Never heard of video2brain? It’s an Austrian company that has been providing video training in German, French, and Spanish for the past decade. It started creating courses in English in 2009, and now has more than 500 hours of English-language instruction on Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, and many other aspects of digital media. The videos have been created by some of the top names in their fields, including Rufus Deuchler, Tom Green, Angie Taylor, Todd Kopriva—not to mention me. The company has also created a large number of videos for Peachpit, one of the best known names in computer technology publishing. So, it’s no fly-by-night company.

As a video2brain author, I’m able to offer a substantial discount on the already competitive prices for the new subscription service. There are three levels of subscription:

• Standard—$129 a year or $12.99 a month (normally $149/$14.99). This gives you unlimited access to all English courses streamed online.
• Gold—$179 a year or $17.99 a month (normally $199/$19.99). In addition to the courses, you also get access to all project files and PDF books.
• Platinum—$279 a year (normally $299). In addition to the the project files and PDF books, you can download the courses to view them offline.

Students and teachers can purchase the academic version of the standard subscription for $99 a year.

If you subscribe during the introductory period, video2brain says it will lock the subscription price for three years. And as the collection of courses grows, you’ll get immediate access to all new titles. It’s planned to add at least four new courses each month. So, if you’re looking to brush up your digital skills and keep abreast of the latest developments, you can do so for as little as 35 cents a day. Many of the courses have sample videos that you can view free of charge, so you can judge the quality for yourself before committing your hard-earned cash.

The invitation to review the rival book came from the marketing department of Packt, the company that published it. I sent a polite reply saying that I didn’t think it would be appropriate for me to review a book that had an almost identical title to mine. I thought that would be the end of it. However, I received an email from Packt saying they knew I had written a book with an identical title, and that’s why I would be the perfect person to write an honest review.

At first I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or horrified. It’s nice to think that I have such a great reputation for fairness that I would write a glowing review of a book that’s in direct competition with mine. Of course, there’s always the temptation to savage the book in public, but I would never want to do that to a fellow author. I know how much a bad review hurts. Since my book was published three months earlier (and was available even before that as Rough Cuts in the Safari Online Library), Packt can have no excuse for not knowing the title of its rival book was almost identical. I’ve no idea if the title was chosen as a deliberate spoiler, but asking me to review Packt’s book is rather like asking Coca Cola to endorse Pepsi’s latest offering.

I haven’t read the Packt book, which is written by David Karlins, an established and respected author. What I have read is David’s “Thoughts from the author” on Amazon.com. In it, he says you don’t need to know HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. In fact, you don’t even need to know what they are. That immediately tells me that our books take completely different approaches to the same subject. I think it’s a pity his new publisher has decided to muddy the waters with the confusing titles.

I firmly believe that to build a website, you need to have at least a basic understanding of the underlying technologies. Website development is becoming increasingly complex. Dreamweaver helps speed up development through dialog boxes, prepackaged widgets, and code hints; but if you rely solely on point-and-click or copy-and-paste techniques, you’ll remain severely limited in what you can achieve. My book is aimed at readers who aren’t afraid to dig into a bit of code. In fact, you’ll need to do so if you want to access features such as geolocation and web storage on mobile devices. I guide you through the code, explaining what it does so that you can adapt it to your own needs.

So, if you’re looking for a book on developing for mobile with Dreawmeaver CS5.5 with jQuery, HTML5, and CSS, make sure you choose the one that’s right for you. Don’t be confused by the titles. Oh, and as small bonus, my book is in full colour, even though it’s the same length and the same cover price ($39.99) as the one published by Packt.

