Useful Books and Software
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Related CSS Books |
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Core CSS |
| 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.
Useful for both Web designers and developers, Core CSS: Cascading Style Sheets provides a definitive guide to style sheets, which provide a new level of flexibility for browser-based content. With a comprehensive reference to all CSS1 and CSS2 features and an excellent survey of which features work in eight of today's browsers, this book shows off the strengths of style sheets for the next generation of Web content. 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.
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Publisher:
Topeka Bindery
Author:
Keith Schengili-Roberts
Release Date: 2003-09
ISBN/EAN: 0613922786 / 9780613922784
New Price: n.a. /
Used Price: n.a. /
Collectible Price: n.a.
Buy
it Now!
Average Rating: 4.0
Number of
Reviews: 30 |
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| Good for in-depth material | Rating:  | This is not a quick read. This is not a book with templates that will help you make a site. This book can be useful for beginners, it just may seem daunting to some at first due to the sheer volume of information.
This is a book I tend to use as an occasional reference while I work. I especially like that at the end of each section, the author discusses what is or is not compatible with various browsers. Were I an instructor teaching a CSS class, this book would work well as a textbook. | | Total Votes: 0, Helpful Votes: 0, Date: 2007-01-13 | | | | I rather liked this book | Rating: | I've seen quite a few bad reviews on this book and wonder why. I am an experienced user of CSS. I bought this book because weeding through websites, message boards and tutorials have a limited usage. Tutorials are always very rudimentary, message boards are hit or miss for your particular problem and posting to them returns an answer a little too late when on a strict deadline, and web sites are too tailored to a particular problem.
This book gives a good overview of CSS and all of its contructs, from the first working model to new recommendations that haven't been adopted by a standards group. Its gives a summary on all properties and their adoption by differnt browser/OSs, and gives examples of proper application of the properties. It also explains some of the quirks and work-arounds with CSS which is a subject that could be a book in itself.
As a reference, I find it complete, but difficult to access information. It requires a bit of hunting because the index isn't thorough. I actually find it easier to use the TOC instead which is not a compliment.
If you are new to CSS, this book could serve you if you are a patient person. If you are a novice, this book would probably serve you better. If you are an expert, you may get a couple techniques out of this book, but if you're looking for a quick reference, this book will not serve you. It would possibly open your eyes to some techniques, especially with CSS2-3 and IE specific elements, although the execution of IE elements in this book are not streamlines. | | Total Votes: 2, Helpful Votes: 1, Date: 2005-11-04 | | | | Terribly disappointing | Rating:  | | Despite having a very good index, this book is not adequate even as a reference book, let alone instructing on the nuances of web-site development supported by CSS, due to its poor use of examples, skimpy descriptions of subjects, large typeface with wide-margins (leaving scant room for CONTENT), and inappropriate inclusion of a worthless color section. As an avid reader of the PH CORE series of books (Cay Horstmann's Java books being the shining jewels, IMHO), this book left me terribly disappointed. This book has sat on my shelves for years, and in the event that I need help with something relating to CSS, I will go online and look it up there, rather than suffer the frustration of trying to find something in this overly-sized book.To illustrate my rant, in many places the book references the fact that "colors have changed on the page," as you could clearly see WERE THE BOOK IN >>COLOR<<, yet the actual color section of the book contains a chart detailing compatibility of CSS properties in various browsers from IE 3.02 to Opera 3.6, which CLEARLY could be represented by a normal black-and-white chart with symbols denoting in which browsers a property is safe to be used. The color section of the book, which is very nice high-quality glossy stock, could be used more appropriately to illustrate how CSS can be used to control things such as, oh I don't know, maybe COLOR?!?!?!And clearly the overwhelming point of CSS is that the styles should be set up in a SEPARATE STYLE SHEET, not embedded into the HTML code, which Keith never illustrates anywhere. It would have been a real bonus if he had included two pages that had the same underlying HTML code, but were completely different looking based solely on the stylesheet used. Perhaps that would have been a good use for one of those pages in the glossy section - showing that you can have a "Halloween" version of a page, and a "Christmas" version of that same page, with no underlying code changes required.This book has made me change my philosophy regarding CORE books, from having no doubts that the content of the book will be worth the price, to being wary of purchasing another tome to be relegated exclusively to propping up the good books on the shelves of my library..... | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 2, Date: 2004-12-31 | | | | More Disappointing On Every Reread | Rating: | The book didn't really teach me anything, and it makes for a lousy reference. I do not recommend it to either new or experienced CSS designers. Far better free resources exist on the web.
