Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8

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I already had a basic understanding of Dreamweaver in creating some basic web pages, but I had a hard time finding a good PHP book. This book shows you how to combine the cool new features of Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 and the scripting power of PHP. I had done some scripting before with ASP but not with PHP. This book takes you from the beginning in setting up the work environment of a web server (APACHE or IIS) and database (MYSQL), to explaining web design concepts and then integrating it all together in some useful and "real-world" projects. It also explains the differences in setup of MAC and Windows OS. I've never found a book that puts it all together like this one. A must buy!

David Powers has written a masterpiece in "Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8."

This book is incredibly well conceived, well written, well edited, and well supported. The material is presented concisely yet completely and accurately. The detailed chapters on installation and configuration of Apache, PHP, and MySQL for both Windows and Macintosh are works of art in and of themselves, walking the reader through the complex process step by step, giving very clear instructions, explaining the reasons for the recommended configuration choices, and anticipating everything that might go wrong along the way.

Powers's writing style is formal and precise without being stuffy. His explanations and instructions are clear and complete without wasted words. (He is a former journalist.) Because Powers does not fill his book with needless repetitions, oversized figures, or other fluff, the book is thankfully thinner than other PHP/Dreamweaver books that cover the same (or less) material. The book's font and formating are easy on the eye, and intelligent use of bold text nearly (but not completely) makes up for the one-color printing. The figures are clear and accurate, and the examples are illustrative, easy to follow, and nicely supported by the downloadable companion files.

While most advanced computer books with lots of raw code have many typographic and technical errors, "Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8" has very few. Most of the few errata are related to changes in versions of PHP, Dreamweaver, or MySQL that were released subsequent to the book's printing -- and the author catches those changes and posts comprehensive updates to his website very quickly and very frequently. As this is my first book from the "Friends of ED" publisher, I do not know whether the author or the editor is to thank for the small number of errors, but it is a very refreshing change to read a technical book that is as clean as this one.

The author takes an active role in the publisher's support forum, answering readers' questions and offering suggestions and tips. When Adobe released an update to Dreamweaver that broke several server behaviors, Powers quickly posted several explanations on his website and even updated the book's companion files to make them compatible with the new Dreamweaver behaviors. David Powers clearly knows the material; his name is well known in Dreamweaver development circles, where he is widely regarded as a leading expert.

I recommend this book whole-heartedly. Many computer books are not worth the cost of the paper they are printed on, but "Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8" is one book that is well worth its retail price -- and more. David Powers and his publisher should be congratulated for such a fine piece of work.

Buy it.

For serious designers Dreamweaver is without doubt the best web design program out there. PHP is the most powerful server-side language available to date. I needed to produce my first shopping cart site... so I bought Cartweaver PHP - a cracking little value for money extension, but I needed to configure my machine. This book showed me, in plain English, how to install PHP on my computer (Mac or PC), how to set up a testing server on my own machine and how to install MySQL. It also taught me the basics of PHP and took me through some simple PHP exercises (e.g. form-to-mail) - it's not as difficult as you think! and if you're going to use commercial PHP scripts on your sites you should really have some understanding of what you are uploading to the server... it also taught me some very useful CSS tips and alerted me to some fantastic enhancements in Dreamweaver 8.

Believe me, this book does exactly what it says... it provides a foundation course in PHP for Dreamweaver 8! Buy it... you won't be disappointed!

For years, I have wanted to learn PHP and MySQL. There were a lot of books out there, but I felt none of them were good for beginners. As someone who was ignorant to designing dynamic websites, I did not know where to begin. When I heard that Friends of ED published a book on PHP for Dreamweaver, I did not hesitate to buy it. The book starts off by explaining how to downlaoad and install the Apache server and how everything ties in with PHP. Throughtout the book, you apply what you learn by designing a "real-world" dynamic web site. There were a few times that I came across some glitches. Fortunately, friendsofed.com has a forum where you can post questions. The author, Dave Powers, was usually quick in responding. The book does not really emphasize hand coding, but mainly how to incorporate the code using the features in Dreamweaver 8. If you want to learn more about hand coding, I would recommend another book by the author: Foundation PHP 5 for Flash. That is also another great book. All in all, Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8 is ideal in introducing the novice in explaining how to build dynamic websites.