Let me say it right out: Peter has done a splendid job. The book is extremely well researched, and he obviously knows what he’s talking about. Having said that, the book’s subtitle (A Developer’s Guide to the Future of Web Design) very much sets the tone. If you’re looking for a quick guide on how to create CSS3 eye candy with rounded corners and drop shadows, this is not the book for you. Although Peter covers the relevant properties (border-radius and box-shadow), he takes a much more serious approach through an in-depth exploration of each new property, together with warnings about anomalies in different browsers. Because CSS3 is still evolving and browser makers are bringing out new versions at a breathtaking pace, you might think that Peter’s book will rapidly go out of date. Undoubtedly, some parts of it will; but many of the CSS3 modules that Peter covers are unlikely to change. Color is already a W3C recommendation. Selectors is a proposed recommendation; and Media Queries, Backgrounds and Borders, and Multi-column Layout are all candidate recommendations.  As a result, The Book of CSS3 is a reference book that I’ll be keeping by my side for a considerable time to come.

Even the more experimental areas covered by the book are not really a problem, thanks to the decision by all mainstream browsers to adopt browser-specific prefixes (such as -moz for Firefox and -webkit for Safari and Chrome) until the specifications settle down. Unlike CSS2.1, you won’t need hacks to deal with quirky implementations in older browsers. Just use the browser-specific prefixes in combination with the standard properties. Older versions use the prefixed properties, and when the specification stabilizes, the most up-to-date version will use the standard ones (as long as you put the standard ones lower down in the cascade). Perhaps one exception is the Flexible Box (flexbox) Layout module. Just as the book was going to press, the W3C decided to completely rename the properties. Peter mentions this at the end of the chapter on flexbox layout, but the changes haven’t yet made it through to the browsers that support it (Firefox, Safari, and Chrome). However, they will presumably continue to support the old properties with the browser-specific prefixes. But until Internet Explorer supports flexbox (planned for IE 10), using this type of layout is of limited value anyway.

Although flexbox and other proposed layout systems don’t have much practical value at the moment, I found the chapters devoted to them among the most interesting in the book—mainly because they give me hope for the future. CSS layout has always been a minefield, but if browsers (and the W3C) continue the current rapid pace of development, the job of the web developer should become a lot easier. Or will it? One of the comments in the Q&A session after Peter’s talk was that CSS was becoming more like a programming language. And it was obvious from the questioner’s tone that the thought of handling more code was unwelcome. But if you’re involved in designing websites and want to understand the direction in which CSS is moving, Peter Gasston’s book is an excellent place to start.

If you planning to develop sites for multiple platforms, you’ll learn about CSS media queries and how to use the new features in Dreamweaver CS5.5, including setting up a site-wide media queries file. There’s a chapter on making sites available offline, and the download files contain a Dreamweaver extension that automatically builds a manifest file ready for editing. The chapters on jQuery Mobile contain extensive analysis of custom data attributes that control the look and functionality of a jQuery Mobile site.

Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis (@stefsull) had a sneak preview of the book. Her verdict: “David’s clarity and ability to explain complex subjects clearly makes this a book not to be missed.”

Things didn’t go quite to plan. I had lined up a series of quick demos to show off the way Dreamweaver handles media queries and the creation of rounded corners with the CSS3 border-radius property. Unfortunately, the connection to the projector switched the resolution on my laptop to something crazy like 640 x 480, making it impossible to see the full workspace and preventing me from accessing the document tabs to switch between the demo pages I had prepared. Since I had only a five-minute slot, I decided—perhaps foolishly—to soldier on rather than waste valuable time trying to find a resolution compatible with the projector.

What I did manage to demonstrate was Dreamweaver CS5.5′s support for web fonts, creating and adjusting CSS3 drop shadows visually, jQuery code hinting, and PhoneGap integration. While demonstrating the support for web fonts, I was able to show how you can work in the underlying code and view the result in Live view without needing to save the document or round-trip to a browser.

I got the feeling that the audience remained sceptical about Dreamweaver, but they listened to what I had to say. And with plenty of questions, my original five minutes extended beyond ten. Matt Lucht has given a good summary of what I had to say (together with comments about the main speakers). Matt makes the comment “I’m not sure what value it gave over say a browser plugin such as Firebug.” It’s a fair point. Dreamweaver is an IDE for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and other web-related languages, all of which are open standards. Therefore, there are plenty of authoring tools around—some free, others commercial.