There's little discussion of external stylesheets, and instead it focuses on inline CSS (which is useful, yes, but not as useful as it could be).
The reference material in the back of the book doesn't refer you to related items, doesn't provide examples, and doesn't refer you to the pages in the main text which describe the reference item in more detail.
Prentice Hall has artfully concealed the lack of content in this book by providing a "Browser Compatibility" section at the end of every sub-section of the book. This pads every subsection of the book by 2/3 of a page. To pick an example randomly, Chapter 4 runs from pp. 53-80 (27 pages). There are nine of these "Browser Compatibility" pads, taking up around 6 pages in the chapter. This suggests that the book should really be about 80% as long as it is -- or, god forbid, have another big chunk of missing content to fix some of the lacks above. | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 3, Date: 2004-11-17 | | | | Worthless to the core | Rating:  | If all of the information in this book was re-written to exclude all of the redundant and worthless muck, it could have easily fit onto 50 pages. As it is, the author managed to strech it into eight HUNDRED pages. Greenpeace should be all over this guy for the monumental waste of trees.
There *is* informative information, but you really have to dig to get to it. The entire text is truly an excersize in copy and pasting. The table of contents alone is over twenty pages. The index (which is really what we use) is only ten pages. A good example of the amazing bloat in this book are the pages on "padding". The primary properties are padding, padding-left, padding-right, padding-top, padding-bottom. Any sensible author would have given a comprehensive description of one of the properties, and then breifly stated the obvious difference between left and right. However, two pages are dedicated to each property. Each two-page description is virtually identical to each other, substituting "right" for "left" where appropriate, etc.
Since it's been on my shelf, I've gone to it occasionally for quick reference, and it's painfully difficult to find anything specific. Far better references can be found on the web for free. | | Total Votes: 10, Helpful Votes: 8, Date: 2004-09-02 | | | | Good for in-depth material | Rating: | This is not a quick read. This is not a book with templates that will help you make a site. This book can be useful for beginners, it just may seem daunting to some at first due to the sheer volume of information.
This is a book I tend to use as an occasional reference while I work. I especially like that at the end of each section, the author discusses what is or is not compatible with various browsers. Were I an instructor teaching a CSS class, this book would work well as a textbook. | | Total Votes: 0, Helpful Votes: 0, Date: 2007-01-13 | | | | I rather liked this book | Rating: | I've seen quite a few bad reviews on this book and wonder why. I am an experienced user of CSS. I bought this book because weeding through websites, message boards and tutorials have a limited usage. Tutorials are always very rudimentary, message boards are hit or miss for your particular problem and posting to them returns an answer a little too late when on a strict deadline, and web sites are too tailored to a particular problem.
This book gives a good overview of CSS and all of its contructs, from the first working model to new recommendations that haven't been adopted by a standards group. Its gives a summary on all properties and their adoption by differnt browser/OSs, and gives examples of proper application of the properties. It also explains some of the quirks and work-arounds with CSS which is a subject that could be a book in itself.
As a reference, I find it complete, but difficult to access information. It requires a bit of hunting because the index isn't thorough. I actually find it easier to use the TOC instead which is not a compliment.
