| Overview
Web site design has grown up. Unlike the old days, when designers
cobbled together chunky HTML, bandwidth-hogging graphics, and a
prayer to make their sites look good, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
now lets your inner designer come out and play. But CSS isn't just
a tool to pretty up your site; it's a reliable method for handling
all kinds of presentation--from fonts and colors to page layout.
CSS: The Missing Manual clearly explains this powerful
design language and how you can use it to build sparklingly new Web
sites or refurbish old sites that are ready for an upgrade.
Like their counterparts in print page-layout programs, style
sheets allow designers to apply typographic styles, graphic
enhancements, and precise layout instructions to elements on a Web
page. Unfortunately, due to CSS's complexity and the many
challenges of building pages that work in all Web browsers, most
Web authors treat CSS as a kind of window-dressing to spruce up the
appearance of their sites. Integrating CSS with a site's underlying
HTML is hard work, and often frustratingly complicated. As a result
many of the most powerful features of CSS are left untapped. With
this book, beginners and Web-building veterans alike can learn how
to navigate the ins-and-outs of CSS and take complete control over
their Web pages' appearance.
Author David McFarland (the bestselling author of O'Reilly's
Dreamweaver: The Missing Manual) combines crystal-clear
explanations, real-world examples, a dash of humor, and dozens of
step-by-step tutorials to show you ways to design sites with CSS
that work consistently across browsers. You'll learn how to:
Create HTML that's simpler, uses less code, is search-engine
friendly, and works well with CSS
Style text by changing fonts, colors, font sizes, and adding
borders
Turn simple HTML links into complex and attractive navigation
bars-complete with CSS-only rollover effects that add interactivity
to your Web pages
Style images to create effective photo galleries and special
effects like CSS-based drop shadows
Make HTML forms look great without a lot of messy HTML
Overcome the most hair-pulling browser bugs so your Web pages
work consistently from browser to browser
Create complex layouts using CSS, including multi-column
designs that don't require using old techniques like HTML
tables
Style Web pages for printing
Unlike competing books, this Missing Manual doesn't assume that
everyone in the world only surfs the Web with Microsoft's Internet
Explorer; our book provides support for all major Web browsers and
is one of the first books to thoroughly document the newly expanded
CSS support in IE7, currently in beta release.
Want to learn how to turn humdrum Web sites into destinations
that will capture viewers and keep them longer? Pick up CSS: The
Missing Manual and learn the real magic of this tool.
Editorial Reviews| Book Description | Web site design has grown up. Unlike the old days, when designers cobbled together chunky HTML, bandwidth-hogging graphics, and a prayer to make their sites look good, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) now lets your inner designer come out and play. But CSS isn't just a tool to pretty up your site; it's a reliable method for handling all kinds of presentation--from fonts and colors to page layout. CSS: The Missing Manual clearly explains this powerful design language and how you can use it to build sparklingly new Web sites or refurbish old sites that are ready for an upgrade.
Like their counterparts in print page-layout programs, style sheets allow designers to apply typographic styles, graphic enhancements, and precise layout instructions to elements on a Web page. Unfortunately, due to CSS's complexity and the many challenges of building pages that work in all Web browsers, most Web authors treat CSS as a kind of window-dressing to spruce up the appearance of their sites. Integrating CSS with a site's underlying HTML is hard work, and often frustratingly complicated. As a result many of the most powerful features of CSS are left untapped. With this book, beginners and Web-building veterans alike can learn how to navigate the ins-and-outs of CSS and take complete control over their Web pages' appearance.
Author David McFarland (the bestselling author of O'Reilly's Dreamweaver: The Missing Manual) combines crystal-clear explanations, real-world examples, a dash of humor, and dozens of step-by-step tutorials to show you ways to design sites with CSS that work consistently across browsers. You'll learn how to:
- Create HTML that's simpler, uses less code, is search-engine friendly, and works well with CSS
- Style text by changing fonts, colors, font sizes, and adding borders
- Turn simple HTML links into complex and attractive navigation bars-complete with CSS-only rollover effects that add interactivity to your Web pages
- Style images to create effective photo galleries and special effects like CSS-based drop shadows
- Make HTML forms look great without a lot of messy HTML
- Overcome the most hair-pulling browser bugs so your Web pages work consistently from browser to browser
- Create complex layouts using CSS, including multi-column designs that don't require using old techniques like HTML tables
- Style Web pages for printing
Unlike competing books, this Missing Manual doesn't assume that everyone in the world only surfs the Web with Microsoft's Internet Explorer; our book provides support for all major Web browsers and is one of the first books to thoroughly document the newly expanded CSS support in IE7, currently in beta release.