What I think Dreamweaver has to offer is the way in which it brings the various web technologies together. I use Firebug and similar tools, such as the Web Inspector in Safari. They’re great, but you need to switch from your IDE and back to use them. Each time you switch is time wasted. Dreamweaver gives me most of the tools I need in a single workspace. Working recently with a jQuery Mobile project, I found Dreamweaver’s Live Code one of the most useful features. It lets you inspect the dynamically generated code inside the Document window, which is essential for dealing with pages generated through DOM manipulation. Yes, I can get the same information by right-clicking in Safari or Chrome and selecting Inspect Element, but it takes me longer to do so. Live Code also lets me inspect what’s happening in response to different events by highlighing all changes in a different colour.

Judging by comments from the audience and in conversation afterwards, there seem to be two main barriers to acceptance of Dreamweaver among professional web developers/designers. The main complaint is the price. I can’t do anything about that, although I have told Adobe on more than one occasion that I think the price differential—between what you pay in dollars in North America and what you pay in pounds or euros in Europe—is totally unjustifiable, particularly for a product that is delivered electronically. Adobe is not alone in charging a premium outside the USA, but it builds up resentment and damages sales. Still, buying software is a business expense. Business must be really bad if you can’t afford the tools for the job.

That brings me to the other main barrier—many web professionals don’t think Dreamweaver is the right tool for the job they’re doing. Maybe they’re right. Far be it from me to question how another person does his or her job. But several people in the audience admitted that they hadn’t used Dreamweaver for a long time. I have used it consistently since Dreamweaver 3 (about 11 years). The Dreamweaver of yesteryear is not the program it is today.

In 2001, the Web Standards Project (WaSP), led at the time by such people as Jeffrey Zeldman, formed a task force to pressure Macromedia (the original creators of Dreamweaver) to improve the standards compliance and accessibility of pages created with Dreamweaver. The initial result was the release of Dreamweaver MX 2004, which produced much cleaner code. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close. The main problem was Layout Mode, a WYSIWYG tool that produced the most horrendous table-based spaghetti code. Another problem was the use of “layers”—absolutely positioned elements with inline styles. With the help of others, I privately lobbied Macromedia and then Adobe to get rid of Layout Mode. Partial success was achieved with the release of Dreamweaver CS3 in 2007, when access to Layout Mode was deliberately hidden. Then, in 2008, Layout Mode was finally killed off in Dreamweaver CS4. Layers also disappeared. You can still create absolutely positioned elements, but they no longer have inline styles.

The WaSP Adobe Task Force was wound up in 2009, but Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis still acts as WaSP Industry Evangelist to Adobe. I know from my participation in private Adobe forums that she gives the Dreamweaver engineering team a tough time, pressuring them constantly to improve standards. Dreamweaver certainly hasn’t stood still. It has full code hinting support for HTML5 and for CSS3 modules that have reached a reasonable degree of stability. Its support for PHP and JavaScript code introspection has greatly improved its usefulness to developers.

As I see it, Dreamweaver’s main problem is one of perception. It gained a reputation (deservedly so) for producing bad code and for being a WYSIWYG tool. The WYSIWYG image is completely wrong. Most Dreamweaver users that I know work in Split view with the code on the left of the screen, and a visual representation of the page in Design view on the right. If you’re working in Design view, you can keep an eye on the code that’s being generated. But it gets better if you switch into Live view, which renders the page using the WebKit browser engine. You can continue working in the code, and your changes are immediately reflected in Live view by pressing F5 or clicking the refresh icon. What’s more, the Related Files toolbar gives you access to all linked files in Code view. So, I can work in an external JavaScript file while keeping the web page visible on the right of the screen.

If you haven’t used Dreamweaver for a long time, give it a try when CS5.5 is released in May. There will be a 30-day free trial. As long as you’re willing to explore its features, I think you might find there’s a lot to like. If it doesn’t match your needs, fine. But at least I hope you’ll get the chance to see that it’s not Dreamweaver that produces bad code. It’s bad designers/developers who do.