If you are new to CSS, this book could serve you if you are a patient person. If you are a novice, this book would probably serve you better. If you are an expert, you may get a couple techniques out of this book, but if you're looking for a quick reference, this book will not serve you. It would possibly open your eyes to some techniques, especially with CSS2-3 and IE specific elements, although the execution of IE elements in this book are not streamlines. | | Total Votes: 2, Helpful Votes: 1, Date: 2005-11-04 | | | | Terribly disappointing | Rating: | | Despite having a very good index, this book is not adequate even as a reference book, let alone instructing on the nuances of web-site development supported by CSS, due to its poor use of examples, skimpy descriptions of subjects, large typeface with wide-margins (leaving scant room for CONTENT), and inappropriate inclusion of a worthless color section. As an avid reader of the PH CORE series of books (Cay Horstmann's Java books being the shining jewels, IMHO), this book left me terribly disappointed. This book has sat on my shelves for years, and in the event that I need help with something relating to CSS, I will go online and look it up there, rather than suffer the frustration of trying to find something in this overly-sized book.To illustrate my rant, in many places the book references the fact that "colors have changed on the page," as you could clearly see WERE THE BOOK IN >>COLOR<<, yet the actual color section of the book contains a chart detailing compatibility of CSS properties in various browsers from IE 3.02 to Opera 3.6, which CLEARLY could be represented by a normal black-and-white chart with symbols denoting in which browsers a property is safe to be used. The color section of the book, which is very nice high-quality glossy stock, could be used more appropriately to illustrate how CSS can be used to control things such as, oh I don't know, maybe COLOR?!?!?!And clearly the overwhelming point of CSS is that the styles should be set up in a SEPARATE STYLE SHEET, not embedded into the HTML code, which Keith never illustrates anywhere. It would have been a real bonus if he had included two pages that had the same underlying HTML code, but were completely different looking based solely on the stylesheet used. Perhaps that would have been a good use for one of those pages in the glossy section - showing that you can have a "Halloween" version of a page, and a "Christmas" version of that same page, with no underlying code changes required.This book has made me change my philosophy regarding CORE books, from having no doubts that the content of the book will be worth the price, to being wary of purchasing another tome to be relegated exclusively to propping up the good books on the shelves of my library..... | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 2, Date: 2004-12-31 | | | | More Disappointing On Every Reread | Rating: | The book didn't really teach me anything, and it makes for a lousy reference. I do not recommend it to either new or experienced CSS designers. Far better free resources exist on the web.
There's little discussion of external stylesheets, and instead it focuses on inline CSS (which is useful, yes, but not as useful as it could be).
The reference material in the back of the book doesn't refer you to related items, doesn't provide examples, and doesn't refer you to the pages in the main text which describe the reference item in more detail.
Prentice Hall has artfully concealed the lack of content in this book by providing a "Browser Compatibility" section at the end of every sub-section of the book. This pads every subsection of the book by 2/3 of a page. To pick an example randomly, Chapter 4 runs from pp. 53-80 (27 pages). There are nine of these "Browser Compatibility" pads, taking up around 6 pages in the chapter. This suggests that the book should really be about 80% as long as it is -- or, god forbid, have another big chunk of missing content to fix some of the lacks above. | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 3, Date: 2004-11-17 | | | | Worthless to the core | Rating: | If all of the information in this book was re-written to exclude all of the redundant and worthless muck, it could have easily fit onto 50 pages. As it is, the author managed to strech it into eight HUNDRED pages. Greenpeace should be all over this guy for the monumental waste of trees.
There *is* informative information, but you really have to dig to get to it. The entire text is truly an excersize in copy and pasting. The table of contents alone is over twenty pages. The index (which is really what we use) is only ten pages. A good example of the amazing bloat in this book are the pages on "padding". The primary properties are padding, padding-left, padding-right, padding-top, padding-bottom. Any sensible author would have given a comprehensive description of one of the properties, and then breifly stated the obvious difference between left and right. However, two pages are dedicated to each property. Each two-page description is virtually identical to each other, substituting "right" for "left" where appropriate, etc.
Since it's been on my shelf, I've gone to it occasionally for quick reference, and it's painfully difficult to find anything specific. Far better references can be found on the web for free. | | Total Votes: 10, Helpful Votes: 8, Date: 2004-09-02 | | | | Good for in-depth material | Rating: | This is not a quick read. This is not a book with templates that will help you make a site. This book can be useful for beginners, it just may seem daunting to some at first due to the sheer volume of information.
This is a book I tend to use as an occasional reference while I work. I especially like that at the end of each section, the author discusses what is or is not compatible with various browsers. Were I an instructor teaching a CSS class, this book would work well as a textbook. | | Total Votes: 0, Helpful Votes: 0, Date: 2007-01-13 | | | | I rather liked this book | Rating: | I've seen quite a few bad reviews on this book and wonder why. I am an experienced user of CSS. I bought this book because weeding through websites, message boards and tutorials have a limited usage. Tutorials are always very rudimentary, message boards are hit or miss for your particular problem and posting to them returns an answer a little too late when on a strict deadline, and web sites are too tailored to a particular problem.
