Beginning CSS Web Development: From Novice to Professional

Finally, I have a book that I can recommend to someone as *The* first CSS book. The first indication to me that this was an excellent purchase was the fact that Simon started off this book with a strategy as to how *organize* your CSS! After all, it's a Given that throughout the years you will be spending as a web designer, that you will be continually adding to your collection/library of CSS code! So you've got that excellent foundation of Simon's seasoned experience in how to best structure your growing library of reusable and specific-purpose CSS. Also, some instant gratification, for me at least: Early in my reading, I was happy to come to the very clear distinction between How to use, When to use, the Id (the pound sign) and the Class (the period). It made me feel like a CSS Pro from the get-go. -How does that "em" thing really work? Read this book. -How do those tedious margin and padding properties work? Finally, no more trial and error with these CSS properties. YOu'll know how these work. -Ever wonder what are good Fonts to use, so that you can finally build that "ultimate template" CSS file which will serve as your starter CSS for every new project? Simon will let you know. (Verdana is one of them) I'll stop here and just mention that there's nothing to criticize here. And trust me, there's more complex subjects than just the above. I still even now pick up this book, because I have the convenient "CSS Reference" section marked with a label. Since the book is relatively small compared ot the large CSS books out there, it's easy to physically pick up and utilize this CSS Reference. I also have CSS Mastery which was co-authored by Simon. I'd recommend that highly too when you get around to it. ( I wish this book were available 4 years ago, when I thought I was smart enough to dig right into one of the professional CSS books, just because I knew programming languages such as c and python )

This book is ideally suited for those who are still using table based layouts. If you are familiar with tables and want a smooth transition to table free layouts, that are easy to manage, this book is a must have. Coming from a background of using table layouts and a bit of CSS, mostly for fonts, I found that the writing style of the author was very clear. In particular, I like that the author writes a code snippet, explains it, demonstrates it, then as he progresses, repeats the process pulling all the snippets together to render the final / polished results. I only had to refer back to a previous chapter just a few times, when tackling a new topic. In reality, it took about 4-5 days to complete the book -- that is reading the book in its entirety, something as a programmer, I rarely do, skipping about finding only what applies to me. You will need to read the entire book to get a full understanding of CSS because each section throughout the chapters builds upon each other. The book does discuss when it is acceptable to use tables in VERY rare situations; mainly when working with tabular data. The only section I had difficulty with was the different types of positioning, static, fixed, absolute and relative. I had to do a re-read several times, with patience, but I got a grasp on it -- a topic that is completely confusing to covey for any author. I would also recommend that if you decide to purchase this book, go ahead and buy Pro CSS Techniques, as you will need it for more advanced issues, such as dealing with browser quirks, hacks and filters. Buying them together will save you some time. In addition, the Pro CSS Techniques books flows much better with the Beginning CSS Web Development than the CSS Mastery (Advanced Web Standards Solutions) Book. In conclusion, if you are serious about learning CSS fast, have a little HTML under your belt, and can spare 4-5 days going through the book, you can't go wrong. I highly recommend this book. You can also download the full source from the author's site; in addition, you can download the entire book in electronic format for $10 (limited time) once you purchase the physical book. On a side note, I did not find any errors in the book -- it was well edited. Again, highly recommended. Great work Simon!

With so many CSS book out there today its refreshing to see one that takes it a little differently. Simon Collison [...] is a very well known and accomplished web developer (co-authored CSS Mastery with Andy Budd) has wrote an excellent CSS book that focuses on how to use CSS effectively in a way that most books fall short. I have bought over the years at least 6 or 7 CSS books from beginner to advanced (actually most are intermediate at best) and none have I found really shows you the power and simplicity using CSS make your web designs. The first part of the book gives the reader a great foundation on topics like: types of style sheets; print style vs. screen style; importing and combining styles; keeping styles modular; IDs vs. Classes; how CSS cascading really works; the power of inheritance, pixels vs. em's; box model; fonts; color and images. As you look through most of these topics (in chapter 1 thru 5), you'll say to yourself..."we'll I know most of those, no big deal". That may be true, but I knew most of these topics too, but I never found all of these in the same book before. Next, the middle of the book covers a very useful use of CSS styling with lists. With all the emphasis on web standards with difference technologies (especially JavaScript), this simple html tag ul and li has been the foundation for many re-deigns for creating accessible, standard and semantic markup. Simon goes through in great detail the use of lists for navigation and shows many examples that are great reference as you design (or re-design) your own web site(s). Other chapters focus on using CSS with tables and forms with some very helpful suggestions and examples that I have already used in my current sites I have created. The best part (in my opinion) and most `advanced' section is the latter part of the book (chapter 10 thru 13) which is how CSS is used for page layout. I could've saved some money if this book came out a year or two earlier with all of its many great detailed examples of CSS layouts. Simon first talks about using floats and absolute positioning for layout which I kind of knew already but he covered points I didn't quite grasp yet and later he went into discussing how CSS is used for the basic types of layouts that are currently on the web: fixed, liquid, elastic, and variable fixed width as well as variations of each. This chapter alone (chapter 11) is worth the price of the book because no other book I have looked at or bought has covered this. The next chapter is just as good which covers using your layouts and cutting them up into templates. This is great if you create medium to large sites or create many sites with only slight variations of each. A great "real-world" topic that I have also never seen in any other CSS book. And to top it off, the last few chapters (14-16) goes into usability and accessibility, tips and tricks (IE6 hacks, IE7 differences, IE Mac issues, etc.) and a case study. So if you're new to CSS all you need

