Reviews
Wired Style and Dreamweaver 3

 

Wired Style
Wired Style proves that even webheads can be cool

Ever think that writing for the web can be sexy? According to Wired magazine's latest style manual for the web it can.

Wired Style is a book for anyone who ever wondered if webmaster is two separate words. Its authors, Constance Hale and Jessie Scanlon have accelerated to diva status on the web and Wired Style is proof that the status is more than justified. Wired Style is the AP Stylebook for the web: it defines the style of the world wide web for the common writer and dares writers to be more than common.

Wired Style is a book unlike many others written for or about web-specific topics: it's a book that will not collect dust. It's a technical book that is actually interesting to read. Hale and Scanlon's style is anything but dry and boring: they encourage Web writers to be interesting and lead by example.

With an introduction on web writing style that reads more like an unorthodox pep-talk and an A to Z that is infinitely more interesting than Webster, Hale and Scanlon attempt to answer almost every question everyone has ever wondered about web writing or web related terms. Not only do they define terms, colloquialisms and acronyms, they also explain some of the related subcultures that created and use those terms.

The major complaint about Wired Style is that it needs more advice on writing for the web. That also happens to be the only complaint.

Think of Wired Style as a guide to the World Wide Web and all its jargon filled principalities. Hale and Scanlon not only define those obscure acronyms and terms, they also tell you how to use them.

From formatting to form, plurals and singulars, Wired Style is going the most useful book you can buy as a reference for the web. Priced at thirteen dollars, it's probably also one of the cheapest web reference books you'll find. Those two attributes make Wired Style one of the most attractive books on the shelf.

Dreamweaver 3
Macromedia ups the ante for WYSIWYG editors

Web designers cried out to the code gods "Why does coding have to be so slow? Why can't we see what we're doing with a WYSIWYIG editor that generates clean code? Why is the sky blue?" And the code gods answered with Macromedia's Dreamweaver 2 and also retorted that the sky was in fact not blue but #003399.

The cries of frustration were silenced for a while. Then the Web designers became discontent and began to yearn for a newer version. Again, the code gods answered. The code gods have sent another to answer cries of frustration: Macromedia's Dreamweaver 3.

Dreamweaver 3 not only takes care of all your WYSIWYG needs with drag and drop ease, but now it also has greater capabilities with the addition of a history palette, an HTML style palette, and a close knit integration with Fireworks 3, Macromedia's Web graphic editor.

Also, frames are made easier with Dreamweaver 3. This is a great improvement from the clumsy attempt at frame building in the previous version.

Another addition that many will find refreshing is the Design Notes option now available in Dreamweaver 3. Design Notes allows anyone working on a site to post reminders or style notes to be opened the next time anyone opens the document. This is especially useful in a group-oriented environment.

The new Quick Tag Editor option is another useful part of Dreamweaver 3. The Quick Tag Editor allows you to open a specific HTML tag and edit it to your heart's content. For example, select an image; go to the Quick tag editor and change the alignment attributes from centered to justified, making it much speedier than scanning yards of code for one little tag.

As of yet, Macromedia hasn't conquered the problem of pixel point accuracy. That and the complexity of layer editing are Dreamweaver 3's major downfalls.

If you doubt the powers of Dreamweaver 3, think about this: Adobe GoLive5 is still playing catch-up when it comes to capability and flexibility. They're trying to get what Macromedia already has. This says something about how powerful the newest version really is.

With open-source code possibilities for extending Dreamweaver's capabilities even further and more capability for JavaScript and Cascading Stylesheets, Dreamweaver 3 is worth a try. If you're not convinced to go out and spend your hard-earned cash yet, download the demo and take it for a test drive.