This book gives a good overview of CSS and all of its contructs, from the first working model to new recommendations that haven't been adopted by a standards group. Its gives a summary on all properties and their adoption by differnt browser/OSs, and gives examples of proper application of the properties. It also explains some of the quirks and work-arounds with CSS which is a subject that could be a book in itself.
As a reference, I find it complete, but difficult to access information. It requires a bit of hunting because the index isn't thorough. I actually find it easier to use the TOC instead which is not a compliment.
If you are new to CSS, this book could serve you if you are a patient person. If you are a novice, this book would probably serve you better. If you are an expert, you may get a couple techniques out of this book, but if you're looking for a quick reference, this book will not serve you. It would possibly open your eyes to some techniques, especially with CSS2-3 and IE specific elements, although the execution of IE elements in this book are not streamlines. | | Total Votes: 2, Helpful Votes: 1, Date: 2005-11-04 | | | | Terribly disappointing | Rating: | | Despite having a very good index, this book is not adequate even as a reference book, let alone instructing on the nuances of web-site development supported by CSS, due to its poor use of examples, skimpy descriptions of subjects, large typeface with wide-margins (leaving scant room for CONTENT), and inappropriate inclusion of a worthless color section. As an avid reader of the PH CORE series of books (Cay Horstmann's Java books being the shining jewels, IMHO), this book left me terribly disappointed. This book has sat on my shelves for years, and in the event that I need help with something relating to CSS, I will go online and look it up there, rather than suffer the frustration of trying to find something in this overly-sized book.To illustrate my rant, in many places the book references the fact that "colors have changed on the page," as you could clearly see WERE THE BOOK IN >>COLOR<<, yet the actual color section of the book contains a chart detailing compatibility of CSS properties in various browsers from IE 3.02 to Opera 3.6, which CLEARLY could be represented by a normal black-and-white chart with symbols denoting in which browsers a property is safe to be used. The color section of the book, which is very nice high-quality glossy stock, could be used more appropriately to illustrate how CSS can be used to control things such as, oh I don't know, maybe COLOR?!?!?!And clearly the overwhelming point of CSS is that the styles should be set up in a SEPARATE STYLE SHEET, not embedded into the HTML code, which Keith never illustrates anywhere. It would have been a real bonus if he had included two pages that had the same underlying HTML code, but were completely different looking based solely on the stylesheet used. Perhaps that would have been a good use for one of those pages in the glossy section - showing that you can have a "Halloween" version of a page, and a "Christmas" version of that same page, with no underlying code changes required.This book has made me change my philosophy regarding CORE books, from having no doubts that the content of the book will be worth the price, to being wary of purchasing another tome to be relegated exclusively to propping up the good books on the shelves of my library..... | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 2, Date: 2004-12-31 | | | | More Disappointing On Every Reread | Rating: | The book didn't really teach me anything, and it makes for a lousy reference. I do not recommend it to either new or experienced CSS designers. Far better free resources exist on the web.
There's little discussion of external stylesheets, and instead it focuses on inline CSS (which is useful, yes, but not as useful as it could be).
The reference material in the back of the book doesn't refer you to related items, doesn't provide examples, and doesn't refer you to the pages in the main text which describe the reference item in more detail.
Prentice Hall has artfully concealed the lack of content in this book by providing a "Browser Compatibility" section at the end of every sub-section of the book. This pads every subsection of the book by 2/3 of a page. To pick an example randomly, Chapter 4 runs from pp. 53-80 (27 pages). There are nine of these "Browser Compatibility" pads, taking up around 6 pages in the chapter. This suggests that the book should really be about 80% as long as it is -- or, god forbid, have another big chunk of missing content to fix some of the lacks above. | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 3, Date: 2004-11-17 | | | | Worthless to the core | Rating: | If all of the information in this book was re-written to exclude all of the redundant and worthless muck, it could have easily fit onto 50 pages. As it is, the author managed to strech it into eight HUNDRED pages. Greenpeace should be all over this guy for the monumental waste of trees.
There *is* informative information, but you really have to dig to get to it. The entire text is truly an excersize in copy and pasting. The table of contents alone is over twenty pages. The index (which is really what we use) is only ten pages. A good example of the amazing bloat in this book are the pages on "padding". The primary properties are padding, padding-left, padding-right, padding-top, padding-bottom. Any sensible author would have given a comprehensive description of one of the properties, and then breifly stated the obvious difference between left and right. However, two pages are dedicated to each property. Each two-page description is virtually identical to each other, substituting "right" for "left" where appropriate, etc.