(Disclosure: I’m not an Adobe employee, but I am an Adobe Community Professional, a sort of unpaid evangelist for Dreamweaver. I write books about Dreamweaver and answer questions in the Dreamweaver Help pages. I also teach Dreamweaver and write books about PHP.)

The book guides you through the main new features in Dreamweaver CS5.5 with the help of three case studies. The first one centers on redesigning a website for display on desktops, tablets, and smartphones using HTML5, CSS3, and media queries. The second takes a cut-down version of the same site, and builds a dedicated mobile version using jQuery Mobile, a sophisticated JavaScript and CSS framework designed to work consistently in all major mobile platforms. The final case study uses Dreamweaver CS5.5′s PhoneGap integration to develop a simple app that stores information in a database, accesses a mobile phone’s GPS sensor, and displays a map.

More details later.

This is a major upgrade. Here’s what it contains:

• Full support for jQuery Mobile, including more than a dozen jQuery Mobile widgets.
• PhoneGap integration to create native apps for Android and iOS using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Code hinting for jQuery.
• New tools for creating CSS3 rounded corners and drop shadows.
• Support for web fonts.
• Full support for all CSS3 selectors.
• The ability to see what pages will look like at different screen resolutions without leaving the Document window.
• Support for FTPS.

The emphasis in this new version is firmly on  development for multiple screen resolutions and for mobile devices. The New Document dialog box contains starter pages for jQuery Mobile that enable you to build in minutes a simple web application that works consistently in all major mobile platforms. All you need to do is to replace the placeholder text with content of your own. Of course, to create more than just a boilerplate application, you need to do your own coding. But Dreamweaver CS5.5 has full code hinting for both jQuery core and jQuery Mobile, speeding up the development process.

The PhoneGap integration is particularly impressive. At the moment, Dreamweaver supports the development of native apps only for Android and iOS, but there are plans to expand this later to other mobile operating systems. Developing for iOS requires Mac OS X 10.6, but Android is supported on both the Windows and Mac versions of Dreamweaver. If don’t already have the Android SDK (software development kit) installed, Dreamweaver does it for you with just a single click. Having gone through the pain of the manual installation process on both Windows and Mac, I can honestly say that Dreamweaver’s automated installation is a real godsend. After developing your web app with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, Dreamweaver runs PhoneGap to build the native version and installs it into a simulator.

Smaller, but nonetheless important enhancements that I particularly like are the tools for creating image-less drop shadows and rounded corners with CSS3. Using them in combination with Live view lets you see the effect of your style definition immediately. No constant toing and froing between the style sheet and a browser. Dreamweaver also now has support for rgba() and hsla() colour formats, simplifying the addition of transparent effects to your web pages.

Is there anything not to like? Yes. Bringing out this new version only a year after CS5 and about eight months after the 11.0.3 updater means there are a few rough edges. For example, you need to be careful where your insertion point is when you add a jQuery Mobile widget. Normally, Dreamweaver recognizes if you’re inside a paragraph or other block element and either moves outside the element or splits it. However, with jQuery Mobile widgets, it just puts the new code wherever you happen to be. It’s more of a minor irritation than a major failing; but anyone who doesn’t understand the code that’s being created will end up with a complete mess.

Dreamweaver’s implementation of HTML5 also has some way to go. But then, so has HTML5 itself. There’s full code hinting for HTML5 elements and attributes, but there’s no easy way to insert HTML5 elements except through hand-coding in Code view.

In spite of the shortcomings, I’m really enjoying working with Dreamweaver CS5.5, and hate going back to earlier versions. I strongly recommend that you give it a try when it’s released. I think you’ll like it.

When CS4 was released 18 months ago, I described it as the “most significant release of Dreamweaver since Dreamweaver MX ”. To my mind, Dreamweaver CS5 just blows CS4 out of the water. Before I explain why, let me address the negatives. At least three groups of people are going to be disappointed by this new release:

• Early adopters of HTML5 and CSS3—support is close to zero.
• Developers of dynamic sites hoping for new server behaviors—there aren’t any.
• Former users of GoLive—Dreamweaver CS5 hasn’t incorporated any features from GL.

