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The Ultimate CSS Reference
Posted by
samzenpus
on Mon Aug 04, 2008 01:21 PM
from the read-all-about-it dept.
from the read-all-about-it dept.
stoolpigeon writes "Cascading Style Sheets are now the dominant method used to format web pages. Even something as simple as modifying a WordPress blog can involve digging around a bit in CSS. A quick search at Amazon on CSS returns over 7 thousand books in the computer category alone. This book claims to be the ultimate, though, and that made me approach it with a bit of skepticism. Sure, it could be a decent reference, but is it truly the ultimate reference? I admit I was curious to see." Read on for the rest of JR's review.
If any book is going to be an acceptable reference there are a few things that are going to need to be in place, no matter what the subject matter. I'd like to discuss those first, from front to back. The table of contents takes up 9 pages. It is specific enough to easily get the reader pointed in the right direction.
The first two chapters cover introductory material, discussing just what CSS is, what it does, and syntax/nomenclature issues. After that, every chapter is reference material, until chapter 16. The last three chapters cover vendor specific properties, various hacks and work-arounds as well as the difference between html and xhtml. Those five chapters are presented more as straight out prose compared to the reference chapters between, though they still use extensive highlighting and background colors to divide and organize content.
The reference chapters are extremely well laid out. A command, property or other item is in bold at the beginning. Below it, highlighted in grey are various arguments that can be used with that item. An example will be given in a colored box. There are two grids. One covers three aspects of the spec for this item; if it is inherited, the initial value and thecss version of the item. There is also a list of browser support for the item in IE6+, FF1+, Saf 1.3+ and Op9.2+. The second grid shows compatibility for three versions of Internet Explorer (5.5, 6.0 and 7.0), three versions ofFirefox (1.0, 1.5 and 2.0), three versions of Safari (1.3, 2.0 and 3.0) and Opera 9.2. When appropriate there is also a discussion of or list of appropriate values and discussion of usage.
At the end of the book is a single appendix which contains an alphabetical index of properties. There is no proper index for the full book, which is not as bad as it could have been, without the other tools, but is still disappointing.
The typography is clear. The book is concise and clear with little wasted space or verbiage. The color scheme for highlighting the various sections is extremely easy to read and pleasant.
There is one more feature of the book that, aside from content, makes it very useful. There is an online edition of The Ultimate CSS Reference and as far as I can tell, it is completely open to use by anyone without any kinds of restrictions. I couldn't find any in my copy of the book, I didn't have to sign up for anything to use the site. This really makes up for the lack of an index as the entire book is searchable from the site. For me, it is the best of both worlds. I have the dead-tree version on my shelf, ready to pull down and satisfy my curiosity. I have the electronic version freely available on the web site, should I need it. The site has the added bonus of including an area for comments on the contents of the book, and there are already some helpful comments and tips there.
I think then, it is safe to say that mechanically this is a more than acceptable reference. The other important piece aside from it being usable, is the quality of the information itself. Good information is useless if one cannot get to it, and a great access system is useless if the information is no good.
The authors, O'Brien and Olsson are themselves extremely experienced in the field and I think it is safe to say they are experts in regards to CSS. The book also had two experienced "Expert Reviewers" in Natalie Downe and Roger Johansson. I couldn't find any problems with the content, and I think that it is safe to say that these four, along with others have done due diligence to provide an accurate guide to CSS.
Is this the ultimate CSS reference? I haven't read the others, and ultimate seems to imply comparison to me. So while it might not be the ultimate, I do feel comfortable recommending it to anyone who needs an extremely usable, accurate reference to CSS. I would even recommend it to a beginner who wants to learn CSS, though they should probably augment this book with something aimed at teaching CSS, not just providing a reference.
You can purchase The Ultimate CSS Reference from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The first two chapters cover introductory material, discussing just what CSS is, what it does, and syntax/nomenclature issues. After that, every chapter is reference material, until chapter 16. The last three chapters cover vendor specific properties, various hacks and work-arounds as well as the difference between html and xhtml. Those five chapters are presented more as straight out prose compared to the reference chapters between, though they still use extensive highlighting and background colors to divide and organize content.