Since it's been on my shelf, I've gone to it occasionally for quick reference, and it's painfully difficult to find anything specific. Far better references can be found on the web for free. | | Total Votes: 10, Helpful Votes: 8, Date: 2004-09-02 | | | | Good for in-depth material | Rating: | This is not a quick read. This is not a book with templates that will help you make a site. This book can be useful for beginners, it just may seem daunting to some at first due to the sheer volume of information.
This is a book I tend to use as an occasional reference while I work. I especially like that at the end of each section, the author discusses what is or is not compatible with various browsers. Were I an instructor teaching a CSS class, this book would work well as a textbook. | | Total Votes: 0, Helpful Votes: 0, Date: 2007-01-13 | | | | I rather liked this book | Rating: | I've seen quite a few bad reviews on this book and wonder why. I am an experienced user of CSS. I bought this book because weeding through websites, message boards and tutorials have a limited usage. Tutorials are always very rudimentary, message boards are hit or miss for your particular problem and posting to them returns an answer a little too late when on a strict deadline, and web sites are too tailored to a particular problem.
This book gives a good overview of CSS and all of its contructs, from the first working model to new recommendations that haven't been adopted by a standards group. Its gives a summary on all properties and their adoption by differnt browser/OSs, and gives examples of proper application of the properties. It also explains some of the quirks and work-arounds with CSS which is a subject that could be a book in itself.
As a reference, I find it complete, but difficult to access information. It requires a bit of hunting because the index isn't thorough. I actually find it easier to use the TOC instead which is not a compliment.
If you are new to CSS, this book could serve you if you are a patient person. If you are a novice, this book would probably serve you better. If you are an expert, you may get a couple techniques out of this book, but if you're looking for a quick reference, this book will not serve you. It would possibly open your eyes to some techniques, especially with CSS2-3 and IE specific elements, although the execution of IE elements in this book are not streamlines. | | Total Votes: 2, Helpful Votes: 1, Date: 2005-11-04 | | | | Terribly disappointing | Rating: | | Despite having a very good index, this book is not adequate even as a reference book, let alone instructing on the nuances of web-site development supported by CSS, due to its poor use of examples, skimpy descriptions of subjects, large typeface with wide-margins (leaving scant room for CONTENT), and inappropriate inclusion of a worthless color section. As an avid reader of the PH CORE series of books (Cay Horstmann's Java books being the shining jewels, IMHO), this book left me terribly disappointed. This book has sat on my shelves for years, and in the event that I need help with something relating to CSS, I will go online and look it up there, rather than suffer the frustration of trying to find something in this overly-sized book.To illustrate my rant, in many places the book references the fact that "colors have changed on the page," as you could clearly see WERE THE BOOK IN >>COLOR<<, yet the actual color section of the book contains a chart detailing compatibility of CSS properties in various browsers from IE 3.02 to Opera 3.6, which CLEARLY could be represented by a normal black-and-white chart with symbols denoting in which browsers a property is safe to be used. The color section of the book, which is very nice high-quality glossy stock, could be used more appropriately to illustrate how CSS can be used to control things such as, oh I don't know, maybe COLOR?!?!?!And clearly the overwhelming point of CSS is that the styles should be set up in a SEPARATE STYLE SHEET, not embedded into the HTML code, which Keith never illustrates anywhere. It would have been a real bonus if he had included two pages that had the same underlying HTML code, but were completely different looking based solely on the stylesheet used. Perhaps that would have been a good use for one of those pages in the glossy section - showing that you can have a "Halloween" version of a page, and a "Christmas" version of that same page, with no underlying code changes required.This book has made me change my philosophy regarding CORE books, from having no doubts that the content of the book will be worth the price, to being wary of purchasing another tome to be relegated exclusively to propping up the good books on the shelves of my library..... | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 2, Date: 2004-12-31 | | | | More Disappointing On Every Reread | Rating: | The book didn't really teach me anything, and it makes for a lousy reference. I do not recommend it to either new or experienced CSS designers. Far better free resources exist on the web.
There's little discussion of external stylesheets, and instead it focuses on inline CSS (which is useful, yes, but not as useful as it could be).