With the debate that has been raging over Apple’s decision to ban Flash from the iPad and iPhone in the name of HTML5 and “web standards”, many will be stunned to learn that the only concession to HTML5 in Dreamweaver CS5 is the option to use an HTML5 DOCTYPE. There’s also no support for CSS3. Has Adobe missed the boat on this? In publicity terms, maybe. In reality, I don’t think so.

HTML5 and CSS3 are still evolving. The current web standards are still HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, and CSS2.1. Moreover, Dreamweaver is extensible. Rick Curran has already created an extension for CSS3 code hints. You can also add HTML5 tags to Dreamweaver through the Tag Library. No doubt someone will come up with an extension for that, too. In my view, it would have been a mistake for Adobe to release a half-baked implementation of incomplete standards that are still not supported on all browsers in widespread use.

The other decision that’s likely to cause controversy is the lack of new server behaviors. In fact, some have been removed: CS5 has continued the process of weeding out support for less popular (at least among Dreamweaver users) server-side technologies. JSP and ASP.NET were dropped in CS4. Now, ASP JavaScript has gone, too, although ASP VBScript still survives. There are a few minor security improvements and bug fixes to the PHP server behaviors, but nothing new.

The basic design of the server behaviors is now eight years old, so many people had been asking for new, improved ones, particularly after the decision to drop Adobe Dreamweaver Developer Toolbox (ADDT) last year. Few people realized the significance of that move. This is only my personal opinion, but I think Adobe was sending a clear signal that it’s not in the business of creating server behaviors to automate the generation of server-side code. It’s leaving that market to extension developers like WebAssist, CartWeaver, DMXZone, and others.

So, what is it about Dreamweaver CS5 that I like so much? Lots!

One of the biggest improvements is that Live View now works like a browser. “What’s new about that?” you might think. The difference is that in CS5, the links work. Hold down Ctrl/Cmd while clicking a link, and the target page loads into the Dreamweaver Document window—even if it’s a live page on the internet (assuming, of course, that you’re connected). The Related Files toolbar gives you direct access to the code of all pages linked to the new page. If the target page is on a remote site, the code is read-only; but on a local site, you can edit the code, and press F5 to see the results in Live View. If you want to keep the changes, there’s a new option on the File menu to Save All Related Files.

If you’re still wondering why this is an improvement, just try it with a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla! As long as you have set up a testing server, you can now view a CMS in Live View. Not only that, Dreamweaver CS5 lets you interact directly with a database. You can test online forms in Live View, inserting database records, updating, and deleting them. Dreamweaver CS5 eliminates the need to make constant round trips to a browser for testing, because the browser is right there in the Document window.

Of course, you still need to test pages in a variety of browsers, but you can launch BrowserLab directly from Dreamweaver to test your pages in Adobe’s online service. Up to now, BrowserLab has been free, but it’s being turned into a paid-for service. Your purchase of Dreamweaver CS5 or one of the suites gives you continued free access to BrowserLab and InContext Editing for another year. [Update] Adobe announced today that development of InContext Editing is being terminated. You will be able to maintain existing sites, but the service will cease to exist as a standalone service in 2011. For more details, see the InContext Editing FAQ.

The related files feature now searches for dynamically related files, in addition to those directly linked to the current page. This gives users of WordPress and other CMSs access to the style sheets, which you can edit in Split view or through the CSS Styles panel, seeing the results immediately right inside Dreamweaver. You can even navigate to inside pages of a CMS to style them. And to make it easier to work with CSS, Live View has a CSS Inspect button that highlights block-level elements, padding, and margins in the same way as Firebug—all within the Document window. Another Firebug-like feature is the ability to disable a style rule temporarily by clicking next to the property name in the CSS Styles panel.

As a PHP developer, it’s the changes in Code view that really excite me. When you start typing a PHP script in Dreamweaver CS5, you’ll immediately notice a red marker in the line numbers column and an alert about a syntax error.

