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Tutorials for Dreamweaver, Flash MX & Photoshop
SACHIN SURYAWANSHI & SACHIN SHINDE
WE WOULD like to admit here that these tutorials will impress you on the first
look itself with their vibrant colours and lively animation. The intro animation,
which is there in all three tutorials, is small enough, which makes sure that
the learner will not lose the motivation to learn. Navigation animation takes
a while, so an automatic skipping of this animation on subsequent visits would
have saved users’ time. When the user selects any of the topics, the menu
animates and sits on the top right corner of the screen. Here, a rollover tool
tip would have been a great help because when users do a rollover on these tiny
icons one can’t make out which topic they are pointing to.
Topics covered in the tutorials are good enough to make users basic-to-medium-level
proficient in the subject, and are explained in easy-to-understand language.
Content at some places is a little disappointing due to copy errors and inconsistency
in text formatting. The demo of using applications with the help of the animated
mouse pointer is very impressive. This saves the time otherwise spent finding
out the appropriate location when the user is supposed to concentrate on the
current screen.
The sound is not of the best quality; as this tutorial is delivered on a CD,
better quality of sound was expected. Also, the exit button for any of the internal
screens is at the same place as it is on the navigation page to exit the course.
This is confusing and often makes you click on it more than once. Also, if you
look at the CD content, it is very hard to make out which is the launch file
for the course. On an operating system like XP, auto run will not always work,
so the user has to go to the CD-ROM drive and open the course manually. A well-structured
CD content using folders and only one launch file outside would have helped
the user to launch the course manually.
Overall, the tutorials are pretty well developed, and up to the point on the
subjects. Also, the examples and source files provided along with the course
are very helpful.
Overall rating: 7/10
 DreamWeaver
Pros
- Topics covered in this tutorial are good enough to make a user basic-to-medium-level
proficient in the subject.
- Good examples are provided, which enables the user to understand the concept
of Dreamweaver.
- Very nice templates have been used.
Cons
- It covers only the GUI tools; coding is not covered in depth.
- The sound used is not of the best quality.
- This CD is only for beginners, not for intermediate/advanced users.
Rating 8/10
 Photoshop
Pros
- Topics covered in this tutorial are good enough to make the user basic-to-medium-level
proficient in the subject, including layers and masking.
- Good examples are given with the help of mouse pointers for each and every
tool used on a day-to-day basis.
Cons
- It is difficult to differentiate between the introduction
and the launch file.
Rating 9/10
 Flash
MX
This is a good tutorial for beginners and designers. It is
user friendly and has plenty of examples of Web Clipart.
Pros
- Good examples of Web layouts, backgrounds, buttons, bullets, banners, Web
icons and hex value charts for selecting colours.
- Very user friendly, it has been designed to guide beginners in using Flash
MX.
- This tutorial gives the user guidelines on creating a Web site.
Cons
- The rationale for using such a tool is not specified. It is only touched
upon briefly.
- This is only for designers and not for hard-core programmers. It has action-scripting
but is covered only at a basic level for beginners.
Rating: 6.5/10
Price: Rs 499 per CD
Contact: Bindu Katira of Image Online
Phone: +91 22 2578 0444, +91 22 2579 5588.
Fax: +91 22 2579 3397
Website: http://www.tutorialsgalaxy.com
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