Useful Books and Software

The book is very upfront about the spotty early browser support for CSS1 and the sluggish adoption of CSS2. However, enthusiasm for the technology spills out of the pages, making a strong case for even the most skeptical reader to give CSS a whirl and count on its future. The text covers CSS1 in impressive depth--not only the syntactical conventions but also more general concepts such as specificity and inheritance. Frequent warnings and tips alert the reader to browser-compatibility pitfalls.

Entire chapters are devoted to topics like units and values, visual formatting and positioning, and the usual text, fonts, and colors. This attention to both detail and architecture helps readers build a well-rounded knowledge of CSS and equips readers for a future of real-world debugging. Cascading Style Sheets honestly explains the reasons for avoiding an in-depth discussion of the still immature CSS2, but covers the general changes over CSS1 in a brief chapter near the end of the book.

When successfully implemented, Cascading Style Sheets result in much more elegant HTML that separates form from function. This fine guide delivers on its promise as an indispensable tool for CSS coders. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• HTML with CSS
• Selectors and structure
• Units
• Text manipulation
• Colors and backgrounds
• Boxes and borders
• Visual formatting principles
• Positioning
• CSS2 preview
• CSS case studies

New Price: $11.59 / Used Price: $8.00

Proving once and for all that standards-compliant design does not equal dull design, this inspiring tome uses examples from the landmark CSS Zen Garden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites. By using the Zen Garden sites as examples of how CSS design techniques and approaches can be applied to specific Web challenges, authors Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag provide an eye-opening look at the range of design methods made possible by CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). By the time you've finished perusing the volume, you'll have a new understanding of the graphically rich, fully accessible sites that CSS design facilitates. In sections on design, layout, imagery, typography, effects, and themes, Dave and Molly take you through every phase of the design process--from striking a sensible balance between text and graphics to creating eye-popping special effects (no scripting required).

New Price: $24.98 / Used Price: $24.28

If you can't afford to let the Web get ahead of you, you can't afford not to have this guide. In this best-selling Visual QuickStart Guide, you'll find all the friendly, step-by-step instructions you need to start using DHTML and CSS to add visually sophisticated, interactive elements to your Web sites. Completely updated to cover the new browsers, standards, and DHTML and CSS features that define the Web today, the one thing that hasn't changed in this edition is its task-based visual approach to the topic.

Using loads of tips and screenshots, veteran author Jason Cranford Teague covers a lot of ground--from basic and advanced dynamic techniques to creating effects for newer browsers, migrating from tables to CSS, and creating new DHTML scripts. If you're new to DHTML and CSS, you'll find this a quick, easy introduction to scripting, and if you're a more experienced programmer, you'll be pleased to find practical, working examples throughout the book.

New Price: $5.95 / Used Price: $0.32

For the most part, however, this book addresses just those aspects of Web design that readers will need to know in order to successfully utilize the templates. These are designed as "mortised" sites; that is, they are built with nested tables and sliced GIF/JPEG combinations, the kind of design made easy with the advent of Adobe's ImageReady and Macromedia's Fireworks. Although this is not a how-to about using those applications or about creating such sites from scratch, Eccher does help readers learn how to debug and otherwise adjust the source code in order to successfully implement the designs. In addition to trial versions of the major applications, the CD-ROM also contains the JavaScript Cookbook and HTML/CSS Developer's Resource Guide, which provide lots of cut-and-paste source code for all kinds of features (games, sounds, pop-up messages) that can be added to a Web page.

One caveat: despite the templates, this book is too detailed for beginners. For those with some experience, and especially for developers who lack design skills and like the A5design style, this book amounts to an intensive Clint Eccher brain-picking seminar. He offers a few tricks that can be applied to any design (like his tips on how to drastically reduce file sizes) and some good general advice (for example, "Do not get attached to the work" because a client may just decide against it). --Angelynn Grant

Learning CSS technology and continually improving one’s design and developer skills is essential for every Web designer. Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates (CSS and XHTML), Third Edition educates beginning-to-intermediate Web designers on crucial design issues through general discussion, case studies, and helpful tips and techniques. Using easy-to-understand language and concepts, the book bridges the knowledge gap from XHTML table-based design to full CSS-based design, helping you master the most current technologies and techniques needed. With over 13 years of experience as a Web designer for Fortune 500 companies, non-profi ts, and small businesses alike, author Clint Eccher has learned numerous tips and techniques of the trade and discloses them here, saving you time and potential aggravation by alerting you to potential pitfalls. Best of all, he shares over 200 of the completely customizable design templates that he has developed over the years on this book’s companion CD-ROM! The designs included on the CD illustrate the book’s content and offer you a variety of options—XHTML table-based coded Web sites, e-newsletters, signatures, Photoshop-only designs, and CSS-coded designs. These designs not only offer the reader a variety of designs that can be quickly customized and used, but are great for inspiration as well. This is a complete Web design training course and free library of templates all in one!

