Customer Reviews

CSS Cookbook, 2nd Edition

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The CSS Cookbook is written for those starting out with CSS and advanced users. It is not written as a tutorial in order to learn CSS but anyone with a basic grip on CSS will find the book a valuable companion. The clear explanations of many of the pitfalls we come across when writing CSS are simply stated in an easy to look up format.
Even though you may not want to read the book front to cover I think its a great experience to just pick your chapters by what interests you most and to work through a complete chapter following along and rewriting the code as indicated in order to get a good feel of what problems are solved so that if along the way you run in to a problem you find it back without mach ado. You might learn things you never knew where that simple ore useful. For those who are transitioning from table based layouts to CSS it might not be to book to get familiar with CSS because it is a technical book, a little to dry for just getting into using CSS. Once you have gone through the initial learning curve using books like Head First: HTML and CSS from O'Reilly or Eric Meyers on CSS from New Riders you will be ready to use the book as it is intended: A constant companion within reach whenever the going gets tough,
Chapter 9 on page layout for example clearly explains what took me a long time to understand when starting out trying to use floats for layout. A common problem like columns floated to the left being shorter then the second column located on the right and the resulting overflow of this right column below the left -floated column, I almost forgot that that took me hours to solve when starting out with CSS. In "CSS Cookbook" these behaviors/problems are explained almost in order of appearance as we are working to accomplice more complicated layouts using relative or absolute positioning. There are many resources out on the web but wadding through them is time consuming and being able to find your solutions in a one or two page example including code and images are a big time saver. After each problem there is almost always a "See Also" referral to either another recipe in the book or a link to a more detailed explanation online directing you not only to reliable CSS resources but also to the direct location of the particular problem at hand within these CSS online community resources.
In the same chapter on layout Christopher Schmitt takes us trough as step-by-step tutorial on Alex Robinson's influential article on creating the "any order Columns" published at postitioniseverything.com. A great exercise in understanding floats and how to be creative with code.
In chapter 4 on page elements you will find a great example on some creative ways to add java in your pages and I really appreciate the precise instructions here since that is still kind of new to me. The results are truly beautiful, and would inspire any visual designer and can even be applied to background images placed from a style sheet as you can see applied at [...] a small testing / playground of mine.

A whole chapter is dedicated to forms, another to print.
You will find a clear explanation of how to run multiple versions of i.e. and how to install them. I always new where to find them, just could not get them to work until now! I wish the same simple explanation were given on how to implement Shaun Inmans "clearing a float" in a absolute positioned design since it still is not working for me. (patience, patience...)

The books focus is on solving CSS problems so don't expect all files/example that accompany the book to be validating. I find that a bit of a draw back since the document type used is XHTML Strict in most example files. I think the book as well as the accompanying files may need someone to go through them one more time with a fine comb to correct some of the minor coding errors.
It's really not to be picking but the book is meant for those familiar with code looking to switch over to CSS and for those more advanced. Using a XTML strict Doc declaration in most documents, would it not be neater if the document where written and validated as such? Text without a paragraph surrounding it or a <ul> inside a paragraph, missing closing tacks, make it hard for those who are starting out to find confidence when the CSS is somehow not working. Is it I, is it the book? Honestly, when I get stuck I like to know it's something I did wrong and not the book I am learning from. I did however not find any CSS errors in any of the samples I worked trough!

I never read the first edition of the CSS Cookbook but with the release of IE 7 the book has been updated.
In chapter 3 on images it is stated that at press time IE 5x and 6 do not support a fixed background image in a header to receive a particular effect. I tested in IE 7 and its now is now behaving as it should, so the book I think was released before IE `s 7 official release. Would it have been wiser to wait for this? I think there would have been a more structured outline then of what is still missing and a clearer picture of what to expect in the future working with multiple browsers and demands.