Want to learn how to turn humdrum Web sites into destinations that will capture viewers and keep them longer? Pick up CSS: The Missing Manual and learn the real magic of this tool. |
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Reader Reviews From Amazon (Ranked by 'Helpfulness') | Average Customer Rating: |  | based on 38 reviews. |
| A great book with a great after sales service, 2007-09-29 | | Reviewer rating: |  |
| I came to this book having a very basic knowledge of website design, html and CSS. I had already designed and uploaded a site using tables for layout with some styling using CSS.
The limitations of table-based layouts and the advantages of CSS are so obvious that I decided that my next site would use CSS for layout as well as styling, so I bought CSS The Missing Manual.
This book has taken me to the next level in a painless and dare I say it.... almost enjoyable way.
Why is the book so good?
First, the obvious enthusiasm of the author is there on every page, explaining, guiding and showing the way all dosed with a generous helping of humour. It has all the things we expect from modern books; good content, well laid out, logical order, lots of web references and a great index but it has much more.
There are clever little extras that help you understand the whole process. For instance there is a great visual explanation of the relationship of the source code and the CSS layout i.e. what floats within what and how to place the important information first in the source code.
The modern use of CSS lists for navigation and CSS drop shadows are explained in a step-by-step way, with all the mystery removed.
The practical use of CSS i.e. how to organise your styles in a logical order and where to put the Internet explorer hacks are covered in detail.
And whilst I appreciate that this is a book review, I must mention that I contacted the author, via email, with a query about one of the layouts in the book. I received a friendly and encouraging response the same day with a full explanation.
And finally, this book contains the best word in the English language, that word is "snafu".
Great word, great book and a great after sales service.
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| | One of the Finest CSS Books on the Market, 2007-08-29 | | Reviewer rating: | |
| | This is, without a doubt, one of the finest books to refresh one's memory about CSS or for those who are new to the subject. I've been using CSS for several years; however, every single book I have read is boring and dry, too lengthy on explanation, or just bad writing. However, I found the style, organization, and layout for this book refreshing and -- more importantly -- memorable. The Mr. McFarland is engaging and personable, but not in such a way that it becomes distracting or annoying. I found myself retaining the information when it came to unfamiliar concepts and entertained when it happened to be one of the subjects I am well acquainted with. While I would not group this book into the realm of reference books -- it's not dry, nor as in depth -- I would definitely recommend this book to those who are like me and need a refresher course. On the flip side, I would also highly recommend this book to those who have no experience with CSS and are looking to learn AND retain what they read. |
| | CSS - The Missing Manual by David McFarland, 2007-08-17 | | Reviewer rating: | |
| | This is the second "Missing Manual" book by David McFarland that I bought. The first one was "Dreamweaver 8". Both books became valuable assets in my library. Descriptions are clean and easy to follow. Exellent tutorials. I would recommend it to anyone who needs a reference manuals for CSS and Dreamweaver. |
| | Best Book Ever For Learning CSS, 2007-08-04 | | Reviewer rating: | |
| This book is the best CSS book I have ever read. I have learned more in this book then the other 4 books I have on CSS. I like the way he walks you thru each lesson and has you key the code and then tells you in detail what that code is going to do. My favorite part is when he teaches how to get around all the browser defaults as well as the way to fix all the Internet Explorer bugs.
This book has tutorials for every chapter and there is a website that you get two versions of each tutorial. One for you to work on and one that is finished so you can see how it is suppose to look like.
If you want to learn CSS without struggling, this is the book. |
| | CSS: The Missing Manual, 2007-07-18 | | Reviewer rating: | |
| Creating websites using html can be very time consuming and somewhat limiting. Making editing changes over multiple pages is downright maddening. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is the answer.
CSS enables the webmaster to set standards such as selecting a particular font size and color for all headings, subheadings, or texts without having to rewrite the html each time. This system also allows editing changes that carry over from one page to another to be changed automatically with a single change. For those trying to manage websites with hundreds of pages, CSS is an obvious must have.
CSS can be undertaken in two ways: manually or in association with various website design programs. Webmasters can manually insert CSS into their existing html code. Doing so is pretty simple, especially for those used to writing their own html. Alternately, Dreamweaver 8 comes automatically equipped with CSS and is simply a matter of choosing formatting options.
Webmasters using either option will definitely find this book valuable. This text includes step by step instructions so that the reader can learn by doing. Actually working with the code is probably the best way to understand the capabilities and time saving abilities of CSS. Even those using the automatic CSS systems will benefit from this aspect while troubleshooting or just realizing the extents of what CSS can do. |
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Some information above was provided using data from Amazon.com. View at Amazon > |
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