The reference material in the back of the book doesn't refer you to related items, doesn't provide examples, and doesn't refer you to the pages in the main text which describe the reference item in more detail.
Prentice Hall has artfully concealed the lack of content in this book by providing a "Browser Compatibility" section at the end of every sub-section of the book. This pads every subsection of the book by 2/3 of a page. To pick an example randomly, Chapter 4 runs from pp. 53-80 (27 pages). There are nine of these "Browser Compatibility" pads, taking up around 6 pages in the chapter. This suggests that the book should really be about 80% as long as it is -- or, god forbid, have another big chunk of missing content to fix some of the lacks above. | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 3, Date: 2004-11-17 | | | | Worthless to the core | Rating: | If all of the information in this book was re-written to exclude all of the redundant and worthless muck, it could have easily fit onto 50 pages. As it is, the author managed to strech it into eight HUNDRED pages. Greenpeace should be all over this guy for the monumental waste of trees.
There *is* informative information, but you really have to dig to get to it. The entire text is truly an excersize in copy and pasting. The table of contents alone is over twenty pages. The index (which is really what we use) is only ten pages. A good example of the amazing bloat in this book are the pages on "padding". The primary properties are padding, padding-left, padding-right, padding-top, padding-bottom. Any sensible author would have given a comprehensive description of one of the properties, and then breifly stated the obvious difference between left and right. However, two pages are dedicated to each property. Each two-page description is virtually identical to each other, substituting "right" for "left" where appropriate, etc.
Since it's been on my shelf, I've gone to it occasionally for quick reference, and it's painfully difficult to find anything specific. Far better references can be found on the web for free. | | Total Votes: 10, Helpful Votes: 8, Date: 2004-09-02 | | | | Good for in-depth material | Rating: | This is not a quick read. This is not a book with templates that will help you make a site. This book can be useful for beginners, it just may seem daunting to some at first due to the sheer volume of information.
This is a book I tend to use as an occasional reference while I work. I especially like that at the end of each section, the author discusses what is or is not compatible with various browsers. Were I an instructor teaching a CSS class, this book would work well as a textbook. | | Total Votes: 0, Helpful Votes: 0, Date: 2007-01-13 | | | | I rather liked this book | Rating: | I've seen quite a few bad reviews on this book and wonder why. I am an experienced user of CSS. I bought this book because weeding through websites, message boards and tutorials have a limited usage. Tutorials are always very rudimentary, message boards are hit or miss for your particular problem and posting to them returns an answer a little too late when on a strict deadline, and web sites are too tailored to a particular problem.
This book gives a good overview of CSS and all of its contructs, from the first working model to new recommendations that haven't been adopted by a standards group. Its gives a summary on all properties and their adoption by differnt browser/OSs, and gives examples of proper application of the properties. It also explains some of the quirks and work-arounds with CSS which is a subject that could be a book in itself.
As a reference, I find it complete, but difficult to access information. It requires a bit of hunting because the index isn't thorough. I actually find it easier to use the TOC instead which is not a compliment.
If you are new to CSS, this book could serve you if you are a patient person. If you are a novice, this book would probably serve you better. If you are an expert, you may get a couple techniques out of this book, but if you're looking for a quick reference, this book will not serve you. It would possibly open your eyes to some techniques, especially with CSS2-3 and IE specific elements, although the execution of IE elements in this book are not streamlines. | | Total Votes: 2, Helpful Votes: 1, Date: 2005-11-04 | | | | Terribly disappointing | Rating: | | Despite having a very good index, this book is not adequate even as a reference book, let alone instructing on the nuances of web-site development supported by CSS, due to its poor use of examples, skimpy descriptions of subjects, large typeface with wide-margins (leaving scant room for CONTENT), and inappropriate inclusion of a worthless color section. As an avid reader of the PH CORE series of books (Cay Horstmann's Java books being the shining jewels, IMHO), this book left me terribly disappointed. This book has sat on my shelves for years, and in the event that I need help with something relating to CSS, I will go online and look it up there, rather than suffer the frustration of trying to find something in this overly-sized book.To illustrate my rant, in many places the book references the fact that "colors have changed on the page," as you could clearly see WERE THE BOOK IN >>COLOR<<, yet the actual color section of the book contains a chart detailing compatibility of CSS properties in various browsers from IE 3.02 to Opera 3.6, which CLEARLY could be represented by a normal black-and-white chart with symbols denoting in which browsers a property is safe to be used. The color section of the book, which is very nice high-quality glossy stock, could be used more appropriately to illustrate how CSS can be used to control things such as, oh I don't know, maybe COLOR?!?!?!And clearly the overwhelming point of CSS is that the styles should be set up in a SEPARATE STYLE SHEET, not embedded into the HTML code, which Keith never illustrates anywhere. It would have been a real bonus if he had included two pages that had the same underlying HTML code, but were completely different looking based solely on the stylesheet used. Perhaps that would have been a good use for one of those pages in the glossy section - showing that you can have a "Halloween" version of a page, and a "Christmas" version of that same page, with no underlying code changes required.This book has made me change my philosophy regarding CORE books, from having no doubts that the content of the book will be worth the price, to being wary of purchasing another tome to be relegated exclusively to propping up the good books on the shelves of my library..... | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 2, Date: 2004-12-31 | | | | More Disappointing On Every Reread | Rating: | The book didn't really teach me anything, and it makes for a lousy reference. I do not recommend it to either new or experienced CSS designers. Far better free resources exist on the web.