In a ocean of resources in print and online, in the midst of so many tutorials and inspirational articles written on CSS we need a book that works like a Swiss Army Knife to help us solve the problems and issues we come across when we are working on a project and don't have the time to wade trough some of the indeed fascinating and very valuable recourses we can find online. We need a direct solution...We need to know that when we do get stuck or want to push the boundaries that there is a resource that is not lost in a endless list of valuable bookmarks, however well organized, one we can access immediately. Therefore it can be a valuable reason to work through the chapters of interest so that when time is of the essence we know where to go.
Especially when working on commercial project and when we are not at liberty to suggest that, well maybe IE users will not get the full experience of some more advanced and also very popular browsers, but...

In short it is imported to know what works or not and
to have some workarounds or at least to hide from those browsers who don't support what you are doing.
Me personally, I am passionate in my belief and the reasoning behind it, to not letting a product of lesser quality hold down a development....
And especially because of this is it so important to have the tools at hand to know when to support or bypass older browsers to know what works and what not etc.

I almost want to keep the book a secret just because of the fantastic light box example in chapter 4.6. What a beauty. The book really makes you want to explore and experiment with some more java code added in to your designs. A true gem released a bit to hasty. I don't want a refund and you cannot borrow my copy!

In the past I've had confidence in the quality of books published by O'Reilly, but this book was a huge disappointment. There are so many errors--both typos and grammatical errors--coupled with awkward writing, that I find it almost unreadable. Even the diagram for the box model on page 67 is messed up. How is it possible that this sloppiness could get published (again!) in a second edition? There may be some valuable information in the book, but with all the mistakes I don't trust it as a resource. Look for authors Eric Meyers, Jeffrey Zeldman, and Andy Clarke for better CSS books.

There is some excellent information here. The sections on forms and the CSS calendar were helpful for me. The nested list to breadcrumb solution is lovely, but this book was written too often for best case (or browser) scenarios, not always the world as it is.

Floats are covered for CSS layout but there is no mention of some common Internet Explorer bugs that make their use tricky, including common bugs like the expanding box and guillotine bugs. Holly Hack anybody? How about the problem with setting percent font sizes in the body selector without defining them first in html. Granted IE 7 fixes most of the shortcomings of older versions of the browser but to pretend they don't exist for a measurable percentage of the browsing population is negligent.

Where CSS works as it should, the solutions are fine. Where it doesn't there is too little discussion of the real everyday lack of support in various browsers. If discrete "solutions" are given, the problems associated with each "solution" should be mentioned in the "solution:, not left to a later section that is not cross-referenced. There is a token section at the end of the book on hack support but it is superficial. Even where browser support is mention, it is usually at the end of the solution, where we see it, if at all, after wasting time working through the code. A simple, "This works in xyz browsers at the beginning of each "solution" would have been a great improvement. As they are, some "solutions" only solve problems in a minority percentage of browsers.

There are simply too many good and complete CSS books like Meyer's CSS: The Definitive Guide and CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll that give us better real world coverage of CSS usage. For beginners there is Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide by Charles Wyke-Smith. For the experienced there is the stunning new Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke and Molly Holzschlag. I ordered CSS Cookbook in a moment of book craving and am not thrilled by it.

I'm torn on sending it back. It is far from the best general reference, but does have some good content. If I wasn't experienced enough to recognize where it offers less than complete information, it could cause me head scratching with the layout solutions.

Where was Dan Cederholm for this revision?

In general, this is a helpful book if you need to research a particular design solution, but it should in no way be used exclusively to learn CSS. It's helpful to have CSS and javascript experience to fully take advantage of everything this book offers.