The reference chapters are extremely well laid out. A command, property or other item is in bold at the beginning. Below it, highlighted in grey are various arguments that can be used with that item. An example will be given in a colored box. There are two grids. One covers three aspects of the spec for this item; if it is inherited, the initial value and thecss version of the item. There is also a list of browser support for the item in IE6+, FF1+, Saf 1.3+ and Op9.2+. The second grid shows compatibility for three versions of Internet Explorer (5.5, 6.0 and 7.0), three versions ofFirefox (1.0, 1.5 and 2.0), three versions of Safari (1.3, 2.0 and 3.0) and Opera 9.2. When appropriate there is also a discussion of or list of appropriate values and discussion of usage.
At the end of the book is a single appendix which contains an alphabetical index of properties. There is no proper index for the full book, which is not as bad as it could have been, without the other tools, but is still disappointing.
The typography is clear. The book is concise and clear with little wasted space or verbiage. The color scheme for highlighting the various sections is extremely easy to read and pleasant.
There is one more feature of the book that, aside from content, makes it very useful. There is an online edition of The Ultimate CSS Reference and as far as I can tell, it is completely open to use by anyone without any kinds of restrictions. I couldn't find any in my copy of the book, I didn't have to sign up for anything to use the site. This really makes up for the lack of an index as the entire book is searchable from the site. For me, it is the best of both worlds. I have the dead-tree version on my shelf, ready to pull down and satisfy my curiosity. I have the electronic version freely available on the web site, should I need it. The site has the added bonus of including an area for comments on the contents of the book, and there are already some helpful comments and tips there.
I think then, it is safe to say that mechanically this is a more than acceptable reference. The other important piece aside from it being usable, is the quality of the information itself. Good information is useless if one cannot get to it, and a great access system is useless if the information is no good.
The authors, O'Brien and Olsson are themselves extremely experienced in the field and I think it is safe to say they are experts in regards to CSS. The book also had two experienced "Expert Reviewers" in Natalie Downe and Roger Johansson. I couldn't find any problems with the content, and I think that it is safe to say that these four, along with others have done due diligence to provide an accurate guide to CSS.
Is this the ultimate CSS reference? I haven't read the others, and ultimate seems to imply comparison to me. So while it might not be the ultimate, I do feel comfortable recommending it to anyone who needs an extremely usable, accurate reference to CSS. I would even recommend it to a beginner who wants to learn CSS, though they should probably augment this book with something aimed at teaching CSS, not just providing a reference.
You can purchase The Ultimate CSS Reference from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Google (Score:5, Insightful)
The ultimate CSS reference is Google. Just follow their search results and not their example.
CSS isn't all that difficult, but it's the edge cases and browser incompatibilities that are likely to cause you headaches. There are many excellent sites out there tracking these topics, and collectively they do a better job than any book could hope to do.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Google (Score:5, Interesting)
However, in this case I think the best part of this whole review is the link to the SitePoint CSS Reference website [sitepoint.com].
That website is a useful tool all by itself!
Parent
Re:Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Google (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially one that doesn't have an index! The reviewer says that the presence of an online searchable copy of the book makes up for this. But if I have to go online to look something up, why do I even want the book?
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
The ultimate CSS reference is Google. Just follow their search results and not their example.
CSS isn't all that difficult, but it's the edge cases and browser incompatibilities that are likely to cause you headaches. There are many excellent sites out there tracking these topics, and collectively they do a better job than any book could hope to do.
Yes, there are many excellent sites out there. For example, here's one really excellent site [sitepoint.com] by Tommy Olsson and Paul O'Brien, hosted by some publisher called SitePoint.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The ultimate CSS reference is Google. Just follow their search results and not their example.
Providing you know the magic search string that leads you do the answer you need. I had a problem with floating divs in IE last week-end. I searched and came acorss some answers related to "has Layout", but none of those suggestions worked.
Search engines are a wonderful thing, but they aren't the magic bullet you are asserting.
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Why buy a book on CSS? (Score:2, Insightful)
or indeed a book on anything related to website coding?
It's all online and much more up to date.
I can only think of one thing worse than buying a book on CSS, and that's writing one - yawn!
Re:Why buy a book on CSS? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a place to start out I often find books very useful to have. It's not going to teach you everything, and it's unlikely to be completely up to date.
What it does do though is to give you an overview of what you need to know, and cruically, how those parts fit together as a whole. Once you know that, it becomes a lot easier to know what to search for when you hit the inevitable compatiability bugs, and awkward edge cases.
Parent
Quick -- buy it while it's valid (Score:5, Insightful)
Before IE9 or whatever stomps all over 1/3 of the subject material...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Before IE9 or whatever stomps all over 1/3 of the subject material...
