Customer Reviews

CSS Cookbook

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I think I'd generally agree with the previous positive reviews. You should already be familiar with CSS, JavaScript and HTML - this is not a CSS starter book. It's more geared toward start to finish answers for common CSS questions, most of which I found I could easily adapt to my level of understanding. There is an in-depth description about how to create a very nice looking calendar with CSS (using HTML tables) which I liked a lot. However, for me personally, I will probably stick with O'Reilly's CSS: The Definitive Guide.

I'm sure it was done for monetary reasons, but it would have been nice if the figures were in color - or at least the figures supporting the elements that deal with color. It was tough to distinguish between shades of grey or follow the arrows with the words "blue" or "green" on one end pointing to an area. I know, I know, picky picky. :) So - while I'm being picky... :) The foreward mentions "...compiling hundreds of CSS recipes into this single book" - but by my count, there are only 89 Problem/Solution/Discussion sections (aka recipes). I would like to have seen "hundreds of CSS recipes", which would have provided greater variety to the solutions.

O'Reilly's other books on CSS tend to be more for reference and learning, but this book, by Christopher Schmitt, contains good, practical advice for putting CSS to use. And as a bonus, this book covers the brand-new CSS 2.1 conventions. Like other "Cookbook" tech books, there are plenty of real-world cases and blocks of code that designers and developers can use or adapt in their own situations. There are plenty of "Hello World" examples that will be useful to those new to CSS, but there is some advanced material, too, for those at intermediate levels looking to spread their wings a bit. This volume bookends quite nicely with the "Eric Meyer on CSS" books.

Of the various recipe-style books about CSS that have appeared in recent times, this one is probably the best. It covers a variety of realistic requirements, from "web typography" (large first letters, highlighted first lines, fancy pull quotes etc) to several different kinds of menus and multi-column page layouts. Most of the recipes are short but they are also largely self-contained, making them very quick and easy to use. This format makes me prefer Schmitt's effort to some comparable works, such as Eric Meyer's two colorful volumes, Eric Meyer on CSS and More Eric Meyer on CSS.

That said, however, potential buyers of the book should be warned that it has some glaring omissions. While Explorer-like collapsible menus and tab-style horizontal menus are explained, there is no recipe for drop-down or "fly-out" menus. The chapters on table styling and print stylesheets are rather thin, and the chapter on Hacks and Workarounds makes no mention of Internet Explorer's conditional comments, which, being deliberately-designed browser features, seem like more durable tools than the parsing bugs on which most hacks are based.

These omissions might be understandable if space was at a premium, but at 252 pages, the book is short compared with most other titles from O'Reilly's cookbook series. And one wonders why, if useful things had to be left out, the author could still find room for a Javascript-based technique for producing that most annoying of web phenomena, blinking text.

In the end, I would still recommend the book for people who find that they have to use CSS occasionally, rather than on a daily basis. But the buyer should still be prepared to spend time trawling the web in search of solutions to many problems.

I've recently had the pleasure of reading CSS Cookbook by Christopher Schmitt, published by O'Reilly (the people who put animal pictures on their tech books - seems silly, but now you know exactly who I mean, don't you?). While I do not recommend it as a beginner's guide to CSS, I recommend it for the bookshelf of current CSS developers, or perhaps if you have a basic knowledge of CSS (maybe you use it control fonts and colors, and that's about it) and would like to implement even more of your design with CSS.

The book is meant to be a reference book, but I read it straight through for the purposes of a review. It's one of the thinner reference books you can buy - weighing in at a little over 250 pages - but it is packed; no long-winded opining, no lengthy sidebars, just a raw: problem - solution - explanation - see also format. This format makes it very easy to look up the specific CSS issue you need insight on and get it.

The book is divided into various categories of CSS, beginning with typography and other elements, moving along to links, lists, forms, tables, all the way up to a page layout section (if you've never used CSS to lay out an entire page, this section alone is worth the cost of the book), then addressing print CSS, browser hacks and workarounds, and then finishing with a brief section of raising various design possibilities that CSS makes possible.

Each section begins with beginner-level problems, such as how to justify text. The section then gets into mid-level problems, such as CSS rollovers and various uses of background images. Finally, each category will tackle big-boy problems, like how to make a CSS-based splash screen that converts to main content, creating variable-length folder tabbed menu items, and centering fixed-width items in a variable-width area. I feel like I have a fairly good grasp of CSS - I do almost all my pages in Strict XHTML and use CSS for my layout, formatting, the works, and I still learned plenty from this book. If nothing else, it will give you other ideas on how to solve common problems.