Excellent!!

After reading 3 of 4 other PHP books, I found this one. While the others have been relegated to the shelf as references, this one is my learning tool.

There are many good reasons this book is an overall 5 star rated book.

If you want to unleash Dreamweaver as a PHP rapid application development tool, this is the book for you. If you want to learn to hand code PHP for hours on end, read the other ones.

If you want to set up your own localhost to test PHP and MySQL using Dreamweaver before publishing to the web, read this book. If you want to get incomplete installation instructions for Apache, PHPMyAdmin, PHP or MySQL, read the other ones.

I was familiar with PHP, and am an Oracle database programmer. As Oracle has become more and more expensive, I decided to take a serious look at my PHP hobby. Up until this book, I never saw PHP as a viable small application alternative because of the time required for building code line by line. This book changes all of that. Using Dreamweaver's extensive panels of PHP and application options and wizards, I have shown my co-workers how to quickly build and fine tune PHP using Dreamweaver.

I am also amazed to see an author so involved with his book after publication. His posts here should prove his belief in his product. Excellent book, sir. I will watch for your next one!

I don't know about anyone else, but I rarely look at the author's name on tutorial-type books like these. I just want the info and the author's name is one piece of info I skip over. David Powers is one exception. I read another book by David Powers (et. al) "PHP Dreamweaver MX 2004" prior to this one and loved it. This current book "Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8" is also a great book. I felt almost euphoric with the things I could accomplish with PHP and Dreamweaver after reading the first book, however, if one doesn't immediately apply it, the info tends to leave the brain--mine, at least. Having upgraded to Dreamweaver 8 this latest book was a good refresher. That's not to say it's not complete by iteself. It is. What I like about Powers' books is that they are like Swiss Army knives that I can go back to, open up and take out the tool I need for a specific job. I may not remember the steps necessary to perform a certain function in PHP, but I can at least remember that I read it in one of these books. For me, who can only still barely scratch the surface of PHP, this book is a godsend. Why code when I can use Dreamweaver's built in server behaviors to do it for me?

I get several things out of this book. More web design skills, more familiarity with CSS, a good exposure to PHP (and MySQL) and Dreamweaver 8. There's also the parts about blogs and RSS feeds which were things that I thought were over my head (turns out I really didn't know anything about it and now I've created a blog AND an RSS feed).

I'm a graphic and web designer, but I don't consider myself a programmer. This is a great reference tool for me and I'm already applying the things I learned in the book to projects I'm taking on. In fact, Powers' book has given me the confidence to know I *can* handle database-driven projects (to a limited extent) which means I don't necessarily have to turn down work. What I like about this book is that the author goes through EVERY step (down to the very last button which needs clicking in Dreamweaver). If I have a problem while doing an exercise, it has usually meant that I missed one of the steps.

This is also a valuable learning tool for working with the newest versions of Dreamweaver. I've used Dreamweaver for years and working through the exercises in this book accomplishes multiple tasks at once. I get a good grounding in PHP and I get to learn what's new in Dreamweaver.

The way Powers builds the sample site using PHP and CSS is also a wonderful thing to have. I can refer to this book instead of having to keep several books at the ready. Yes, this isn't a complete CSS guide, but I can adapt the section on building a navigation system in CSS to whatever site I'm working on. Plus, I've got the PHP stuff there too.

Who is this book for? Well, me, for one. If you've got some HTML skills, know a little CSS and you're looking to dive into PHP and dynamic sites, this is an excellent resource. As I said, I'm not a programmer, so I like the fact that it's written in plain English. I think a lot of it made sense due to the fact that I had read some other books on PHP so it wasn't all that strange to me. That might help and I would recommend getting some other books that go into more detail, too. Of course, Powers gives lots of recommendations in the book for other books that do go into more depth.

