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Pro CSS Techniques (Expert's Voice) by Dan Rubin
Pro CSS Techniques is the ultimate CSS book for the modern web developer. If you've already got web design and development basics under your belt, but want to take your knowledge to the next level and unleash the full power of CSS in your web sites, then this is the book for you. It is a collection of proven CSS techniques that you can use daily to get the most out of the time you spend on your projects, from start to finish.
Every topic is presented in an informative tutorial style, with each point backed up by several real-world examples and case studies. The authors cover all the essential areas of CSS development, like browser support (including IE7), hacks and filters, code management, advanced layouts and styling, typography, and much more. CSS levels 1, 2, and 3 are given a full treatment. The book also includes several reference sections that allow you to look up details quickly and easily.
The book aims to help you in four maintainability, compatibility, reusability, and practicality. You'll be able to keep your code organized and easy to maintain, avoiding browser issues before they crop up (or hacking around them when absolutely necessary). You'll learn to get the most out of your styles with inheritance, and by using techniques you can build on. And you'll learn to use what works in the real world, without getting too caught up in ideals, because you can always optimize later.
Every topic is presented in an informative tutorial style, with each point backed up by several real-world examples and case studies. The authors cover all the essential areas of CSS development, like browser support (including IE7), hacks and filters, code management, advanced layouts and styling, typography, and much more. CSS levels 1, 2, and 3 are given a full treatment. The book also includes several reference sections that allow you to look up details quickly and easily.
The book aims to help you in four maintainability, compatibility, reusability, and practicality. You'll be able to keep your code organized and easy to maintain, avoiding browser issues before they crop up (or hacking around them when absolutely necessary). You'll learn to get the most out of your styles with inheritance, and by using techniques you can build on. And you'll learn to use what works in the real world, without getting too caught up in ideals, because you can always optimize later.
Mass Market Paperback
First published November 27, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 24, 2008
So far, and I'm about half way through, this book rawXorz. It's not quite as hilarious as Zeldman's Designing with Standards, but it's got some good one-liners here 'n' there. For those of us buried in the guts of day-to-day site design and maintenance, where we're still coding for IE6 and below, the things we typically work on can't explore the full power of CSS 2.0, not to mention CSS 3.0, because not all browsers support the standards.
But someday... and that someday's coming soon, so now's the time to start experimenting. Did you know? With CSS you can set the styles on links, targeting only links to your site's domain. Say you want to place a small icon on a link which indicates to a user that she'll be taken to a wikipedia article. You can do that with pure CSS. That's right: you can target a spedific style to a specific URL or any URL associated with a particular domain. You can target the title attribute of an URL, styling the font whenever a user mouses over a link.
I'll post more later, when I finish the book. In the meantime fellow UI/UX people: geek out if you've got this book!
...
I've finished the book, and there's not much to add to the above. The book is well-organized, well-written, and occasionally funny -- insider-humor funny at any rate. As with all books about code, it'll get outdated pretty quickly, but it's a good overview of the state of the art, for those who are already doing advanced-level CSS.
I think the tough part about that label "pro" or "advanced" is that so many of us who are doing advanced-level CSS don't realize it. We always figure we have so much more to learn and we often learn by reading the big names in the field -- the people who seem to be paid sit around all day and develop for standards compliant browsers, or who work for organizations that have the budget to allow the the time to find out *why* there's a weird bug causing unwanted behavior in Microsoft's Internet Explore browser.
Reading this book helps you get a good sense of what others in the field mean by "pro" and where you fit in that picture: for instance, that you know plenty about box model hacks and working with flexible or mixed flexible/fixed-width designs or that you are solid when it comes to shorts cuts, using the least amount of code as possible, putting your selectors to work for you, and so forth. But that, in my case, you are weak on the mad, mad world of complex daisy-chaining of selectors or attribute selectors, partial attribute values, and particular attribute selectors.
For me, the book has also been invaluable, giving me names to apply to what I already know. I am guilty of diving right into something, looking at the source, pulling it out and playing around with it to see how it works or how I can break it. Eventually, I'll make it my own, and move on to the next thing. For example, I started using sprites in small ways, before I ever knew what they were called.
I'm not one to RTFM before I started mucking around. My husband, on the other hand, is one to RTFM. In fact, he'll read and read and read RTFM -- and anything related to it, before he decides he wants to muck around. In either case, this book is for you.
Happy reading and mucking about.
But someday... and that someday's coming soon, so now's the time to start experimenting. Did you know? With CSS you can set the styles on links, targeting only links to your site's domain. Say you want to place a small icon on a link which indicates to a user that she'll be taken to a wikipedia article. You can do that with pure CSS. That's right: you can target a spedific style to a specific URL or any URL associated with a particular domain. You can target the title attribute of an URL, styling the font whenever a user mouses over a link.
I'll post more later, when I finish the book. In the meantime fellow UI/UX people: geek out if you've got this book!
...
I've finished the book, and there's not much to add to the above. The book is well-organized, well-written, and occasionally funny -- insider-humor funny at any rate. As with all books about code, it'll get outdated pretty quickly, but it's a good overview of the state of the art, for those who are already doing advanced-level CSS.
I think the tough part about that label "pro" or "advanced" is that so many of us who are doing advanced-level CSS don't realize it. We always figure we have so much more to learn and we often learn by reading the big names in the field -- the people who seem to be paid sit around all day and develop for standards compliant browsers, or who work for organizations that have the budget to allow the the time to find out *why* there's a weird bug causing unwanted behavior in Microsoft's Internet Explore browser.
Reading this book helps you get a good sense of what others in the field mean by "pro" and where you fit in that picture: for instance, that you know plenty about box model hacks and working with flexible or mixed flexible/fixed-width designs or that you are solid when it comes to shorts cuts, using the least amount of code as possible, putting your selectors to work for you, and so forth. But that, in my case, you are weak on the mad, mad world of complex daisy-chaining of selectors or attribute selectors, partial attribute values, and particular attribute selectors.
For me, the book has also been invaluable, giving me names to apply to what I already know. I am guilty of diving right into something, looking at the source, pulling it out and playing around with it to see how it works or how I can break it. Eventually, I'll make it my own, and move on to the next thing. For example, I started using sprites in small ways, before I ever knew what they were called.
I'm not one to RTFM before I started mucking around. My husband, on the other hand, is one to RTFM. In fact, he'll read and read and read RTFM -- and anything related to it, before he decides he wants to muck around. In either case, this book is for you.
Happy reading and mucking about.
August 1, 2010
Very good highlight of IE bugs & how to fix the issues.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews