Cascading Style Sheets: Separating Content from Presentation, Second Edition

by friends of ED

$39.99
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Label:friends of ED
UPC:689253153109
Pages:400
Binding:Paperback
Publication Date:2004-04-01
Published By:friends of ED
ASIN:159059231X
Category:Book

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Editorial Reviews and Product Descriptions

Product Description

CSS is one of the trio of core client-side web professional skills: HTML for markup, JavaScript for dynamism, and CSS for style. All web professionals who want to take their page design to the next level, with all the advantages that CSS brings, will need this book. This book is a focused guide to using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for the visual design of web pages. It provides concise coverage of all the essential CSS concepts developers need to learn (such as separating content from presentation, block and inline elements, inheritance and cascade, the box model, typography, etc). It also covers the syntax needed to effectively use CSS with your markup document (for example CSS rules, how to structure a style sheet, linking style sheets to your (X)HTML documents, CSS boxes etc). CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a powerful technology that can be used to add style and structure to your web pages without needing to resort to "hacks" such as HTML table layouts and "spacer images". However, this is not the only advantage over other styling methods. You can specify your CSS styles in a separate file, then apply those styles to every page in your web site. When you want to change a style on your site, you can do it by modifying one style sheet, rather having to update every page. This is only one example of the many advantages CSS brings to your web development work. Summary of Contents:
  • 1 Foundation Concepts
  • 2 Overview of Presentation
  • 3 Markup with Meaning
  • 4 Fundamentals
  • 5 Rules
  • 6 Attaching CSS to Your Markup
  • 7 Typography
  • 8 Boxes, Boxes, Boxes
  • 9 Styling Tables with CSS
  • 10 Cross-Browser CSS
  • 11 Troubleshooting
  • 12 CSS Design Projects
Projects include:
  • Weblog - Dave Shea
  • Research Institute Site - John Simons
  • Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra - Mike Switzer
  • Photo Gallery - Dan Rubin
  • Image Viewer - Mike Pick
  • Real Estate Portal - Cornelia Lange

Customer Reviews

Preachy and unclear - Reviewed on 2007-10-31
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I had hoped to use this book as an introduction to using CSS and to help me update my online portfolio. While I did learn a good deal about CSS, this book was not nearly as easy to use as I had hoped.
First, a significant portion of the book is dedicated to a lengthy and repetitive sermon on why CSS is superior and should be used for all your presentation needs. It seems to avoid discussing the shortcomings of the system, or point out where you might need to resort to other solutions, such as JavaScript.
I am a person who learns by analyzing examples and learning to expand on the ideas in them. This, I think is where this book fails. The code samples in the book are incomplete and presented as fragments interspersed with explanation. The more advanced examples are so full of hacks to make presentation identical on all browsers, that they become unreadable. And the final straw was when I downloaded the dynamic-looking photo browser pictured in Chapter 12 and found that the dynamic functions simply don't work! (samples available at http://www.friendsofed.com/download.html?isbn=159059231X).
This is probably a good source for a designer already familiar with CSS. For a beginner, I recommend looking elsewhere.
Jam packed full of great information on css and layout - Reviewed on 2007-05-02
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Do you want to learn really how powerful CSS can be? This book takes you from the ground up and helps you to understand not only the how to use css for layout but also why you use css. Starting off with the basics you get a good feel for how to write css in both the page itself as well as in an external stylesheet. The authors also explain the advantages and disadvantages of each way to include the styles. Then the book takes you through typography, which unless you are already an expert, you will gain a great understanding of exactly how the type settings really work with the text on a web page. Next, it dives into how to use the css to control your page layout with many different known techniques. You also will understand how these designs work so you can review them and walk away with the knowledge of how to leverage existing patterns and modify them to your needs. If you want to know how to design a page using css definitely get this book.
Great book to start and devlope CSS - Reviewed on 2007-03-22
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I have seen this book as very good reference for css. I just would like to have CD also with samples. It is must buy.
autoparts web man - Reviewed on 2006-11-05
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1 customer found this review helpful.

This book does an excellent job of explaining CSS. My main focus is seperating content from presentation being my sites are search engine friendly.
Excellent - Reviewed on 2006-07-07
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5 customers found this review helpful.

Great for CSS beginers, I found everything here I needed to know to get started.
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