Still, I am very excited that I am able to create databases, tie into them and display dynamic data on web pages. It's a lot of fun. Powers makes it easier than I ever thought it was. I still have a long way to go, but as I said I'm confident I can do a lot more than just build static-page sites. I highly recommend this book.

I have a stack of books to help me learn how to get around in the world of web development. This book is the ONLY one I have not had to close up and walk away from due to getting stuck because of my inability to understand the instructions. I never had to wait long to get resolution to fix my understanding, when I did have a problem, because David Powers himself helped me over the hurdles via forum support. For that reason alone, when I add to my library I will look first to see if there is anything out there with David Powers' name on it.

I struggled to get Apache, MySQL and PHP to work correctly on my computer and out of desperation finally went with a package. In fact, I loaded and unloaded three of them before I got it right. I about croaked when David Powers nixed packages. So again, I started over and because of his clear instruction finally got it right and perfect. He made what was a monster of a problem for me, very simple.

After working through Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8 I finally have hope that the day will come when I will get my arms around PHP and MySQL. Because of it I was able to go back to another book in my stack and at least know at what I was looking.

Thank you David Powers and Friends of Ed for writing and publishing a book for the clueless who really want to know! Because of this book I am able to give a new website client dynamic content that they can control themselves.

And thank you Mr. Powers for your patience.

I have been cured!!! I had so many stumbling blocks trying to understand how to get PHP, MySql, DW, Windows XP, IIS, and PhpMyAdmin to all work together. This book has helped remove the blockages by walking me through the necessary installation of these and getting me moving. I have now successfully entered the php MySql frontier and have also got a phpbb up and running and more.(*this is not mentioned in the book but because of what I learned in the book I was ready to tackle it.) I had hunted around for free stuff on the net and never got the right combo. I appreciate that David covers IIS in here too. Not everyone is using LAMP. My ISP/webhost uses IIS and they have ASP, ASP.Net and Coldfusion and Php. This gives me the most flexibilty for the stuff I am doing at this point.

This book teaches. There are step by step case studies that you can follow and check your results against the downloaded code. (although there are a few things that you must create on your own such as some of the tables that are not included so don't jump ahead in the book or you may have to back track.)

In one week with this book I have done things that I have wanted to do for almost one year and have only stumbled around and been intimidated and misdirected. Things are making sense now --the light is shining.
I highly recommend this book!!!!!!!!

Okay - so this is my first ever review for a book, and for good cause. Never have I felt the need to share my experiences with a book until I read Mr. Powers Foundation PHP for DreamWeaver 8. Prior to this book I bought PHP5 for dummies and Learning PHP by O'Reilly. Both were good intros, but were dry and did not really help me dive in, so to speak (Although I would recommend buying Oreillys book to get a more straight forward teaching of PHP).

I picked up this book and can say that by far is the best PHP book for a newbie to get in and start working RIGHT NOW and understanding PHP. For one thing, the author does an excellent job describing how to set up a testing environment, including installing and setting up MySQL - walking you through, almost step by step, while simultaneously making you understand what you are doing and why. I learn by actually doing, and I usually get deep into something and discover and ask questions as I go along, this book allows you to at least be able to ask the right questions while you are working.

I am re-building my Wordpress driven site, totally from scratch, with a CMS - and I will be using this book - nuff said.

The title of this book is seriously misleading! It implies a much narrower (and less valuable) focus than it really has.

If you're like me, you skim a list of titles to choose books that are worth a second look. For those few, you may skim the Table of Contents and maybe the Index.

This book has FAR more value than you'd expect from it's Title, and even it's TOC. Each Chapter heading implies a nugget of value, but then delivers an entire gold mine on it's particular topic.

If you want to start with a "virgin" WinXP machine, install Apache, MySQL and PHP from scratch, and then build a robust web application (not just pretty pages), by all means buy this book. Then read it thoroughly -- don't just skim it or poke around in it.