There's little discussion of external stylesheets, and instead it focuses on inline CSS (which is useful, yes, but not as useful as it could be).
The reference material in the back of the book doesn't refer you to related items, doesn't provide examples, and doesn't refer you to the pages in the main text which describe the reference item in more detail.
Prentice Hall has artfully concealed the lack of content in this book by providing a "Browser Compatibility" section at the end of every sub-section of the book. This pads every subsection of the book by 2/3 of a page. To pick an example randomly, Chapter 4 runs from pp. 53-80 (27 pages). There are nine of these "Browser Compatibility" pads, taking up around 6 pages in the chapter. This suggests that the book should really be about 80% as long as it is -- or, god forbid, have another big chunk of missing content to fix some of the lacks above. | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 3, Date: 2004-11-17 | | | | Worthless to the core | Rating: | If all of the information in this book was re-written to exclude all of the redundant and worthless muck, it could have easily fit onto 50 pages. As it is, the author managed to strech it into eight HUNDRED pages. Greenpeace should be all over this guy for the monumental waste of trees.
There *is* informative information, but you really have to dig to get to it. The entire text is truly an excersize in copy and pasting. The table of contents alone is over twenty pages. The index (which is really what we use) is only ten pages. A good example of the amazing bloat in this book are the pages on "padding". The primary properties are padding, padding-left, padding-right, padding-top, padding-bottom. Any sensible author would have given a comprehensive description of one of the properties, and then breifly stated the obvious difference between left and right. However, two pages are dedicated to each property. Each two-page description is virtually identical to each other, substituting "right" for "left" where appropriate, etc.
Since it's been on my shelf, I've gone to it occasionally for quick reference, and it's painfully difficult to find anything specific. Far better references can be found on the web for free. | | Total Votes: 10, Helpful Votes: 8, Date: 2004-09-02 | | | | Good for in-depth material | Rating: | This is not a quick read. This is not a book with templates that will help you make a site. This book can be useful for beginners, it just may seem daunting to some at first due to the sheer volume of information.
This is a book I tend to use as an occasional reference while I work. I especially like that at the end of each section, the author discusses what is or is not compatible with various browsers. Were I an instructor teaching a CSS class, this book would work well as a textbook. | | Total Votes: 0, Helpful Votes: 0, Date: 2007-01-13 | | | | I rather liked this book | Rating: | I've seen quite a few bad reviews on this book and wonder why. I am an experienced user of CSS. I bought this book because weeding through websites, message boards and tutorials have a limited usage. Tutorials are always very rudimentary, message boards are hit or miss for your particular problem and posting to them returns an answer a little too late when on a strict deadline, and web sites are too tailored to a particular problem.
This book gives a good overview of CSS and all of its contructs, from the first working model to new recommendations that haven't been adopted by a standards group. Its gives a summary on all properties and their adoption by differnt browser/OSs, and gives examples of proper application of the properties. It also explains some of the quirks and work-arounds with CSS which is a subject that could be a book in itself.
As a reference, I find it complete, but difficult to access information. It requires a bit of hunting because the index isn't thorough. I actually find it easier to use the TOC instead which is not a compliment.