One unexpected value of this book were all the hacks and tricks. As many developers know that peruse various web development blogs, websites, and mailing lists - there are scads of CSS tips, tricks, hacks, and workarounds posted out there, but finding the one you need when you need it can be a challenge. This book contains all the main ones, dealing with Fahrner Image Replacement and its alternatives, CSS "Sliding Doors," various box-model hacks to deal with Internet Explorer, Netscape 4 hacks and reminders, etc. It's like someone took all the standard "fixes" for common CSS issues from all the blogs, websites, and mailing lists and put them in this book. For me, that was worth the price of admission.

I'm not always this laudatory about all tech books. In fact, I'm reading a CSS book right now that has loads of problems. The CSS Cookbook, however, is one I would recommend without reservation or a single "yeah, but..." to my colleagues in web development or students in the field.

I am becoming a serious fan of the Cookbooks from O'Reilly. They are well-organized, have lots of great tips and recipes, and don't get bogged down in detail, but still give enough insight to be useful when expanding the ideas.

The CSS Cookbook from Christopher Schmitt is no exception. It is aimed at developers who know a bit about CSS, but need some reference to solve specific problems, and who wish to view alternate methods to common situations. While this book will not teach you CSS, it is a great desk reference to jog your memory, or reveal some new trick.

Overall, the CSS Cookbook starts with some basic ideas about typography on the web, something that every designer should be aware of, if not devoted to. It then hits all the usual suspects, including page elements, links and navigation, tables, etc (all listed on the back cover). They way this book is broken down may take a little getting used to, since the focus is more on individual approaches to design ideas, rather than a master list of common complete page layouts. However, the last 3rd of the book gives some great overall information about complete designs, compatibility considerations, and some bit of theory about using CSS effectively.

Language in this book is neutral, but conversational. It may not have you curled up by a fire on a chilly evening, but it gets the points across very well. Schmitt seems to hit a nice stride with giving you useful information without making it dry or giving in to bad jokes and punch-in-the-arm commentary. Not that these last things are necessarily bad, they just aren't in Schmitt's book. That helps make it a great tool to keep close by.

Something that's near and dear to my heart is replacing tables with appropriate CSS-Positioning elements. Schmitt does a good job balancing the argument about when to use tables versus divs. While I prefer to use tables for banging my shin against, they are still quite widely used, and merit consideration in certain circumstances. One highlight is his elegant use of styled tables to build a nice-looking calendar. This is something many people will find very useful.

Other highlights include a great section on column layouts. Not only are the recipes given, but time is also allowed for consideration of challenges with each style, and why some workarounds may be necessary. Another favourite is making print-friendly pages, including forms. Resumes, help files, and reference material could all benefit from such a treatment when presented online.

I think a pretty good middle range of designers would greatly benefit from the CSS Cookbook, and some advanced people who just need a new idea or refresher now and then. Certainly, one could find more technical or theoretical books on CSS, such as in the Definitive Guide series from O'Reilly, or the W3C-endorsed 'Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web' by Lie and Bos. But for practicality, quick solutions, and some great ideas, the CSS Cookbook is a great tool for any designer's collection.

I'd say run down to your local bookstore, or check out some of the sample text on O'Reilly's site and consider putting this one on your shelf.

The CSS Cookbook is a nice reference for seeing CSS in action. This book focuses on examples grouped by Typography, Page Elements, Navigation, Lists, Forms, Tables, Page Layouts, Printing layout, CSS workarounds, and design tips.

Christopher Schmitt writes in a clear, concise manner. Tips and information are presented in a "no nonsense" way, getting straight to the point. I just wish there were more points made. For a 250 page book, this is a nice manual of solutions to common problems that CSS can solve, but I feel like more could have been added to bring the page count somewhere around 350-400. One of the main things that CSS can do is address the need for "tableless" web pages and while Mr. Schmitt discusses this topic in his chapter relating to page layout, I feel more examples should have been provided for a book which calls itself a "cookbook".

