Everything You Know about CSS Is Wrong!: Change the Way You Use CSS Forever!

Change your patterns of using CSS in a different approach to using Cascading Style Sheets without the workarounds required. From learning new techniques that work with older browsers to considering how to streamline CSS processes to avoid its cumbersome reputation, Everything You Know About CSS is Wrong is a pick for any programming library interested in best practices titles.

This is really an outstanding book, though the title doesn't really reveal the content. The book could really be called "An Instruction Manual to Start Using CSS For What It Was Intended For Instead of Using Those Old HTML Tables Which Are Really For Structured Content and Not Really For Layout", but I suppose that would take up most of the cover. Seriously, this is a book whose time is long due...mostly because it tells us how to use CSS in browsers whose time is long due. It's great to see the new browsers catching up to the formatting instructions that have been in place for them for years. I've been writing CSS by hand for 12 years, and I've done my share of learning the hard way and tearing my hair out when my positioning doesn't work right, degrades non-gracefully or has to be rewritten and retooled to work in different browsers. It would have been great to have a book like this years ago when we were working with something called CSS-P and trying to do the right thing by not using tables. This book would be a great text to use in an HTML class today so that positioning is taught correctly. I have a dream that someday educators will stop teaching layout in HTML tables and will teach layout as shown in this book. HTML tables will be used simply to markup table content. This book is a huge step in that direction.

Are you a web designer and/or developer who needs to work with CSS layouts? If you are, then this book is for you! Authors Rachel Andrew and Kevin Yank, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that takes stock of the current best practices methods that are being considered for CSS layout. Andrew and Yank, begin by exploring the current problems with CSS layout techniques, as well as the mismatch between what designers want and what CSS provides. Next, the authors explain the current techniques that use absolute positioning and floated elements, and the complexity involved in getting them to work reliably. Then, they test the limits of what CSS tables can do, explore the edge cases, and deliver concrete solutions. They continue by showing you how that CSS table-based layouts are ready for prime time by providing practical solutions for supporting IE6 and 7. Finally, the authors take a look at three CSS3 modules for layout control: the multi-column layout module, the grid-positioning module, and the template layout module. This most excellent book takes a good look at what's just around the corner with Internet Explorer 8. More importantly, this book has been written to inspire debate and experimentation in a time of change and development.

This is a very strange title for a book and I was extremely intrigued by it. I've been laying out web pages for years now with CSS and for a book to come along and suggest that everything I had been doing was wrong was a bit of a bold statement. This is quite a short book weighing in at just over 110 pages and really only deals with one topic, however it does that in-depth. The style of writing is good and flowing and it feels like you're just reading a magazine article. This book deals with CSS layout for the latest browsers and talks a lot about the upcoming version of IE8 and how it fixes things so that now you can use CSS 2 styles on your site and they will work across all major browsers (as long as you're running the latest ones, Firefox 3, Opera 9 etc.) and now that Internet Explorer is finally supporting web standards it will work on Microsoft's browser platform as well. In that respect, all the tricks and work-arounds that you've had to learn in the past to get layouts looking correct are indeed wrong as you will no longer need to use them, for example using floats to get multiple columns. The main thrust of this book is positioning using CSS tables. The book explains what these are, how they are different from HTML tables but create the same results, some of the pitfalls you may come across (there is no equivalent to colspan or rowspan for example) and how to code for these instances. The introduction of web standards across all major browser platforms and the adherence to CSS 2 specifications will make web designers and programmers immensely easier and this book explains how. There is also a chapter dedicated to backwards compatibility and what you should be doing with layouts and yet still make things look on older browsers like Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7. The final chapter of the book deals with some things to look forward that are currently part of the CSS 3 working draft and how they will make your job even easier yet. This is one of those books that I actually have a hard time reviewing, not for the content, the style and layout etc. but for giving it a rating. I think this is a must read book for anybody who designs or layouts web pages, whether you a graphic designer or programmer or in-between however the book is very short and really only deals with a single topic, even though it does it in-depth. The book is in full color which makes it a beautiful book however it's also a book that you would perhaps only read or twice and wouldn't be used a reference book so the longevity takes a hit. I wish the book had more to it and covered a few more topics. That said, I still stick by what I say in that everyone who designs or codes web pages should read this as it will make their jobs a lot easier.

A provocative title to be sure, but after reading a sample chapter on another website, I placed my order. The book focuses on the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 8, which thanks to the auto-update in Windows will be quickly adopted. IE8 offers vastly superior CSS support, and makes many of the workarounds and hacks obsolete. Thankfully, the authors haven't completely disregarded older browsers, and chapter 4 focuses on backward compatability with IE6 and IE7 so that you can adopt the new techniques this year. I should mention - this is a short book. If you're expecting a 500+ pager that'll take you a month to read elsewhere, look elsewhere. If you're after a tutorial on CSS, then I recommend "HTML Utopia, 2nd Edition" or "CSS Antholgoy" by Rachel Andrew (who also co-wrote this book). What you get though is a concise summary on working with CSS layouts and the information that you'll need to stay up to date and keep your knowledge fresh and relevant.