CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions

Books Details :

Author : Andy Budd, Simon Collison, Cameron Moll
Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: friends of ED (February 13, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 1590596145
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches




Book Description
This book is your indispensable guide to cutting-edge CSS development--all you need to work your way up to CSS professional.

You'll learn how to:

Plan, organize, and maintain your stylesheets more effectively

Apply the secrets of liquid, elastic, and hybrid layouts

Create flickr™-style image maps, remote rollovers, and other advanced CSS features

Lay out forms using pure CSS

Recognize common browser bugs, and how to fix them

While CSS is a relatively simple technology to learn, it is a difficult one to master. When you first start developing sites using CSS, you will come across all kinds of infuriating browser bugs and inconsistencies. It sometimes feels like there are a million and one different techniques to master, spread across a bewildering array of websites. The range of possibilities seems endless and makes for a steep and daunting learning curve.

By bringing all of the latest tips, tricks, and techniques together in one handy reference, this book demystifies the secrets of CSS and makes the journey to CSS mastery as simple and painless as possible. While most books concentrate on basic skills, this one is different, assuming that you already know the basics and why you should be using CSS in your work, and concentrating mainly on advanced techniques.

It begins with a brief recap of CSS fundamentals such as the importance of meaningful markup, how to structure and maintain your code, and how the CSS layout model really works.

With the basics out of the way, each subsequent chapter details a particular aspect of CSS-based design. Through a series of easy-to-follow tutorials, you will learn practical CSS techniques you can immediately start using in your daily work. Browser inconsistencies are the thorn in most CSS developers' sides, so we have dedicated two whole chapters to CSS hacks, filters, and bug fixing, as well as looking at image replacement; professional link, form, and list styling; pure CSS layouts; and much more.

All of these techniques are then put into practice in two beautifully designed case studies, written by two of the world's best CSS designers, Simon Collison and Cameron Moll.

Summary of Contents:

Chapter 1: Setting the Foundations

Chapter 2: Visual Formatting Model Recap

Chapter 3: Background Images and Image Replacement

Chapter 4: Styling Links

Chapter 5: Styling Lists and Creating Nav Bars

Chapter 6: Styling Forms and Data Tables

Chapter 7: Layout

Chapter 8: Hacks and Filters

Chapter 9: Bugs and Bug Fixing

Case Study 1: More Than Doodles

Case Study 2: Tuscany Luxury Resorts


Spotlight Reviews :

Reviewer: Frank Stepanski (Philadelphia)
When I heard Andy Budd (http://www.clearleft.com/, http://www.andybudd.com/)was writing a CSS book I knew I had to get it. Andy is one of the top UK web designers for past years and anything he has to say you should listen. :)

This book is for anybody who has played around with CSS a little and wondered "what the h*ll can I do with this stuff?". CSS has been around for awhile now, but only recently has the most current browsers been able to support the cool stuff you can do with it. What cool stuff? You need to buy the book to find out, but I'll give you some highlights...

First off, the first chapter explains how to use document types, divs and spans, validation, basics of CSS (selectors, pseudo-classes, child and sibling selectors, attribute selectors, etc), how cascade and specifity works, and how to organize your style sheets. A great primer to the rest of the book.

The 2nd chapter focuses visual formatting with CSS with the Box Model, Positioning and Floating. This is an important topic because creating CSS layouts requires a good understanding of how these topics work (and work together) in creating "real-world layouts.

Chapter 3 talks about using background images and replacement in creating rounded corner effects, drop shadows (4 different kinds), and some cool image replacement for optimizing search engines and screen readers (accessibility).

Chapter 4 has some great examples on styling links to create efficient CSS buttons without the images or the JavaScript for the "roll-over" effect. Yes, CSS can create some cool buttons without you ever having to use Photoshop. :)

Chapter 5 continues with styling links but extends it in showing you how to create button nav bars (horizontal and vertical) and adds a few tricks with using some image placeholders and sections to create some nice looking professional navigation for your website.

Chapter 6 focuses on the right way to use tables: for displaying data (not layout for web sites - no more nested tables). With the use of the very popular border-collapse property and others, Andy shows some very eye-please table layouts.

Chapter 7 in my opinion is the meat-and-potatoes of the book. Its goes over some how to use CSS in creating some standardized layouts. The whole point of CSS is to separate your content and layout and this is the way to go. It is explained in a very easy to follow manner with plenty of screenshots to show you each step.

The rest of the book (Chapter 8 and Chapter 9) review the common and not-so-common CSS hacks that are used to overcome some browser deficiencies. I can't tell you how many website I had to search to find out about these, and its all here in these 2 chapters!.

The last part of the book has 2 Case Studies that show how a website created purely with CSS was created from beginning to end. A great finish to a great book.

Throw out all your other CSS books and just get this one.

Reviewer: D. Anderson (Seattle, WA United States)
Having taught myself CSS layout from what I could g00gle on the net I often found CSS-P more trouble than it was worth. CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions helped me understand things that weren't so obvious to me like specificity, browser incompatibilities and hacks, and how to debug a layout. I can honestly say this book has saved my designs from eternal cross browser debugging. It is a wonderful book for anyone who understands CSS but hasn't grasped it fully. The book also explains some of the limitations of CSS confirming that CSS is not the final solution for web design.

The only minor disappointment was when I finished the book and wished there was more. There are only two case studies at the end of the book, websites that Andy explains how to build, but they are fairly thorough examples. I feel like I am now ready to create more complex CSS based web designs.