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Html General

The CSS Anthology : 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks

Format: Paperback
Author: Rachel Andrew
ReleaseDate: 30 November, 2004
Publisher: SitePoint
Rating:

Clear and Concise; Excellent CSS Resource
I have primarily used it with HTML selectors. I have been dabbling with css for the last couple of years. Now, I want to make a complete transition to CSS. My issues with css are these: navigation aids, browser support, and positioning and layout. My goal is to design web sites without tables that will display properly in all browsers.

This books starts out with basic css. I quickly reviewed the first few chapters. The chapters I got the most from were Forms and User Interfaces, Browser and Device Support, and, my favorite, CSS Positioning and Layout.

This book is set up very nicely. There is a question (for example, "How do I create a fixed-width, centered, two-column layout?") followed by a solution and then a discussion. The code for the css and html files are presented in the discussion section. Better yet, all the files can be downloaded from sitepoint. com. And then the solution section discusses the code point by point. My method was to open the html file in my browser and also in notepad. I also opened the css in notepad. I deleted all the code that I wanted to learn (leaving the html tags and the content). I then recreated the web page by writing the css file and linking it to the html file and modifying the file. For me, this was a good way to learn.

For any web designer that is learning css, relying too much on html tables and wants to transition to css, this is a book you should have. .

This should be on your reference shelf

Issues such as browser support and accessibility should be important to designers and this book answers a lot of the issues. If you know CSS, but aren't expert yet, this book should be one of the first purchases you make. I'd strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to develop sites using CSS correctly.

For a pragmatic usage
The website (w3c) is not very clear, the syntax is all but easy to remember and - above all - browsers were designed by integrating their own view of CSS ; view that is sometimes far from the original w3c specs, we have to cope with w3c implementations (centering vertically you said?). Let's be objective, all the books following a "theorical" approach of CSS failed.

I spent a tremendous time on the net and in various books to find a solution to common problems, hardened by the differences between browsers.

This book always answered my questions ; sometimes it was not exactly the answer I was looking for, but among the 101 recipes, I always found something near enough to guide me towards a correct result.

Initially I was reluctant to purchase a developer book made of recipes. Nevertheless, I must admit this one fits the needs, it deserves all his 5 stars.