"Beginning CSS Web Development: From Novice to Professional" by Simon Collison is the perfect book for newcomers to CSS and for those slightly more-experienced CSS designers who need a soup-to-nuts review. The book is very well organized, easy to read, easy to digest, and well edited. The progression of chapters is logical, as the book flows from CSS mechanics to layout and design concepts. Topics are covered completely yet succinctly; at just over 400 pages, this is not a typical, bloated computer book. Coverage is complete, however, and nothing seems to be left out. There's a very useful, 15-page CSS reference guide in the appendix, and URL's for many third-party articles and examples are provided throughout the text. Collison's writing style is relaxed, clear, and appropriately humorous. He even tells you (often -- he's English!) when's a good time to grab a cup of tea. He presents complex topics very clearly, using progressively built-up examples to keep thing clear. Learning CSS from a designer like Collison is so much better than learning it from a programmer, because the designer will teach you why, when and how to apply certain styles, while the programmer will only teach you how; Collison accomplishes the former with aplomb. The case study in the final chapter is really excellent. Despite the very professional appearance of the sample site, every technique used to create it is indeed covered in the preceding chapters. (If you want to get an idea for how much the book will teach you before you buy it, skim through the last chapter or download the accompanying files from the publisher's website. It's impressive.) I have only two negative criticisms -- and these are minor. The downloadable files found on the publisher's website are poorly organized, with all the code snippets for the entire book stuck into a single, long text file and with the sample images stored in a separate directory hierarchy from the sample HTML files. Most of the screenshots in the book are shown with browser decorations (title bar, tool bar, etc.), which when added up waste a lot of space that could have been used to include a couple of advanced topics or to decrease the book's cost. But as I said, these are minor criticisms that are far outweighed by the stellar quality of the book -- and the problem with the downloadable files is something that could possibly still be corrected by the author. In summary, I highly recommend this book, particularly for CSS beginners or novices, but also for CSS-savvy coders who need to re-learn CSS from a design-oriented perspective, as well as for slightly more-advanced designers who need a broad, quick review. I've sampled at least a half dozen CSS books recently, and "Beginning CSS Web Development" is FAR AND AWAY the best.

Beginning CSS Web Development by Simon Collison is the perfect beginners guide to CSS. As the subtitle says, the book is about taking you from novice to professional by the time you are finished. This book is laid out very well, and moves at a perfect pace. Now, for those who are advanced CSS developers - this book is still a great book to have as reference to different aspects or topics. I agree with Simon, in that I wish I would have had a book like this when I started using CSS a few years ago. It would have saved many headaches and late nights of figuring things out the hard way. Here are some of my thoughts after reading the book: The book's pace was perfect. Simon did a great job of breaking this book into two major sections. The first section is comprised of understanding CSS. It starts with a very brief discussion of CSS and some core concepts. He doesn't dwell on this, though, and dives right into the meat of the book. Some of the different aspects discussed were styling text, backgrounds, colors, images, lists, links, and tabular data. Each having its own chapter to discuss the basics. The second section gets into more advanced CSS. It discusses positioning, floating, layouts, templating, usability, accessibility, and some tips and tricks. Each of these given a good amount of time with some great examples. The end chapter brings it all together with a case study, a very interesting case study to say the least (you'll just have to read the book to check it out). Styling of headers left me thinking about a few things. I agree with his approach, in using an actual image in the markup (since it IS content). The flip side would be using image replacement - but then losing any textual representation or alt attribute if images are disabled and CSS is still active (unless you implement Richard Rutter's method with some JavaScript). With his style of setting up templates and reusable CSS - it would be tough to update h2 images over an entire site when updating a template, design scheme, or even typeface (depending on the size of the site). This discussion has been had many different times, and I am not sure I am completely settled on one specific solution for image replacement. So, he gives the best solution for a beginner - I was just left wondering if there was a better option. Styling of forms is something that is super tricky, even for the advanced CSS developer. He does a great job of covering three different approaches (table, using a combination of p and br and finally using a definition list). The tricky part is: What is the best solution? He gave the answer I would have given, in that it depends on the job and the needs. Lately I have been very prone to using a definition list to style some of my basic forms (contact, newsletter, etc). I believe this does a great job and gives great flexibility. Some would say that it is not a proper use of the definition list, but I would beg to differ. I think there are many uses for the definitio