Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook

The Zen of CSS Design : Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter)

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

CSS Pocket Reference (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly))

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CSS Cookbook

Format: Paperback
Author: Christopher Schmitt
ReleaseDate: August, 2004
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Rating:

Helpful Resource on CSS
Perhaps, like you, I googled my way around online trying to find solutions to problems that I was encountering. I found this book to be helpful in learning some of the basics of CSS. I liked that this book had many of the solutions already written out in the book that I was having problems with. I have been familiar with HTML, but I was late in adding CSS to my websites. I know that there are large benefits with using CSS, and it makes your life eaiser, but I found learning CSS from scratch to be somewhat daunting. From the novice perspective I found this book to be exactly what I needed. There are larger books out there, but I really needed just the basics.

This isn't a large book, I found it to be concise, and helpful in understanding CSS. I haven't always found the largest book to be the most helpful. I liked that I could read this book, understand its explanations and then immediately impliment the code. If you are looking for the end all be all in books, this may not be the book you are looking for. If you are somewhat new to CSS, I think that this book will be helpful in understanding CSS. .

CSS Clearly Explained
I am not a specialist in web design, but did have a certification in HTML/XHTML before reading it, so I had some background. I highly recommend this book. Major topics are Web Typography, Page Elements, Links and Navigation, Lists, Forms, Tables, Page Layouts, Print-Friendly functions, Hacks/Workarounds and miscellaneous designing issues.

Each chapter is divided into subsections, and they are patterned as follows:

- Statement of the "Problem" (as the book puts it), or what it is that you want to do.
- "Solution": first gives the HTML (if relevant), and then the CSS for modifying the HTML to get what you want.
- "Discussion": explains in plain English what you just saw in the "Solution" section.
- "See also": suggests other resources.

Some of the examples require some knowledge of JavaScript, and in those cases I simply had to note that fact and move on. Most of what is illustrated in the book assumes only knowledge of HTML.

Good Reference for All Levels of CSS Developer
While I do not recommend it as a beginner's guide to CSS, I recommend it for the bookshelf of current CSS developers, or perhaps if you have a basic knowledge of CSS (maybe you use it control fonts and colors, and that's about it) and would like to implement even more of your design with CSS. I've recently had the pleasure of reading CSS Cookbook by Christopher Schmitt, published by O'Reilly (the people who put animal pictures on their tech books - seems silly, but now you know exactly who I mean, don't you?).

The book is meant to be a reference book, but I read it straight through for the purposes of a review. It's one of the thinner reference books you can buy - weighing in at a little over 250 pages - but it is packed; no long-winded opining, no lengthy sidebars, just a raw: problem - solution - explanation - see also format. This format makes it very easy to look up the specific CSS issue you need insight on and get it.

The book is divided into various categories of CSS, beginning with typography and other elements, moving along to links, lists, forms, tables, all the way up to a page layout section (if you've never used CSS to lay out an entire page, this section alone is worth the cost of the book), then addressing print CSS, browser hacks and workarounds, and then finishing with a brief section of raising various design possibilities that CSS makes possible.

Each section begins with beginner-level problems, such as how to justify text. The section then gets into mid-level problems, such as CSS rollovers and various uses of background images. Finally, each category will tackle big-boy problems, like how to make a CSS-based splash screen that converts to main content, creating variable-length folder tabbed menu items, and centering fixed-width items in a variable-width area. I feel like I have a fairly good grasp of CSS - I do almost all my pages in Strict XHTML and use CSS for my layout, formatting, the works, and I still learned plenty from this book. If nothing else, it will give you other ideas on how to solve common problems.

One unexpected value of this book were all the hacks and tricks. As many developers know that peruse various web development blogs, websites, and mailing lists - there are scads of CSS tips, tricks, hacks, and workarounds posted out there, but finding the one you need when you need it can be a challenge. This book contains all the main ones, dealing with Fahrner Image Replacement and its alternatives, CSS "Sliding Doors," various box-model hacks to deal with Internet Explorer, Netscape 4 hacks and reminders, etc. It's like someone took all the standard "fixes" for common CSS issues from all the blogs, websites, and mailing lists and put them in this book. For me, that was worth the price of admission.

I'm not always this laudatory about all tech books. In fact, I'm reading a CSS book right now that has loads of problems. The CSS Cookbook, however, is one I would recommend without reservation or a single "yeah, but. . . " to my colleagues in web development or students in the field.