You can end up with a database-driven website, complete with user privilege management, session management, a blog, a photo gallery and RSS news feeds. You'll even know how it all works.

This book holds SO much more than just PHP and Dreamweaver!

If you are looking to understand php and how it relates to dreamweaver than this is your book! The author does a wonderful job of breaking down an extremely challenging subject into small obtainable portions. Chances are if you are looking at this book, you would like a no nonsense way to add a database to the backend of either an existing website or one your currently working on. You've found your manual. Also, one of the best things about this book is that it gives you quite a bit of options on implementing different technologies (i.e. installing apache vrs iis) David shares his views on which is better, but he allows you to ultimately make the decision.


Lastly, and most importantly!!!!!!!!

I ran into a problem installing one of the applications in this book (because my system settings fall on the outside of the 90% 10% rule) and I went to the friendsofed website. I posted my problem and within 1 day, David himself replied to my question to help solve the problem. Within two exhanges, he diagnosed and cured my problem. If that's not reason enough alone to buy this book, I don't know what is.


It's a must have.

I have read David's last book on dreamweavermx 2004 and PHP, thought it was ok, but nothing special. I ordered the new book dreamweaver 8 with PHP being a FoED book, and they usually have good books, I was pleasantly surprised of how great this book was, it was an easy read, the instructions for setting up your own test server were well documented and easy to follow, with the results.I would recomend this book to anyone that wants to get up to speed using dreamweaver 8 along with PHP.

I am blown away by the thoroughness and time taken on behalf of the authors to really get you involved with integrating PHP and Dreamweaver. I have been using Dreamweaver for over 4 years now, and have always wanted to get into building more dynamic sites. The Dynamic portion has always been extremely intimidating for me, and this book made learning the basics of PHP easier then anything else I know.
The author takes you step-by-step, even letting you know when you will have problems, and ways out of those problems. there is rarely a need for you to look elsewhere for help, this BOOK HAS IT ALL.

This is highly recommenced for the intermediate user of Dreamweaver, as they do assume you have a decent understanding of the design program.

I was able to follow the book and upload my 1st php driven site in under a week!

Great Book! and I will look to other titles by the same author/publisher

This is the best book I have read on building data driven websites. The examples actually work... imagine that. The case study is worth doing because all of it can be adapted to your own projects.
I've been struggling with ASP.net and the quirks of VS 2005 for months now and for what?! All I've gotten is headaches using those. I was able to accomplish in a day using Dreamweaver 8 and PHP, what has taken me weeks to do in ASP.net and VS 2005.
If you know your way around Dreamweaver, a little CSS, a little MySQL and have some even marginal experience with a programming language, then get this book. You will be building top notch data driven sites in no time.
I've even used what I learned in PHP for Dreamweaver 8 with Flash 8.

I found the book highly helpfull. I am at the point of takeing the full plunge into PHP & MySQL. It is quite helpfull to have a point from which to branch out. Most of my databse efferts (fully 80%) will be consumed with maintaining tables behind the scenes. I needed a way to get going quickly and appearance was much less important than function. I found the book well layed out and an easy read. Then when at the computer I found the book also an easy tutorial that I could instantly convert to my job at hand. I got several good hints pointing me to how functions can be done quick & dirty. The code Dreamweaver automatically creates gave me plenty of good examples. The book even showed me how to create my own server behaviours and modify the existing ones to fit my needs. I have even created some simple ones already.

I am a little over half-way through David Powers' Foundation for PHP Dreamweaver 8 and can unequivocally say that this is one of the best computer how-to books I have come across - and if you were to take one look at my overflowing bookshelves, you'd know I've come across many - in fact, when working on learning asp.net, I must've gone through 3-4 books, finding that the instructions were either not clear, or following them simply did not have the results described in the book. What a contrast with David Power's book! You can tell that he has clearly taken a lot of time and care to ensure that every last detail is tended to when explaining an exercise. In the computer world, failing to do even the smallest thing, like forgetting a period in the wrong place, can bring all your efforts to a screeching halt - David has gone to painstaking lengths to ensure that everything is clear - and better yet, the exercises he has put together make for a pedagicically very well thought out flow of learning, in which I can say that I quickly went from being a PHP/MySQL novice to being relativly comfortable with starting to build my own applications in Dreamweaver. And to really prove how much he cares, David spends a lot of time answering questions in the online forum that is part of the book publisher's site.

