Good books to read??? 1

[globularbob]

Hello

I'm been developing in Dreamweaver MX for over a year, and have been developing web projects for about 5 now. My sites are decent in terms of data entry and performance, but they're very plain. I would even say that they don't look altogether professional, even though they work well on the backend. Can anyone reccommend any books for Dreamweaver and/or web design in general that can help me improve my design skills?

Thanks!!!
GB

 

[lebisol]

HI globularbob!
I would say u follow tutorials that came with DW....but really what aspect of design u want to improve? The GUI or the code?
if u are just looking to improve your "looks" then I think u need to go in direction of graphics skills improvement.
My suggestion is to pick up som CSS skills as a quikc way of GUI "enhancements" (and code as well) AND/OR using Photoshop (if u can afford it) to produce images.
CSS:

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/alternate/

Adobe Family:

http://www.thewebmachine.com/

All the best!
p.s. dont buy books for "general" knowledge, there are pleanty goodlinks on the web.
If ur looking into specifics...as in "leanr asp" "learn php" with DW then post some more info



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ok,ok...I did shoot the deputy but he told me he was the sheriff!
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[globularbob]

Thanks for the tip! I'm looking to improve the look and feel of the UI. I have the hardest time with CSS and templates in making the site look nice. Any good titles or links?

 

[lebisol]

Hey globularbob!
To be honest I barely ever use Dreamweaver CSS built-in stuff....here comes the wrath of loyal DW users
I always liked TopStyle:

http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/index.asp

Why get antoher software when DW has CSS support?

-TopStyle has a lite free version as well!
- "DW has support for CSS tags" so why TopStyle?
because you can work separetly on CSS files while not affecting the HTML structure.
I know that DW will allow for you to simply edit CSS tags but the problem I found was DW's desire to update WYSIWYG that sometimes actually affects the HTML code and especilly if u keep switching from Standard to Layout View.
in other words...TopStyle is better WYSIWYG CSS editor than DW and it will help you "learn" CSS easier
to learn CSS I would go through examples:

http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_examples.asp

and, at the end of the day, learning CSS is much like leraning HTML...
trial & error + note to self
Also, I belive that there is "CSS forum" here as well...
All the best!

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ok,ok...I did shoot the deputy but he told me he was the sheriff!
:--------------------------------------------------------------------------: