Title: HTML Publishing On The Internet Authors: Brent Heslop & Larry Budnick ISBN: 1-56604-277-1 Published By: Ventana Press (International Thomson Publishing) Price: #36.95 (pp. 534 includes CD-ROM)
The is aimed directly at pc users with the early part of the book setting the scene by providing a general discussion of the implications of the Web as far as advertising and publishing goes. Most of the important issues are covered so it makes useful, easy, reading for a newcomer! The book includes a CD-ROM that provides Windows software (both for v3.1 and Win NT/Win 95). It's suitable for most Web page creation requirements and as well as packages like the Netscape Navigator browser a cut down version of the HoTMetaL PRO rule-based HTML editor is provided (and used as the basis of all tutorials).
As far as HTML use itself goes much of the material provided is easily accessible to non-technical readers. There are good accounts of page linking and the use of forms, a reasonable graphics chapter, and sections on sound and video clip use. Towards the end it gets a little more technical with details of how CGI scripts are used at the server end to process collected form information and details of both CGI and perl scripting being provided. There's also some Window's CGI handler code material (written in Visual Basic).
Difficult to get over-enthusiastic about any new HTML offering that appears nowadays - it's all been said. What's more this book does have weak points in that various tags which more experienced 'Webbers' will be interested (Meta tags and so on) get litle or no mention. That said there's a lot of usable software provided on the accompanying CD-ROM so this offering would be particularly suitable for anyone wanting to take some first Web page creation steps before committing themselves to particular commercial packages.
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