Real World Adobe GoLive

by Jeff Carlson & Glenn Fleishman
Peachpit press, Berkeley Press, CA
$44.99 (USA)
$67.50 (Canada)

Review by Gary Coyne

If you have ever done any web site creation, you are probably aware that a page that looks just fine in Internet Explorer 5 may look like a disaster in Netscape Navigator 4.7 and may not even show properly at all in Internet Explorer 3.5. We're talking "real world" here.

Likewise, when a software company's book says "Go to the frappis window and click on the zaphier the arrap will drop down." The frell it does.

When you have a program as full of riches as Adobe GoLive, you are bucking against a headwind because of problems like those just mentioned. We are talking about the real world here.

The problem with a program like Adobe GoLive is that there are so many features, cool attributes, and amazing things going on that you could spend an enormous amount of time trying to find them all let alone learn them well enough to make them all work for you. Fortunately Jeff Carlson and Glenn Fleishman have done just this so you can learn from them at your own time.

To belay the obvious, Real World Adobe GoLive 5 is a book to help you work with the wysiwyg-web site creation program Adobe GoLive. The book is divided into five sections: Basics, Pages, Sites, Advanced, and Appendixes (and Index). But don't get fooled. Just because you've used GoLive since it was GoLive Cyberstudio 2 doesn't mean you shouldn't (at least) skim through the basics section. The reason is really obvious; this isn't Golive Cyberstudio 2 anymore and there are lots of major and subtle changes in the program that you are probably not aware of. Likewise, if you are new to web design, it is not a bad idea to poke around in the Advanced section where such web techniques as rollover buttons and CSS (cascading style sheets) are discussed. These subjects are not really all that hard, and are commonly used in most web sites.

In RealWorld GoLive 4, there were 723 pages. In this version there is 960 pages, but who's counting? Either way they figure that "at least 1/3 of the book is new, 1/3 totally rewritten, and 1/3 updated." The book is written for both Windows and Macintosh and an appropriate amount of screen shots of both are presented throughout the book to satisfy either user. [The book inadvertently points out that while Adobe GoLive on Windows is a great program, on the Mac it is not only a great program, but way cool. There are many many features that Adobe GoLive takes advantage of on the Mac that just don't exist on the PC, like ColorSync, Internet Control Panel, File Mappings, Proxy Servers, Text Clippings, and of course AppleScript. So yes, while Macs may not have as many games or viruses to play with, we can do so much more with what we've got.]

Interspersed throughout the text of the book are "TIPS" (shown by solid black lines) elucidating extra information on how to perform a given technique; "NEW IN 5" (shown by solid grey lines) referring to features new to version 5 of AGL, and the venerable enclosed grey box on the page where commentary is done. Sometimes these grey boxes talk about such things as fonts that were designed to be read on screen (as opposed to fonts that were designed to be read on paper). Other times the grey box may talk about web experiments like the infamous "A Bad Idea Gone Even Badder" where an attempt was made to see if colored pixels strategically placed in a table, used instead of a real picture, would not only show up as good as a real picture but take less time to load. (No on both accounts.)

In Chapter 3 in the manual that comes with Adobe GoLive, they do have a picture of many of the little icons that are used in the program. They are introduced in a one-by-one fashion with complete explanation of what it does and how it's used. Unfortunately, they do not have it readily laid out so one can easily find any particular icon--you have to do lots of page turning. In Real World Adobe GoLive they have (ironically) Chapter 3 called Palettes and Parts. Here they have it one better, but also one missed opportunity. As the name of the Chapter implies, all of the Palettes are shown and explained. This is a very important chapter as Adobe GoLive (like many of Adobe's programs) tend to be very palette overloaded. For each of the palettes, they show the icon, its name, whether it's a head or body part and if it's a tag, what kind of tag it is in html (i.e., a layout text box is a <td> tag). What they missed out on was to have some page numbers to refer one to so one could go right to the page(s) needed for a complete explanation on how to use that icon. I can't completely blame them as I find this typically not done in most books. However, I find this book so good that I expect it to be perfect in this regard as well. (Come on Jeff and Glen, don't let me down on the next Real World GoLive 6. Eh?)

I regret I've not met the two co-authors of this book: Neil Robertson who did the primary work on JavaScript, Animation, Actions, and Dynamic Link chapters, and Agen Schmitz who was the primary writer on the GoLive Basics, Media, and Languages and Scripting. Regardless, there is no doubt that one of the biggest strengths of this book is Jeff and Glenn themselves. These are two guys that you can sit with and have a cup of coffee, beer, whatever and talk as if you've known them for years. The good news is that they write this way. They like people and they like Adobe GoLive and it shows. They lead you through the details of the program as if you are a friend. There are jokes, sarcasm, and light-hearted comments throughout a thoroughly complex subject or a simple explanation. There are many books on Adobe GoLive available right now and I can't say that this is the best one because I haven't seen them all yet. I can with all confidence say that this is one of the best books--get it and you will not be dissatisfied.

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