If you are new to CSS, this book could serve you if you are a patient person. If you are a novice, this book would probably serve you better. If you are an expert, you may get a couple techniques out of this book, but if you're looking for a quick reference, this book will not serve you. It would possibly open your eyes to some techniques, especially with CSS2-3 and IE specific elements, although the execution of IE elements in this book are not streamlines. | | Total Votes: 2, Helpful Votes: 1, Date: 2005-11-04 | | | | Terribly disappointing | Rating: | | Despite having a very good index, this book is not adequate even as a reference book, let alone instructing on the nuances of web-site development supported by CSS, due to its poor use of examples, skimpy descriptions of subjects, large typeface with wide-margins (leaving scant room for CONTENT), and inappropriate inclusion of a worthless color section. As an avid reader of the PH CORE series of books (Cay Horstmann's Java books being the shining jewels, IMHO), this book left me terribly disappointed. This book has sat on my shelves for years, and in the event that I need help with something relating to CSS, I will go online and look it up there, rather than suffer the frustration of trying to find something in this overly-sized book.To illustrate my rant, in many places the book references the fact that "colors have changed on the page," as you could clearly see WERE THE BOOK IN >>COLOR<<, yet the actual color section of the book contains a chart detailing compatibility of CSS properties in various browsers from IE 3.02 to Opera 3.6, which CLEARLY could be represented by a normal black-and-white chart with symbols denoting in which browsers a property is safe to be used. The color section of the book, which is very nice high-quality glossy stock, could be used more appropriately to illustrate how CSS can be used to control things such as, oh I don't know, maybe COLOR?!?!?!And clearly the overwhelming point of CSS is that the styles should be set up in a SEPARATE STYLE SHEET, not embedded into the HTML code, which Keith never illustrates anywhere. It would have been a real bonus if he had included two pages that had the same underlying HTML code, but were completely different looking based solely on the stylesheet used. Perhaps that would have been a good use for one of those pages in the glossy section - showing that you can have a "Halloween" version of a page, and a "Christmas" version of that same page, with no underlying code changes required.This book has made me change my philosophy regarding CORE books, from having no doubts that the content of the book will be worth the price, to being wary of purchasing another tome to be relegated exclusively to propping up the good books on the shelves of my library..... | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 2, Date: 2004-12-31 | | | | More Disappointing On Every Reread | Rating: | The book didn't really teach me anything, and it makes for a lousy reference. I do not recommend it to either new or experienced CSS designers. Far better free resources exist on the web.
There's little discussion of external stylesheets, and instead it focuses on inline CSS (which is useful, yes, but not as useful as it could be).
The reference material in the back of the book doesn't refer you to related items, doesn't provide examples, and doesn't refer you to the pages in the main text which describe the reference item in more detail.
Prentice Hall has artfully concealed the lack of content in this book by providing a "Browser Compatibility" section at the end of every sub-section of the book. This pads every subsection of the book by 2/3 of a page. To pick an example randomly, Chapter 4 runs from pp. 53-80 (27 pages). There are nine of these "Browser Compatibility" pads, taking up around 6 pages in the chapter. This suggests that the book should really be about 80% as long as it is -- or, god forbid, have another big chunk of missing content to fix some of the lacks above. | | Total Votes: 4, Helpful Votes: 3, Date: 2004-11-17 | | | | Worthless to the core | Rating: | If all of the information in this book was re-written to exclude all of the redundant and worthless muck, it could have easily fit onto 50 pages. As it is, the author managed to strech it into eight HUNDRED pages. Greenpeace should be all over this guy for the monumental waste of trees.
There *is* informative information, but you really have to dig to get to it. The entire text is truly an excersize in copy and pasting. The table of contents alone is over twenty pages. The index (which is really what we use) is only ten pages. A good example of the amazing bloat in this book are the pages on "padding". The primary properties are padding, padding-left, padding-right, padding-top, padding-bottom. Any sensible author would have given a comprehensive description of one of the properties, and then breifly stated the obvious difference between left and right. However, two pages are dedicated to each property. Each two-page description is virtually identical to each other, substituting "right" for "left" where appropriate, etc.
Since it's been on my shelf, I've gone to it occasionally for quick reference, and it's painfully difficult to find anything specific. Far better references can be found on the web for free. | | Total Votes: 10, Helpful Votes: 8, Date: 2004-09-02 | | |
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