Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004

by Tom Green, Jordan L. Chilcott, Chris S. Flick, et al.

Dreamweaver MX 2004, Flash MX 2004, Fireworks MX 2004, and Free Hand MX are powerhouses in some aspect of Web development. This volume gives you an overview of how you can use the integrated workflow... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735713766
• ISBN13: 9780735713765
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: New Riders Publishing
• Length: 542 Pages
• Weight: 2.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

This book is set to become a classic.

Hands up those of you who have been to one those free Macromedia seminars where a team of speakers attempt to present all the wonders of Studio MX 2004 over a period of a few hours? Absolutely riveting stuff. Database driven Flash, Cold Fusion interaction, calendars and booking systems, streaming media, fantastic looking demo sites, css tricks, templates, Flash chat rooms. Now hands up those of you who could remember how to do any of it 10 minutes after leaving the conference centre. Frustrating isn't it? Enter "Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004". This book is set to become a classic. It will change the way you work with "Studio MX 2004" forever. For a start you will find yourself using the entire package to it's full potential as opposed to just tinkering around the edges.The book revolves around the building of a Web Site for the "Oakbridge Recreation Center". Excited yet? Stick around. This is not just any old Web Site. This is state of the art Cold Fusion / Flash / DMX / MySql masterpiece complete with a Virtual Tour of the facilities based on the visitors interests, an online booking facility and the piece de resistance .... an online meeting facility flexible enough to offer services ranging from a text input chat facility to streaming video and audio.Scared yet? Don't be. The authors go out of their way to guide you step by step through the process using ample diagrams and screen grabs. Their writing style is up close and personal, almost as if they were sitting next to you having a chat. Their approach throughout is to let the software do all the hard work.This book is a trip of discovery and along the way you will encounter Flash Remoting, The Flash Communication Server and the use of Flash MX 2004 components, dynamic templates, Dreamweaver's new CSS capabilities, the advantages of using Fireworks as your primary graphics tool and much much more. Just take a look through the Table Of Contents to get a feel for the scope of the book.This book is aimed at the intermediate user. The guy who has used Dreamweaver and messed with a bit of Flash and is now ready for greater things. If you own Studio MX 2004 you NEED this book.

A Solid Reference for Web Production

Once again, this writng team has pulled off an excellent book! This book is an excellent referecne for anyone in the web production industry, from project managers, to programmers to designers. It gives an excellent overview of the entitre production process, with actual task-based projects. While this book will not make you an MX 2004 expert, it will do a wonderful job of showing you how all the pieces of the MX 2004 suite work together, and how this software package can save you time.I was very impressed with the way the book is broken out into production phases - from the minute the phone rings with a new client asking questions - to the finished project.This book is not jsut a reference, but a production tool in itself. I know I will make use of many examples during my own web design courses.

A Must Read!!!

"Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004" is by far the best book I've read on building dynamic websites to date. Only one other book I know of goes into so much detail regarding the overall process of developing a website, "Building Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX", which is also written by the remarkable trio who wrote this book. I really appreciated how the books focus on teaching its readers how to integrate Macromedia's latest tools with one another melded seamlessly into the dynamic workflow being presented throughout the book; As well as how it not only showed you "how" to do certain tasks related to the project (step-by-step), but goes that extra step and tells you "why" you should do it that way. Throughout the book the authors took a "let the software do the work" approach to their instruction, which made the whole development process seem a lot less daunting and quite efficient. Although I'm usually quite thick skinned when I read a book, I actually found it refreshing the way the authors talked straight to you as an equal, and by the use of illustrations really helped get across the concepts that may have been over the less technical minded readers head. Overall the tone of the book was one that made you feel good about what you were learning and that it wasn't beyond your reach. Although if you are a novice this book would most definitely not be the place to start learning the ropes.The real meat of this book came in the form of the topics that were covered during the course of the project. Some of the more exciting topics covered included the use of Flash Remoting, incorporating the Flash Communication Server through the use of Flash MX 2004 components, dynamic templates, and putting Dreamweaver's new CSS capabilities to the test. Add this to the great coverage of the dynamic development process and you'll find that you're hard pressed to find anything you don't like about the book... Overall the bottom line is if you are a web professional looking for a book to fully explains the process of building dynamic web sites/applications, and how to use Macromedia's latest and greatest tools seamlessly together, this is a book you are going to want to add to your library.

Site producers need this!

This book is an excellent guide for the site producer who wants to take their website to the next level. The dynamic website is becoming more and more common, but putting one together can be a daunting task. The authors of this book take the reader through the necessary steps, from site planning and navigation structure, to implementation by the use of a fictional but realistic client website project. The liberal use of graphics and screenshots aids the reader in understanding how dynamic sites are built, along with how the various Macromedia software applications work together as a suite of tools.This book is not for the novice site builder, nor is it meant to be. The ideal reader of this book is the site producer, author, artist, manager, programmer - whomever is responsible for porting over their static website into a dynamic, more easily-maintained site. This book will not make you into an artist, a database administrator, or a Flash programmer, but it will teach you how to integrate the tools - perhaps integrate your team - into a more efficient organization with better workflow. You'll be able to offer your site visitors more reasons to stay and look around.I can recommend this book to anyone who uses Macromedia software regularly. The writing style is accessible and instructive without being condescending. The reasoning behind the exercises is explained, and all exercises have real-world application. The database section covers the most common types of database applications. The graphics section explains the advantages of using Fireworks as the primary graphics editing tool, and throughout, the authors look to giving you the knowledge to create a living, dynamic website. This book deserves a place on all serious site creators who use the Macromedia set of software tools and want to take their website up a notch.