Complete the line without errors, and the marker and warning disappear. Dreamweaver constantly checks your syntax on the fly. It doesn’t tell you what the errors are, but it highlights all lines with errors, making the debugging process much quicker. PHP code hints have also been improved dramatically. There’s full support for all core functions, constants, and classes (as of PHP 5.2).

Code hinting is also much smarter. Instead of needing to search through code hints alphabetically, Dreamweaver CS5 searches for substrings. This is helpful when you can’t remember the exact name of function or class—just type the part of the name that you remember, and Dreamweaver includes it in the list. You can also work out your own shortcuts. For example, if you press Ctrl+spacebar and type gesi, the code hints take you straight to getimagesize() by recognizing the ge of “image” and the si of “size”. And in case you don’t know how a function or class works, the official manual page—complete with code examples—appears as a tooltip at the bottom of the selected code hint.

Incidentally, the smart nature of code hints also applies to style sheets. If, like me, you constantly pick widows instead of width, just type dt—it takes you straight to width.

For serious PHP developers, it gets even better. Dreamweaver CS5 is capable of code introspection, so it builds code hints on the fly for your own functions and classes, as well as for third-party libraries, such as the Zend Framework.

The definition files don’t even need to be directly attached to the page you’re working in. With Site-Specific Code Hints, you tell Dreamweaver where your library files are located, and it scans them for you automatically.

My feeling is that Adobe made the right decisions. HTML5 and CSS3 are not ready for prime time; and server behaviors can offer only a limited number of options if they’re to remain manageable. Site-Specific Code Hints and the improvements to Live View open up a vast new range of opportunities to the beginner and more experienced PHP developer alike. I liked Dreamweaver CS4 a lot, but CS5 is a huge improvement.

Of course, Adobe can’t stop there. CS6 will need to offer solid support for HTML5 and CSS3, but by that time the specification should have settled down and browsers should have caught up.

This second problem is finally becoming less acute, thanks to the release of Internet Explorer 8 in March this year. IE8 supports the whole of CSS2.1, and its accurate rendering of CSS puts it on a level with other standards-compliant browsers, such as Firefox, Safari, and Opera. Getting StartED with CSS was written after the release of IE8, so it’s bang up to date; and it concentrates on CSS as rendered by modern browsers, rather than getting bogged down in details of hacks to persuade older browsers to behave. However, since the bane of web designers’ lives, IE6, is likely to be around for some time to come, the book does offer advice on how to deal with the most common bugs in IE6.

Where I hope my book stands out from others is in the way it avoids throwing a whole load of theory at your before you can achieve anything practical with CSS. Instead of forcing you to wade through a detailed explanation of classes and other selectors before you start using CSS, I show you how to achieve practical results with the most basic selector of all, the type (or tag) selector, which redefines the default look of HTML tags. I don’t get into classes until Chapter 4 (of 12).

Another difference is the way I approach the box model, an understanding of which is essential to working with CSS. Instead of bamboozling you with a whole pile of theory, I devote a whole chapter to showing how margins are used to create space between elements and lay them out. The following chapter builds on this by discussing how to add backgrounds and borders. Finally, a third chapter brings the whole box model together by adding padding, width, and height into the mix. My aim is that by introducing each aspect of the box model gradually, you build up a better understanding of how it all fits together. By the of the twelfth chapter, you have studied all visual and print properties in CSS2.1, including some of the less well-known ones, such as generated content.

Perhaps my only disappointment with the book is that it’s printed in black and white. However, the plus side is that the publisher has given it a relatively inexpensive price tag, at least for a computer book. The cover price is $24.99, and many online sellers are offering it for a discount. Sadly, the price is more expensive outside the USA, but that always seems to be the case with books.

The book’s companion website contains a complete reference to all CSS2.1 visual and print properties, and selectors, together with lots of examples of the properties in action. I hope you’ll find the site useful even if you don’t buy the book. But, of course, I hope you will decide to buy.