Having said that, the calendar example in Chapter 6 is worth the price of admission alone, and the samples provided relating to font typography are well written. The thing I like about Oreilly's "Cookbook" series is the fact that these books get right to the point. Too many times authors spice up their books with humor-filled writing and for a reference guide you just want to be able to open up a book and find relevant examples. The author does a nice job of providing an excellent companion to "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide" and it would benefit any CSS developer to have a copy of "CSS Cookbook" next to their computer.

**** RECOMMENDED

If you do any programming at all you soon learn of the immense value of programming cookbooks. This particular one came at a good time for me as I was trying to figure out how to create a particular effect for a web page and knew that it could be done with a cascading style sheet. A quick turn to the correct page and the code was right there along with an explanation of how it works. Twenty minutes later it was completely coded and working correctly.

The author lists many common problems and for each of them provides a problem definition, a solution, and a discussion. For many of the problems the author also includes a "See Also" section that points you to further reading. With so many problems and solutions it is important to organize them in a way so they can be located quickly. To achieve this goal the book is divided into ten distinct sections. These sections are: Web Typography, Page Elements, Links and Navigation, Lists, Forms, Tables, Page Layouts, Print, Hacks and Workarounds, and Designing with CSS. A top quality cookbook title from O'Reilly Media, CSS Cookbook is a highly recommended read for anyone working with web pages and cascading style sheets.

If you're not familiar with O'Reilly's cookbook series (...), they're books with a basic formula: Problem, Solution, and Discussion sections for every 'recipe.' The link takes you to an image showing how the format looks. Each recipe is a script, program, command, or piece of code for implementing within a large part of a whole.

In CSS Cookbook, get recipes for using CSS to create pull quotes, to add a background image, to build various types of layouts, and to manage forms. It is not about building a Web site from scratch, but getting bite-sized markup for implementing pieces of the site.

This book is for those who know HTML and have a basic understanding of CSS. Like any food cookbook, the recipes are there when you're ready for them. It's not for reading from cover to cover. When you get stuck on a problem or want to know how to create a printer-friendly page, refer to the recipe.

The main issue with the book is its use of tables in some of the recipes. With the growing number of Web sites moving towards Web standards compliance, tables are finally going away as a layout tool. Their only purpose is for organizing data.

Don't expect recipes on fly-out or drop down menus. This is not a bad thing as CSS is not the ideal way to create such menus as there are many problems with implementing them. So it is understandable why they were not included. If you want to learn how to do these menus, there are many resources on the Internet showing how.

The book could use more recipes as others in the Cookbook series have 400, 500, and even 700 pages. This one is just 270 pages.

As in his other books, Schmitt does an excellent job of explaining each problem and solution with his minimal jargon and easy writing style. The table of contents (...) provides the list of the types of problems covered in this book. If these are things you wish to implement, then you'll be happy with the purchase.

I highly recommend this book. I am not a specialist in web design, but did have a certification in HTML/XHTML before reading it, so I had some background. Major topics are Web Typography, Page Elements, Links and Navigation, Lists, Forms, Tables, Page Layouts, Print-Friendly functions, Hacks/Workarounds and miscellaneous designing issues.

Each chapter is divided into subsections, and they are patterned as follows:

- Statement of the "Problem" (as the book puts it), or what it is that you want to do.
- "Solution": first gives the HTML (if relevant), and then the CSS for modifying the HTML to get what you want.
- "Discussion": explains in plain English what you just saw in the "Solution" section.
- "See also": suggests other resources.

Some of the examples require some knowledge of JavaScript, and in those cases I simply had to note that fact and move on. Most of what is illustrated in the book assumes only knowledge of HTML.

I found this book to be helpful in learning some of the basics of CSS. Perhaps, like you, I googled my way around online trying to find solutions to problems that I was encountering. I liked that this book had many of the solutions already written out in the book that I was having problems with. I have been familiar with HTML, but I was late in adding CSS to my websites. I know that there are large benefits with using CSS, and it makes your life eaiser, but I found learning CSS from scratch to be somewhat daunting. From the novice perspective I found this book to be exactly what I needed. There are larger books out there, but I really needed just the basics.

This isn't a large book, I found it to be concise, and helpful in understanding CSS. I haven't always found the largest book to be the most helpful. I liked that I could read this book, understand its explanations and then immediately impliment the code. If you are looking for the end all be all in books, this may not be the book you are looking for. If you are somewhat new to CSS, I think that this book will be helpful in understanding CSS.