One piece of advice to readers (which pretty much holds true for any computer book): be sure to go to the book's web site and print out the corrections to some items in the book - some are related to changes to technology outside of the author's control like phpMyAdmin - it will save you a lot of headache.
Here is the link to the errata: http://www.friendsofed.com/errata.html?isbn=1590595696

Why I found this book outstanding:

* I have five books with instructions on installing the open-source tools needed. This is the first time anyone's installation instructions worked for me.
* He writes in plain English, with explanations that are simple, concise, but complete.
* He gives step-by-step instructions that cover each detail, and the instructions are correct.
* He provides the code and examples he uses in the book, and shows you how to install a free tool to compare your code with his, to see where you went wrong.
* He has an up-to-date errata page posted.
* He gives almost instant feedback to you on the friends of Ed forum, if you get stuck.

Some specific ways this book helped me...
I built a web application to track documents and document projects. Some of the things that this book got me unstuck on:

* How to (fearlessly) edit the Dreamweaver PHP code without breaking things.
* Gave me a simple system of providing professional- looking error messages when required fields are left blank by a user submitting. (I think the JavaScript ones look kinda cheesy.) Plus provided a nice sticky-field server behavior to create to go with it.
* How to check for identical records before installing a record.
* How to check for dependent records before deleting a record.
* How to automatically insert both date created and date updated time stamps into a record.
* How to make stripy rows with my auto-generated repeating table rows.
* How to use left-join to find orphaned records.
* In the database, how to split up one big table into related tables with foreign keys. Important for me, because I started with a giant Excel file exported as CSV, and then imported as a table into MySQL.
* How to convert, display, and store dates.

Being a person who didn't know the first thing about PHP and MySQL, I found this book extremely good. His description about how to setup PHP, Apache and MySQL on the PC so I could run these locally was terrific. His writing style is also very easy to follow and I progressed thru the material with ease.

At first I was going to rate this 4 stars because I felt he put too much emphasis on CSS and HTML programming issues in the first several chapters that was needed to just get the example web site up and running. I guess I would have prefered he stuck to the material at hand, namely PHP, and left this material for another book. However, even though I thought of these as negatives, the information was well described and I learned a lot from these early chapters, even though it had nothing to do with PHP. As this material was presented so well I decided to give a 5 star rating.

The fact too that you can go to his web site and get updated information concerning the book was invaluable. Case in point was regarding the installation of the phpMyAdmin program. The book's description at one point was way off base, but this is because the latest version of phpMyAdmin had changed since the book came out. Going to the author's web site quickly resolved the problem as he apparently keeps it very up to date.

Overall I would highly recommend this book.

This book combines everything you need to know about PHP, DW, Apache, and MySQL to get you configured, and up and running on the web. I have an extensive background in the industry, and am always searching for better books/resources. It's very rare to find one that contains everything you need to know that will effectively cover multiple environments, their interaction, and prove to be a great training resource. This book is the ticket to get you and your environment right where you want to be. The rest is up to you.

I am a frontpage user that has set up static pages in a web site. I needed to move from static pages to dynamic pages using a database. I couldn't use PHP with FrontPage so I switched to Dreamweaver and needed a book that covered both dynamic pages and Dreamwaver. This book walked me through setting up the environment to have Dreamweaver work with Apache, PHP, MySQL and phpMyAdmin. I am completely non-technical so these areas were beyond my comfort zone but the book walked me through it very successfully. It then took me through CSS styles, setting up an online feedback form, setting up my first database and tying it into Dreamweaver. It also showed how to insert, delete and maintain records in order to keep the database up to date. This was an excellent book for a non-techie as it didn't take any knowledge for granted.