Publisher: Charles River Media
Author: Clint Eccher
Release Date: 2008-04-02
ISBN/EAN: 1584505672 / 9781584505679

New Price: $26.81 / Used Price: $24.40

Particularly for developers, CSS allows more precise control of elements inside browsers, making it a lot easier to create Web clients that compete with traditional stand-alone applications. But support for CSS in today's browsers is spotty. The strength of this book is that it explains both the CSS1 and CSS2 standards, even though they are still under development. This text shows off what each property is supposed to accomplish with sample HTML and screenshots. The author is careful to note problems with CSS properties in today's browsers. For the CSS1 standard, every property is marked as being unsafe, safe, or partially implemented on no less than eight browsers (including Netscape 3 and 4.x, Internet Explorer 3 through 5, and Opera for Windows, UNIX, and Mac platforms).

The second part of the book is devoted to the CSS2 standard with a description of proposed support for Unicode, for formatting Web pages (with paged media properties), and for tagging content so that it can be read out loud by computer-generated voices. Although still under construction, the CSS1 and CSS2 standards will certainly offer a better Internet for us all. In the meantime, Core CSS: Cascading Style Sheets describes what's available in today's browsers. It's a solid reference that will make CSS understandable to anyone, regardless of their level of Web expertise. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), the CSS1 and CSS2 standards, the browser wars, CSS support on the Netscape, Internet Explorer, Opera and Mozilla browsers; basic CSS (grouping, inheritance, and contextual selectors), cascading order, CSS units, pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements, font properties, color and background properties, text and box properties, classification properties, new CSS2 features, Unicode support, generated content and automatic numbering for lists, properties for printing Web pages, new table properties, aural style sheets for speech-enabled browsers, CSS1 and CSS2 reference and cross-browser comparison of supported properties.

Core CSS, 2nd Edition is a comprehensive guide that shows both beginning and expert Web developers all they need to know to achieve great results with the latest style sheet properties. In this example-rich book, Schengili-Roberts provides in-depth coverage of the CSS1 and CSS2 standards, provides a "heads up" look at what to expect in the new CSS3 specification, and covers those CSS3 properties specific to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. It is the most complete and up-to-date CSS reference available.

CSS is fundamental to current Web design, allowing you to separate content from formatting, and to do Web page layout in ways simply not possible using regular HTML. Most books on CSS simply look at how you can accomplish certain formatting tricks, but this book delves deeper, looking at how each CSS property works, what CSS is capable of, and what to expect in the near future.

This book provides the most accessible and up-to-date listing available on CSS compatibility across browsers and operating systems so Webmasters can finally know which CSS properties are "safe" to use.

Detailed appendices provide full CSS property listings, compatibility charts, and more.

Publisher: Topeka Bindery
Author: Keith Schengili-Roberts
Release Date: 2003-09
ISBN/EAN: 0613922786 / 9780613922784

New Price: n.a. / Used Price: n.a.

The CSS Pocket Reference briefly introduces CSS and then lists all CSS1 properties, plus the CSS1 pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes. Since browser incompatibility is the biggest obstacle to CSS adoption, we've also included a comprehensive guide to how the browsers have implemented support for CSS1. For anyone who wants to correctly implement CSS, this is a handy condensed reference to all the details in the larger volume, Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is the W3C-approved method for enriching the visual presentation of web pages. CSS allows web pages to become more structural, and at the same time promises that they can have a more sophisticated look than ever before. With good implementations in Internet Explorer 5.0 and Opera 3.6, and 100% CSS1 support expected in Netscapes's Mozilla browser, signs are that CSS is rapidly becoming a useful, reliable, and powerful tool for web authors.

The CSS Pocket Reference briefly introduces CSS and then lists all CSS1 properties, plus the CSS1 pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes. Since browser incompatibility is the biggest obstacle to CSS adoption, we've also included a comprehensive guide to how the browsers have implemented support for CSS1. For anyone who wants to correctly implement CSS, this is a handy condensed reference to all the details in the larger volume, Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide.