Dude, if you do it carefully, it'll always be *valid*. It just might not *work*. :)
It's a corollary of the IBM Pollyanna Principle. The corollary states, "Software should be coded to comply to the relevant standards." :)
Re:Quick -- buy it while it's valid (Score:5, Insightful)
It's always fun to see in what new and exciting ways my pages break when I try them in IE7 after designing in/for Firefox/Opera/Safari/Every other sort-of-standards-based web browser.
And that's just the warm-up. Then I try IE6.
Parent
Save Trees Read Web (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean really....
you can't grep a dead tree
Will this book have a single iota of information in it that I can't get from the w3c?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean really....
you can't grep a dead tree
Will this book have a single iota of information in it that I can't get from the w3c?
Info that you can't get from w3c, no. Some people (myself included) prefer the tactile feel of a book; being able to flip around, etc. Flipping around in a PDF makes me insane.
I hope they didn't forget the fundamentals (Score:5, Interesting)
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Sitepoint??? Really? (Score:2, Troll)
I don't have gobs of experience with sitepoint books, but that's just because what experiences I HAVE had with them have been nothing short of atrocious. Their Rails book was so ridiculously wrong-headed it didn't even 'sell' after they made it FREE. Looking at their site briefly, I don't feel even a LITTLE bit like this is 'the ultimate reference.'
Their 'layout properties' page may as well be a page from the w3, and indeed looks ridiculously similar. This book seems crap, from my quick glance, and I've
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http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/generic/8753/?cpg=cj&selsku=1 [thinkgeek.com]
Are tables really that bad? (Score:2, Insightful)
No I'm not trolling here. CSS is clearly superior for formatting fonts and such, but I have yet to really understand why it is better than using tables. Tables are pretty logical things to understand and seem to work the same in all browsers.
I'm a hacker, not a designer and using tables is just easy for me. If I want to spend a lot of time learning "the right" way to use and implement css, I suppose I could, but I just don't see the benefit. Tables just work. The customer doesn't give a shit if you are u
Re: (Score:2)
A page laid out using CSS is way more flexible. You can adjust the width of your sidebar without worrying that the widths of other parts of the page will change.
All the design elements of your page have greater independence from each other with CSS. Want to move that bit of text up? Fine if it is just a div but not so fine if it is a cell making up half a column that is spanning 4 rows...
Tables work for simple stuff fine. CSS is the only route for anything more than that.
I've done pure table-based layout an
Re:Are tables really that bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, but they do care that it's taking you twice as long to get the job done because your stuck in eight nested table cells.
Once you get used to CSS, it's hugely quicker. Wouldn't you rather say "put this block over there", then "nest this block, in that one, which goes to the left of that one, and then that nests here"?
Parent
No, it's DIV/FLOAT/CLEAR that's bad. (Score:2)
I have yet to really understand why it is better than using tables. Tables are pretty logical things to understand and seem to work the same in all browsers.
Actually, you're right. It's not CSS itself that's the problem, it's the DIV/FLOAT/CLEAR approach to layout. DIV/FLOAT/CLEAR is a one-dimensional layout approach. Trying to bash it into doing a 2D cell-like layout is difficult and ugly. Doing three columns in DIV/FLOAT/CLEAR [webmasterworld.com] is a classic hard problem. The DIV mechanism just doesn't have adequate
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You shouldn't have to work at all for your HTML/CSS, it's easy. If you feel there is something of a learning curve, of course there is. And once you've learned what you need you find you can do things way more powerfully than before, and more easily.
Ultimate (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the ultimate reference the definition?
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/ [w3.org]
http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ [w3.org]
Re: (Score:2)
no not in the real world, since the interpretation of the standards varies.
broken browsers are not a problem for w3. Everyone else needs working solutions.
Extremely? (Score:2)
The short review uses the word extremely 4 times in just a few paragraphs, and that made me a bit skeptic...
Could the trees used to make this book ... (Score:2)
I spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out why three divs wouldn't float left properly. Divs worked find in FF and Opera, but not in IE. After searching Google (to no avail, there), I ended up fixing the lowest divs width to a fixed pixel size just to spread it far enough to move it to the proper position. yay.
I am sure
I'm still waiting (Score:2)
I'm still waiting for a book about how CSS destroyed the web. Before that, I could scale webpages and read it all - then the army of idiots from newspaper marched in with their expectation of WYSIWYG and started using absolute font sizes all over.
