Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Teach Yourself CSS in 10 Minutes
Iain Laskey finds small isn't always beautiful
| Product | Teach Yourself CSS in 10 Minutes |
|---|---|
| Company | Sams |
| Web | www.samspublishing.com |
| Price | From £10.99 |
| We like | Bite sized lessons, covers the basics, troubleshooting section |
| We don't like | Very lightweight |
| Rating | 6/10 |
| Requirements |
You can't really ignore cascading style sheets (CSS) these days. Anyone still putting websites together without them is selling themselves and their readers short. So, time to jump on the bandwagon.
Sams have always been keen on their series of book which claim to teach you a subject in 24 hours, usually as 24 one hour lessons, which is a bit sneaky if you expect to buy a book today and be up to speed tomorrow. In this case, there are a number of short lessons which can be read in 10 minutes or less.
My first impression of this book was less than favourable. I found many of the explanations a little unclear and the brevity forced by the format left me with many questions at each step of the way. On the plus side, for a beginner, the book does give a good feel for what can be done with CSS at a simple level. It covers basic styling of text, creating navigation bars, designing attractive headers and other effects like boxes around text.
One of the biggest problems with CSS is showing how to split out the content from the styling. The CSS should handle all styling and layout chores with the HTML portion just holding the text itself and the references to the CSS styles used. This book has little of that and as a result I can't help but feel it will encourage bad habits in beginners. For instance, almost all the positioning examples are based around images such as a simple photo gallery. There is little if any comment on positioning and structuring the main text of a page.
What I did find good in such a compact guide was the inclusion of a troubleshooting section although it's really just a list of common typos, it's still a handy resource for beginners.
If you want a compact, cheap and cheerful book that will give you a feel for what CSS is all about then this is probably worth spending a tenner on. However, if you want something more akin to a reference or to learn the details of CSS then look elsewhere.