Publisher: O'Reilly
Author: Eric A. Meyer
Release Date: 2001-05-16
ISBN/EAN: 0596001207 / 9780596001209

New Price: $3.49 / Used Price: $0.63

HTML Utopia covers all aspects of using Cascading Style Sheets in Web Development, and is a must-read for Web Developers designing new sites or upgrading existing ones to use CSS layouts.

This book includes one of the most comprehensive CSS2 references on the market. Jeffrey Zeldman, web design guru and co-founder of the Web Standards Project, says "After reading this book, you will not only understand how to use CSS to emulate old-school, table-driven web layouts, you will be creating websites that would be impossible to design using traditional methods".

The second edition of this popular book includes brand new coverage of Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 1.1, new CSS Solutions, and greatly expanded coverage of popular, cross-browser, CSS layout techniques.

Rachel Andrew and Dan Shafer's book is a comprehensive guide to learning and applying the principles of CSS to your Website.

This book will teach you how to

• Write faster loading, dramatically smaller pages
• Speed up site maintenance by separating the content from the layout
• Create flexible 3-column designs with ease
• Write device-independent CSS that will work on everything from a PC to an internet refridgerator
• Write search engine friendly pages that can actually be understood by search engines
• Design sites that are standards compliant
• Accomodate older Web Browsers
• And much more...

New Price: $21.54 / Used Price: $15.65

Add dynamic interactivity to your website with DHTML by combining the power of JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets(CSS), and the Document Object Model (DOM) to achieve bulletproof, accessible, standards-compliant, and aesthetically pleasing results that work on all browsers.

• Build fancy DHTML effects that can be instantly reused in any project
• Learn to code accessible JavaScript that won't trouble older browsers
• Make search engine friendly, multi-level, drop-down navigation menus
• Create usable forms that auto-complete, just like "Google Suggest"
• Build dynamic web applications using remote scripting techniques/Ajax

New Price: $7.04 / Used Price: $5.89

This full color book helps you to design web sites that not only work well across all browsers, are easy to maintain, and are highly accessible, but are also visually stunning.

• Create truly attention-grabbing headings.
• Discover multiple ways to present images effectively.
• Use background images to give your site zest.
• Build usable and attractive navigation.
• Design forms that are stylish and functional.
• Learn how to break away from the square box gclich.
• Create funky tables.
• And lots more

Jonathan Snook, Steve Smith, Jina Bolton, Cameron Adams, and David Johnson, five of the biggest names in CSS design have joined forces to bring you The Art & Science Of CSS.

Beautifully presented in full color, this book will teach you how to apply innovative CSS-based techniques to create visually stunning headings, forms, menus, navigation, backgrounds, and much more...

Using The Art & Science Of CSS, you'll see just how easy it is to unleash your creative talents and design inspirational web sites with CSS.

All designs in this book are visually appealing and inspiring. The CSS code used to create each of the components is included and guaranteed to be simple, efficient and cross-browser compatible.

• Format calendars, menus and table of contents using CSS
• Create horizontal, vertical and tab-based navigation systems using CSS
• Create rounded corners using CSS
• Design stylish Website headings
• Put together funky & artistic Website backgrounds
• Use CSS to render blockquotes, dates and lists in a visually appealing manner

This book is ideal for anyone who wants to gain the practical skills involved in using CSS to make attractive web sites, especially if you're not the type who likes to learn by memorizing a formal specification and then trying to work out which browsers implemented it completely (does anyone enjoy reading specifications?). The only knowledge you'll need to have is some familiarity with HTML. This book will give designers the skills they need to implement their ideas, and provides developers with creative inspiration through practical examples.

New Price: $21.17 / Used Price: $27.35

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) by Example allows you to learn the fundamentals of CSS by taking you through small, gradual steps. It provides examples using CSS in "real world" scenarios. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) by Example follows a logical, linear teaching style that will ultimately have you using CSS to utilize more control over the appearance and styling of Web pages.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) by Example allows you to learn the fundamentals of CSS by taking you through small, gradual steps. It provides examples using CSS in "real world" scenarios. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) by Example follows a logical, linear teaching style that will ultimately have you using CSS to utilize more control over the appearance and styling of Web pages.

Publisher: Que
Author: Steve Callihan
Release Date: 2001-11-17
ISBN/EAN: 0789726173 / 9780789726179

New Price: $12.00 / Used Price: $4.23