After investing in books that were way too programmer-oriented, and books that assume that you only want to do one type of project, I was totally frustrated - and broke besides.
Then I found Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8. This is by far the best book on the subject that I could have even dreamed of! It guides you through the process of installing some Apache, MySQL, PHP package for your own development server all the way to making some sophisticated dynamic pages.The directions are clear, the projects replicable in your own environment... It's everything I wanted, but I wouldn't expect less from a Friends of Ed book!
David Powers, you're a gem!

This book is great. I am an experienced web 'designer' (i.e. I can draw sites, I can make the (x)html and make the css) but I'd never really had the balls to get into the development side of things.

This book was in PC World over xmas and I bought after reading the promising summary on the back. It truly does live upto it's own claims!

David, the author, talks you how to set everything up as you need it, but still manages to give you options for the setup so you really feel like you're controlling your own environment before you even look at a script. The chapters (or 'Solutions') are fairly self contained and after reading the first few I'd updated my own site with plenty of dynamic content with ease.

The later chapters that cover MySQL were what I was really wanting to get into and they didn't disappoint either, fantastic.

I'd recommend this to anyone as it can be used as a tutorial book or just as a reference to have on hand. I know it's only a beginner's book but it really is worth the 20 quid.

To top it off, the source files are absolutely brilliant AND David is a very active member of the FriendsOfEd forums so he'll kindly oblige any requests for help, usually within 24 hours.

Super!

When I buy a book support for that book in the way of a forum is essential. The Friends of Ed books have that and this is no let down. Mr.Powers will most likely answer your questions himself.

This book tells you at the beginning to download a file comparison software to compare your work to the example work. This is something every teaching book should have.

For those into learning PHP this is one of those books that you can't put down. I found that it was a book that begs to be read from the first two words - "Confession time." onwards.

For me it was pitched perfectly to my current skill set. I have a good knowledge of HTML and CSS and use a lot of Project VII templates but I have no knowledge of PHP. I first heard about the book via Al Sparber's forums and it meets the same high standards as all of his work does.

As I worked through configuring Apache and PHP on my own computer there were the inevitable slight differences from the book because of more recent software versions. Questions to the Friends of Ed forum provided answers within hours and sometimes minutes.

... and my wife says I can't find a book to hold my interest ...huh!

This book is written very clearly and is really easy to follow. I've learned a lot of other really useful stuff than just the PHP content, things that I now realise I should have been taught by the official Dreamweaver 8 book, but weren't. The PHP content for which I bought this book is fantastic - much better than another generic PHP/MySQL I have read, as this is tailored to the Dreamweaver 8 environment which takes a lot of the guessing out of the equation. This book is written by and for people who use Dreamweaver 8 in a practical situation. I'm still less than half way through my book and already feel like I've learned much more than I expected. Highly recommended. I'll be checking out Mr Powers' other books when I finish this one. Thanks David Powers, you're a genius!

This is a very good book for learning PHP, and surprisingly, most of the examples work right out of the book as he's written them, which seems rare for a programming book these days. The projects that he has you complete are highly relevant to what you'd actually be doing with PHP, and that makes it even better.

The only trouble I had with this book was that he sure packed a lot of information into each chapter, and he didn't use the sidebars as much as I would have hoped. It's easy enough to follow along with the examples the first time, but if you want to go back again and figure out how he programmed a small detail, you'll never find it unless you reread the whole chapter again. All it would have taken was a few little bullets here and there in the margins to point out some of the off-topic stuff that was going on in the examples, and the book would be much more functional as a reference. As it stands, I probably will have to get a whole new book for that purpose.

Also, the support on this book is phenomenal. I missed a small detail in Chapter 6 that caused my script to fail, and when I posted on the book's message board, I had a reply from the author in less than a day. That's a really cool added bonus.

As a real world computer geek. I've been using Dreamweaver for many years but I never used it's dynamic deveolpment features until after getting this book.