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You're kidding, right? Any browser worth its salt will resize absolute font sizes by %.
Save yourself the pain and use Yahoo! UI Library (Score:2, Interesting)
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CSS isn't so hard that I'm going to use a framework. I've written enough CSS that I can go back and reuse what I've already made. Most IE hacks are in separate files and can be reused quite quickly. That alone solves a lot of the problems.
CSS is not yet about features (Score:2, Interesting)
Writing a comprehensive book on CSS is not an issue, and really... W3C has a nice homepage that is actually quite well indexed on Google.
Having a few years of experience I feel that any *practical* CSS book will focus on how a few key aspects with the web as it is today:
* What should be possible by todays accepted standards (css = 2.1)
* What is actually possible (things like text-shadow is only supported by safari (and some other more niché browsers))
* How your CSS can degrade beatifully in order
Two points.. (Score:2)
Item one: "Something as simple as modifying a WordPress blog".. What? Since when is that in the category "simple"? If you do web-stuff, you need CSS, if you do Linux kernel programming you need C. It has nothing to do with simple.
Item two: Quirksmode [quirksmode.org] .. and in the end, one site to rule them all. Screw books.
Has anyone noticed a trend in these reviews? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it started with the whole idea of "unboxing photos"; I'm not sure. But an awful lot of reviews seem to fall in the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" bucket: True, but not useful.
This book is published on milled wood fibers, commonly called "paper"; it's a pleasant shade of cream, perhaps a bit brighter than ivory, yet darker than a Rubbermaid white spatula used for comparison. The pages are rectangular, measuring 7.23" x 5.05", with a sharp edge reminiscent of a good Martin-Yale trimmer. (For reference, I have published a picture of an average rectangle below.) The book was published on a 1200dpi offset press, with the plates generated directly from digital content.
Graphically, the book is similar to those we've become used to in the past few centuries. An incremental integer graces the bottom outside corner of every page, allowing one to turn directly to a specific page, if one is able to remember, or otherwise determine, the page number. A so-called "Table of Contents" (or TOC as it's known in the industry) allows you to jump directly to the beginning of a chapter, in conjunctioned with the aforementioned "page number" feature. Additionally, the name of each chapter is printed in italicized lettering opposite each page number, which allows you to remember what chapter you're reading, if you should happen to forget.
Etc...
Re:CSS or Tables? (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of things are easier in CSS than with tables, not the least of which is producing legible markup. Table layouts are always a confusing mess, no matter how skilled the author, whereas a CSS/(X)HTML writer of even moderate skill can produce complex layouts that are, if not wonderful, at least much, much easier to read and understand than tables.
Then again, some things are harder in CSS, but that has more to do with IE's horrible implementation than with a flaw in CSS itself. In the end, very simple sites won't have those problems, so you might as well use CSS to keep things clean, and more complicated sites WILL have CSS problems but they'll still be easier to deal with than digging through a soup of TABLE, TR, TD, and TH tags.
Parent
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In old-school webpage design, text and graphics were placed on the screen using tables. This is the primarily the use that should generally be converted to CSS. Things like placing a vertical menu next to a block of text, centering a heading over some text, or mixing images and text in a heading. I have seen html laid out with multiple nested tables simply to get different levels of indenting for different blocks of text.
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Because layout done with tables is a royal pain. Divs done well kick the backside of tables.
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Missed the original point, yes. But until CSS came along, tables was the only way to get a decent layout most times. Lots of dogs only remember the old tricks ;)
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DIVs don't have semantic meaning because they are not supposed to. They are only supposed to be used to DIVide up your content as needed for CSS styling... as in, give your DIVs a unique ID so you can scope your styles.. that's it... nothing more. If you choose to also style the DIVs so they have presentation, that's your choice but since DIVs have no semantics, they can be ignored as far as the actual content goes, as in a screen reader should not read a DIV at all...
If you want semantic structure to your
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I think complex framesets are much better suited for layouts than tables.
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Sounds great for sites with 3 pages. Would like to know how you cope with 10 or so. Do you use a template? What about when the time comes to change the heading on each page?
OK professional web developers get this all the time and your method would never work in a professional environment, although you probably know this.
It is surprising how many people use Photoshop for design without having used anything better, simply because they didn't realise that there *was* anything better.
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I hear you on using tables for placement. Heck, alot of sites still do because there is no question how tables are rendered, but from a development perspective, tables and nested tables are a bitch to maintain.
You can do all that stuff with CSS, easier once you