10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Better than nothing, but leaves a lot to be desired., February 26, 2010
This review is from: CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)
I've been using this reference for about a year now, and my conclusion is that it's better than nothing, but leaves a lot to be desired. I can usually find what I'm looking for, but often find myself giving up and just searching Google.
One big problem (as with most books today) is a weak index. It seems the index is computer generated by simply culling the text, and the end-result is that unless you already know what you're looking for, then you can't find it. Example: let's say you can't remember the CSS instruction for underlining text. So you look in the index for "underline" and there's nothing remotely close to it. Next, you might look under "font," particularly if you remember that other font formatting instructions start with "font-". Likewise, nothing there.
Another example of a problem I've seen is just some very poorly written text. After reading it 5-6 times, I still struggle to figure out what's being said. That's just bad writing. The author has gotten lost in the complexity of the subject, and hasn't put the effort into explaining it for the reader in a clear and concise manner.
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Handy and complete reference, October 23, 2007
This review is from: CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is the W3C standard for the visual presentation of web pages, although it can be used in other situations too. The book begins with a short introduction to the basic concepts of CSS. What follows is an alphabetical reference to all CSS2.1 selectors, and finally an alphabetical reference to all CSS2.1 properties. This is a good handy reference once you understand CSS, but I wouldn't advise it as a sole source for novices. Instead, try "CSS: The Definitive Guide" in its latest edition for a very good all-round tutorial and reference. This book is for those occasions when you don't have time to go digging through the much larger "Definitive Guide" for short answers to questions. The table of contents is not currently shown for this book in the product description, so I show that next:
Chapter 1. CSS Pocket Reference
Section 1.1. Conventions Used in This Book
Section 1.2. Safari Books Online
Section 1.3. Adding Styles to HTML and XHTML
Section 1.4. Rule Structure
Section 1.5. Style Precedence
Section 1.6. Element Classification
Section 1.7. Element Display Roles
Section 1.8. Basic Visual Layout
Section 1.9. Floating Rules
Section 1.10. Positioning Rules
Section 1.11. Table Layout
Section 1.12. Values
Section 1.13. Selectors
Section 1.14. Pseudo-Classes and Pseudo-Elements
Section 1.15. Property Reference
Section 1.16. Tables
Section 1.17. Paged Media
Section 1.18. Dropped from CSS2.1
Section 1.19. Visual Styles
Section 1.20. Paged Media
Section 1.21. Aural Styles
Index
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
CSS Pocket Reference, December 24, 2007
This review is from: CSS Pocket Reference: Visual Presentation for the Web (Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)
For a small book, CSS Pocket Reference packs a lot of information.
The author, Eric A. Meyer, thoughtfully provides a basic CSS primer in the first 33 pages of the reference.
A must have, go anywhere, reference for every web page author/designer.
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