Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Beginning CSS Web Development from Novice to Professional
Iain Laskey examines a new book aimed at CSS developers of all skill levels
| Product | Beginning CSS Web Development from Novice to Professional |
|---|---|
| Company | Addison-Wesley |
| Web | www.apress.com |
| Price | £24.99 |
| We like | Easy to read, real expertise shines through |
| We don't like | Nothing |
| Rating | 10/10 |
| Requirements |
There's no doubt that anyone who isn't developing web sites using web standards isn't doing their job properly. Since its inception, the web has evolved at a rapid pace and various techniques have either flourished or died a well deserved death. In the last few years web design has started to show signs of maturity with the increased concentration on web standards and their importance from both accessibility and ease of updating as well as increased accuracy when rendering across different browsers.
One of the key technologies that has enabled this is CSS or Cascading Style Sheets. Good design should separate content from layout and a good web developer should ensure his HTML contains only content and semantic mark-up. The layout is left entirely to CSS.
Simon Collison has written Beginning CSS Web Development from Novice to Professional as a complete guide for anyone wanting to get up to speed with CSS. Whilst the title implies a target audience of beginners, people who already have a grasp of CSS will have much to gain from this title.
Unlike many CSS books, this one starts to emphasise good working practices very early on. The importance of the div element cannot be underestimated in CSS yet so many books barely mention it. Here it turns up on page 39 with clear explanations of how to use it and why you would want to use it.
Throughout the book the author provides nuggets that show he has real world experience and not just an academic view of the subject. For instance, the coverage of text and fonts discusses ClearType font smoothing and the affect it can have on the look of your pages. It also discusses which fonts are available on different platforms and how to design around their differences. The ordered list and its use as a menu creation tool is also welcome. After all, any designer is ultimately looking for a design that will work well across all browsers and degrade gracefully on less able ones or with screen readers.
We particular liked the chapter dedicated to forms and getting them to look more attractive. CSS has much to offer here as the chapter shows. The author presents various ways to style a form along with a final discussion on which ones he prefers and why.
A good chunk of the book is then devoted to using CSS for layout with fixed and liquid layouts all examined along with different numbers of columns and behaviours. This section contains a lot of stuff you can find on the web but here it is presented in a logical way that is far easier to follow through from one style to the next. By the end you should have a thorough grasp of all the techniques and <cough> hacks that you need to use to achieve some of the results. Hopefully with the arrival of IE7, some of these hacks will now be consigned to the dustbin.
The all too important usability and accessibility is handled sensibly and in some detail, as is a useful section on creating templates and how to use them productively. Finally the author provides an excellent section on tips, hacks and tricks. Ideally CSS shouldn't have to resort to such things but it is what it is and armed with this chapter, you should be ready for most things.
We thought this was a great book. The author should be congratulated for producing such a well written and useful title. The writing style is just the right style of humorous with very easy to follow descriptions that make reading it a real joy. This is easily the most lucid and comprehensive book on CSS that we have seen and would be a superb choice for beginners and a good one for anyone already experienced in CSS that wants to improve the way they use it. The author also seems to have a thing for tea and biscuits which can only be good.
