The Ultimate CSS Reference 124
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 Ultimate CSS Reference | |
author | Tommy Olsson & Paul O'Brien |
pages | 420 |
publisher | SitePoint |
rating | 9/10 |
reviewer | JR Peck |
ISBN | 978-0-9802858-5-7 |
summary | All the CSS knowledge you'll ever need. |
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.
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.
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!
Quick -- buy it while it's valid (Score:5, Insightful)
Before IE9 or whatever stomps all over 1/3 of the subject material...
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:Quick -- buy it while it's valid (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." :)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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 using css or tables.
How is a page done in css that looks the same as a page done it tables better? I haven't worried much about SEO in a long time, but it seems that Google doesn't mind tables either...
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: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.
Re:Google (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.
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.
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"?
Re:CSS or Tables? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:CSS or Tables? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 ;)
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...