Customer Reviews

DHTML and CSS Advanced: Visual QuickPro Guide

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

 

 

I was a little surprised that the one chapter on Advanced DHTML techniques could have been titled: "Intro to JavaScript." I was disappointed because there was little on advanced CSS layout (1 chapter) with examples that were difficult to follow.

If you want a book teaching JavaScript and PHP integration this book is for you. If you want a book on advanced CSS techniques that you might want to look elsewhere.

I thought i'd never need to refer to a DHTML/CSS book again (I thought the first DHTML and CSS Visual QuickStart book had covered it all) but a friend left this book on my desk and I couldn't bring myself to give it back.
Like the first book, this is not a 'repetitive review of the features' book, I'd call it a 'lets see what DHTML and CSS can do for us now' book. It both describes and illustrates the concepts and has nuggets of practical information that a hands-on person would immediately take to.

From overlooked but relevant optimal meta tag usage details like link relationships to accessing XML and using php with MySQL. You know the writer thought about what readers would need information
on. I highly recommend this book, with or without the first book.

This is the sequel to the excellent DHTML and CSS for the World Wide Web. It is merely a cookbook of techniques, whereas the first book is an outstanding introduction to an advanced subject.

This book is worth leafing through to find items of interest but it does not advance the state of the art in the way the first book did.

Mr. Teague has written an instructional book which, in my opinion is the most useful and understandable coding book I have ever read. From the introductory pages right through to the appendices this book is presented in an easy, step by step format. Mr. Teague's tutorial style makes this book an incredibly useful reference source for even more advanced web coders. Unlike other web design books I own, DHTML & CSS Advanced is well organized, with clear illustrations and colour coded snippets. The inclusion of a section about working with databases enables the reader to add more function to his or her web designs and offer more the site's visitors.

With so many coding options and the need to have a site appear properly to the majority of current browsers, it can be difficult to keep web coding effective and clean. Mr. Teague shows his readers how to accomplish this. I think the one thing which impressed me the most about this book is the effort Mr. Teague put into making sure his explanations were clear and concise. His instructions can do nothing other than add to the functionality of the reader's web coding and design. By taking the reader through web designing from concept to publication, Mr. Teague accomplishes what the cover of his book promises: extending skills in a fast and efficient way.

Unlike many other design books on the market, Mr. Teague's manual does not include a cd-rom containing all of the code snippets used throughout the book. I for one am glad he (for whatever reason) didn't include one. This forces the student to type out the snippets in the book in order to learn what the author is teaching. In my opinion, this helps the person learn faster, and to pay attention to what he or she is doing. This helps to reinforce the basics of site coding in the designer's mind, and eventually clean effective sites on the web will be the result.

The quick reference tables and glossaries are infinitely useful and cover a wide range of design coding. DHTML and CSS Advanced will be one of the first books I recommend to new designers. Mr. Teague has a winning style of tutorial writing, and I look forward to reading further publications by him.

When I first got interested in DHTML I purchased both of Teague's books on DHTML and CSS. They have proved to be invaluable. His writing is easy to understand. The format is easy to follow and consistent throughout. He uses just enough illustrations to demonstrate the subject. His knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS is exemplary and the examples used in the book are pretty much bug/error free (unlike many books I've read that contain code). If you're just getting started with DHTML, get both of Teague's books. You won't regret it.

I was greatly disappointed with this book. I have bought many other visual quickpro books which have been great.

This book is not advanced. The examples in this book do not separate content, presentation and function.

Javascript should be separated from the content of the page, not mashed into the (X)HTML as was typically done in early web sites. The javascript hooks in the code examples are invariably hard-coded into onclick=".." attributes. While that may work fine at first, just try updating pages full of onclick attributes and you'll be looking for a better way.

CSS should be used to separate the presentation from the content of the page as much as possible. It seems that the author has 'divitis': there are so many nested divs in some of the examples it's hard to follow the markup.

The book gives lip service to accessibility, but does not follow the concept through: many of the examples will not degrade gracefully in non-javascript enabled browsers. Dynamic html pages _can_ play well with all browsers: this is advanced javascript. If you follow the examples in this book, however, you'll be discriminating against a large part of your audience.

You will get better information in:
For css:
CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook (Pioneering Series)
For javascript:
ppk on JavaScript, 1/e (VOICES)