Unfortunately, the book contains some organizational flaws. The "General" chapter, which is meant to serve as an introduction to CSS, is a brief background to concepts and tools, but it doesn't always point out that certain selectors are not supported in every browser (child selectors and pseudo-elements are the most notable). I think it'd be helpful to state straight-up that many aspects of CSS are interpreted differently in various browsers, if supported at all, and then note which browsers support each feature as the feature is introduced to the reader. To their credit, they do include a "pitfalls/warnings" icon at the end of some sections, but it'd be helpful to know about them before you continue on to work through one of their examples, only to discover later that it doesn't work in IE6. Since most people would like to design for a cross-browser experience, they might just want to skip over certain CSS features that are not widely supported, so indicating browser support up-front would be very helpful. And I wonder how valuable it is to mention something like "text-shadow" if it is only currently supported by one browser? In addition, some important concepts are buried in the book (such as the fundamental concept of inheritance and the !important rule) - they might be better placed in the "General" chapter (introduction).

Though this book does have its flaws, I have to say that it does assemble some nice formatting tricks. I have previously scoured the Web searching for many of the techniques that are all nicely packaged in one place in the "Images" chapter, so I am sure this would be a real time-saver for many, as the leg-work is already done for you. Among some commonly sought out techniques are rounded corners, dropshadows, and the lightbox effect. The "Lists" and "Navigation" chapters are also pretty useful. The "recipes" this book includes are not only a means to accomplish a particular goal, but the solutions are creatively achieved so that you start thinking about using CSS in less out-of-the-box ways. And kudos to them for mentioning accessibility/usability in the "Typography" chapter - those concepts often fall to the wayside in comparison to glitzier topics.

First things first. You should have some experience with Cascading Style Sheets before diving into this book. It will not teach you CSS, but you will learn some really nifty shortcuts and tricks using CSS. The book assumes its readers "possess some web design or development experience either as a hobbyist, student, or professional." Take the assumption seriously. But even if you're an expert at CSS, don't overlook the book. It should make a handy resource, especially in terms of interoperability.

For those of you who are weak or rusty with CSS, the first chapter provides a good refresher. Go lightly through it, however, since there are some errata which can leave you scratching your head. Most of the errata in the rest of the book is obvious and doesn't detract from the content, although the typos can be a bit annoying.

The book is structured in a problem-solution format, categorized by type. For instance, "Creating a Hanging Indent," a handy technique to know, is in the Web Typography section (Chapter 2). It begins with a statement of the problem, "You want to create a hanging indent," offers a solution (in this case, pretty brief), then goes into a lengthy discussion of the problems, workarounds and related issues (such as, in this case, paired hanging indents). The "problems" range from fairly simple and obvious to complex, using javascript. I should probably note that there is very little explanation of the javascript when it is included in solutions or discussions. The assumption is that you already have some knowledge about it. I should probably also note that when javascript is included, there are instructions on where to obtain the needed code, and how to include it.

Many of the solutions also include using images. Again, there is the assumption you know how to create or modify the image needed. Like the solutions using javascript, the instructions typically tell you where to get the needed image. But some, like the "Rounding Corners" techniques, tell you to create a rounded corners design, then tell you how to modify it for the solution.

On the issue of cross-browser compatibility, there is a very handy section (Chapter 11) on Hacks, Workarounds, and Troubleshooting, and a section in the index with tables showing the implementation of CSS elements in different platforms and browsers (also available from O'Reilly Media as a pdf file). But compatibility issues, if there are any, are also dealt with in each problem-solution set. IE 7 is also included in the discussions.

On the whole, except for the typos and errata (which, unfortunately, were not listed on O'Reilly's site at the time of this writing), this is a good, solid reference book. I like the discussion part of the solutions, which not only explain the how and why, but often give alternatives and discuss issues which impact implementing the solution (such as validation, and compatibility). While not a book to start out with, it is definitely a book to expand your knowledge and skills.

How many times have you visited a website and thought to yourself, "Gee, that looks cool. I wonder how they do that?" Well, chances are this book can answer that question. The examples and solutions are pretty clear, which is good. But I have to agree with other reviewers' comments about the lack of color and typos. Color would definitely help, and a mistake in a CSS solution is a whole different ball game from one in a programming language example. A program error is usually easy to fix as it will oftentimes be flagged by the compiler. A CSS error, on the other hand, can be much trickier to track down. (I don't know how many typos this book contains. I'm only using it to find solutions to particular problems, so there's still a fair amount I haven't tried.)
Note that this book doesn't teach you CSS, nor does it profess to. If you're looking to learn about CSS there are better books out there, for example, O'Reilly's "Head First HTML & XHTML with CSS" (which is in color). This book serves a "I know what I want to do - how do I do it" purpose, and it does that well.

