimate HTML Guide (By Sitepoint): A little bit dated, but an amazing reference for HTML.
  
• The Ultimate CSS Guide (By Sitepoint): Same as above but for CSS.
  
• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design: It's like an art course specifically geared towards web design. Highly recommended
  
• Simply Javascript: A great introduction and overall book about javascript
  
• Website Resources:
  

• http://htmldog.com/ (html/css tutorials)
  
• http://www.w3schools.com/ (html/css/javascript tutorials. This is more "reference-like", however)
  

 

 

Someone here will definitely recommend "The Principles of Beautiful Web Design". If you can, buy this book; it's great.

 

After those above languages, there are other things to learn such as server side programming, CMS integration, database management and design, but these things are purely optional and you may not need these skills for your purposes.

 

I admit, I am working at the moment, so I rushed this post. Hope I didn't make any mistakes or grammatical errors :s

Edited August 23, 201214 yr by Pete Prosper

Buying a book on Dreamweaver to learn web design is like learning to play Golf by reading a physics textbook that uses Golf in it's examples. It's possible but when you are actually in the shop buying your pringle sweater you won't know any of the proper terminology or know who Tiger Woods is and the old men will laugh at you.

 

Ok maybe that's a bit of a stretch. Plenty of people use Dreamweaver but the good ones only use it in code view. At which point it may as well just be any other IDE. Books on Dreamweaver probably won't recommend that to you because.. why would you need to buy a book for that? They'll talk about all the other features, all the nice buttons that make boxes. All the toggles and widgets that turn people into ****ty web designers.

 

Think of Dreamweaver as a tool among many that you might want to use but you should pick it up after you've decided exactly what task you want to accomplish first.

 

What exactly is it about creating websites you want to learn?.

 

Do you want to design, do you want to code that design, do you want to code the heavy lifting database stuff, do you want to organise all the information so it's found easier, do you want to write awesome product descriptions that make people buy stuff, do you want to know where to place buttons so humans can't not click them or do you just want to be able to put together whatever you want reasonably well?

 

I'd recommend just diving in. Start with tutorials, there are plenty out there. They'll show you a website and then walk you through how to make it. Then move on to doing that process on your own, find a website you like the look of and try to replicate it visually. Don't worry about the functions, just make it look the same. For this all you'll need is HTML and CSS, perhaps two of the easiest ways to make a computer do something new that exist. Boxes (HTML) and instructions about the colour of those boxes (CSS), that's all it is.

 

This process will give you a feel of how websites are put together and what aspects of it you like and don't like. Keep in mind it's the underlying technologies that are important. HTML and CSS are universal, Dreamweaver is just a tool to write HTML and CSS, you might discover you don't like that tool and instead another one.

 

Maybe you'll discover you have the analytical gift for the programming side and become one of those Ruby Rockstars that keep getting paid stupid money for their stupid job title.

 

Pete already posted a good list of resources.

 

(Oh, I just thought of another analogy. It's like buying a book on how to pleasure women with toys before taking the time to find out you actually like men)