I found this book very helpful in not only learning how to use Dreamweaver's Dynamic PHP/MySQL programming features, but it takes you by the hand in setting up your Computer as a Web Server and installing all the services like Apache, PHP and MySQL to use with the Dreamweaver 8 program. The author has a gift for teaching.

I was about three quarters of the way through the book when I recieved a Web Development project that needed the very features that this book taught. I actually got more than my money back from this book before I finished reading it. I found it very user friendly when it came to working through the projects.

The only other thing I can say is that I will be keeping this book close where I can find it for future reference.

I was just looking to add forms to my website and I got a lot more than I barganed for. It was a complete refresher course for me. Definitely recommend for any skill level.

David Powers has a gift for teaching via the printed word. The books are good, so good that I tend to go look at the Friends of Ed books first and the Riley books second.

I'm not a programmer, a designer who has to program occasionally, so the friends of Ed books and particularly this one were invaluble to me. I need to learn fast and this was able to tool me up sufficently to do the job and enable me enough knowledge to go and learn more advanced php as well.

The other thing I like about the book is that when I was confused I logged into the Friends of Ed site and David wrote me back explaining my errors (I doubt that it ever gets any better than that).

This man makes a promise of a written format that can be followed. The writtng is NOT CLEAR and leaves much to the readers imagination of to what exactly the format should be. There is no CD so that you can see how the step by step process works. He names his files but does not show the real differences between how he is set up and how you can set up to fit your needs. I waisted my money. He claims in the book there is support which at best is terrible.

The worst book I have ever bought on coding. If I were you try another writter.

This is a good book. It teaches many useful techniques and how lots of "how to" ideas. However, the faux site that is created isn't goal oriented which left me feeling like the book was just a collection of random things to do. It seemed disorganized at times when you would or wouldn't create another page from scratch vs. revamping one you had already made. It was not always clear why you would be better to take one approach vs. the other. Setting up the localhost environment was somewhat confusing, though not too bad.

I will definitely use it frequently. Good information, good book, good deal.

After skimming the book, and reading several chapters, I cannot wait to sit down with Dreamweaver 8 and really put the clearly written book to use. I believe it and PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web Design Made Easy (Solutions) by David Powers will compliment each other.

Very well written. Easy to understand with clear instructions and good hands on training examples. This book is an excellent resource for beginners and intermediate level. The author makes a really good job explaining PHP concepts.

When I read the book, I couldn't believe how easy was using php and interacting with Dreamweaver. I have experience as web developer for long time, in all of my designs I like using Dreamweaver, but now, that I understand PHP, believe me, my new web page is amaizing.

Very well written and organized. I'm new to PHP and I found David's book easy to follow and extremely informative. Great resource for beginners and experts alike. Other authors of technical manuals would do well to look at how this book enhances the learning experience.

This author does a terrific job in presenting the information in this book. Everything works exactly as stated in the book. And David has a website to answer questions about the content of the book.

Actually, I am convinced it may be the best by far, but I might have missed one or two. Anyway, David Powers shows excellent ability to convey his vast experience in a concisive and easy to understand matter.

Typically authors get lost in the somewhat confusing options to install and debugg PHP and MySQL to make it work with Dreamweaver, but David manages to stay clear of those problems and walks the reader through the process with "ease". While in the process you get to learn many related tidbits that show differences with different versions of DW or even between Mac and PC.

This book also vastly improved over the previous publication for DW MX and PHP -- which David worked on with a group of developers. It appears that going on his own helped clarity and overall information flow a great deal. Even the previoulsy confusing and sometimes unprofessional layout of the first book got improved. Basically all my issues with the first book got resolved.

The price is good and given the above-average educational it's almost a steal. Fortunately it's written well enough for beginners and intermediate alike. Even professional might find some good information in this book though they're clearly not the target audience. I am not too fond about the front cover, as it doesn't convey the topic for me, but that personal preference and really my only negative point.

- Thomas