There are just too many "bugs" (typos, coding errors, misplaced figures, etc.) in this book to recommend it. I could forgive the many grammatical errors (though there's really no excuse for them), but when you're supposed to be passing along coding solutions and there are this many errors in the very code you're recommending, it's just unacceptable. I spent way too much time trying to unravel the coding errors to make this book really useful.

I also agree with the reviewer who said he couldn't figure out who the book was for (e.g., beginner, advanced programmer, etc.). I think the problem lies largely in the way the book was organized (or rather, wasn't organized). They need to take this book back to the workshop, clean up the errors, re-arrange the content and then, perhaps, they will have something worthy of publishing.

I've often said that I like the O'Reilly "cookbook" format for getting ideas and solving issues I didn't know I had. CSS Cookbook (2nd edition) by Christopher Schmitt is another one of those books that will earn space on my shelf at work...

Contents: General; Web Typography; Images; Page Elements; Lists; Links and Navigation; Forms; Tables; Page Layouts; Print; Hacks, Workarounds, and Troubleshooting; Designing with CSS; Resources; CSS 2.1 Properties and Proprietary Extensions; CSS 2.1 Selectors, Pseudo-Classes, and Pseudo-Elements; Styling of Form Elements; Index

The "cookbook" formula has a number of recipes on how to do certain things with CSS. It starts with a problem statement, a brief and concise solution, and then a discussion about how it works and factors that come into play. Some of the recipes are really basic, like setting the size of type on a page. In a case like that, the answer is simply font-size with a discussion of how that works. In other cases, the recipe is much more advanced, such as applying specific CSS properties to the IE 5.x browser to handle it's quirky box model implementation. That one is much longer, as there's more to it than just reading the specs or a basic tutorial...

My only disappointment here is that some of the included items are *really* basic. For instance, the General chapter seems to be a basic CSS guide formatted as a series of recipes. A recipe of using comments in your CSS file, while a legitimate question, is one that I'd expect someone to know if they are picking up a book like this. I would have preferred see that space be used for less tutorial-like information and more "meat". Still, having said that, it's still a book that I'd feel comfortable with having around...

Once you're past the "what is CSS" phase, this is a good book to spend time with. It will either answer the "how do I do that" questions or spur the "I hadn't thought of doing that" moments...

The book is useful, but I had to keep putting it down out of frustration. Many of the examples and images don't match up with the text, it's loaded with typos, and chapter 7 constantly references itself as chapter 6. That's as far as I've gotten so far, because I *really* have to keep putting this book down out of frustration. Let me be clear, I'm not super-picky about typos and what not, but this book is ridiculous. A few hours of proof-reading is all that would have been needed. I'm honestly amazed it was released like this. Somebody needs to get fired over this. It's that bad. And no, I'm not exaggerating.

As far as how useful the book is, you can pick it up and leaf through to find a solution to whatever problem you're trying to solve. But if the solution you find is affected by one of the hundred or so typos and mistakes, you might be setting yourself up for a wild goose chase trying to figure out why your code doesn't work like it does in the book. Ask me how I know..

Also, note that most of the positive reviews here refer to the 1st edition.

Unfortunately, this book has too many errors, right from the very first chapter. It's unacceptable to have sample code that does not even match the description of the accompanying text, and output pictures that show something different than what the code actually does (ie: text is supposed to be displayed underlined in bold, and shows normal, when the point of the example is how to do that).

I'm returning it until they get a new corrected edition. It just pointless to spend time figuring out what the author really meant, I'd rather spend that time learning from another source.