Customer Reviews

The CSS Pocket Guide (Peachpit Pocket Guide)

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

 

 

I am laying a totally different view for this book from the previous reviewer. This is a good book. if you have had a casual exposure to CSS by creating HTML web pages and/or viewing many pages in FireBug or IE's development tool, this book is an excellent reference book to decipher and learn CSS. I had read several CSS books and website tutorials while learning HTML, CSS plus some Javascript in DYI way. This book have most clearly explained how to create a multi-column layouts with "relative","absolute","margin offset" and "fixed" display property technique. Although these tequnique may less important when all browsers start endorsing CSS table properties (for some reason, this book does not talk about them at all) I finally understood why my pages looked a little odd and was able to correct problems.

You will need a knowledge about HTML tags before reading this book by the way. The author casually uses HTML tags such as <article> and <header> introduced in HTML5 so it could through you off if you only knew about pre HTML5 tags.

As a .NET developer with only a year of experience under my belt, I needed something to reference when designing web applications. I didn't need to learn
CSS or how to use it. But CSS is not at the top of my list as far as needing to know the everything about it. I tend to use it to reference specific information and I usually already knowing exactly what I am looking for. This is a great book if use it the way it was intended. It's not a "missing manual" and was not meant to be. It's a book you keep on your desk for when you need it. If you don't know HTML or the basis of CSS, then this book is not for you. I do wish this book had a little more content for CSS3 but I am comfortable with my purchase. Best $10 I have spent on a book in a long time.

This is one of those books that quickly runs through a ton of information with simple examples to illustrate various points. As an earlier negative review pointed out, you won't get anything like the "Step By Step" series of books where you have a completely coded project that you can then just start fiddling with. To learn with this book, you'll have to already be working with an existing project or you'll need the skills to put together a practice project on your own. Personally, I prefer this model but I've already been developing for years (just never really got as deep as I'd like into CSS) and I just wanted a no-nonsense guide that gets to the meat of the subject. This fits the bill perfectly and doesn't force me to read the book like a novel, as most beginner's books would have you do.

I needed a css book that was small. This book is small but I should have tried something else. It does not give you the code that you can use. It talks a lot but it is does not have reference items you can use. Skip this one.