Customer Reviews

The Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design (Essentials)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The CSS and HTML Web Design book builds on the excellent earlier title by the same author. The new book is larger, it contains more examples; a lot of the examples are presented in a step-by-step manner. The new examples overall are trickier than old examples which, for better or worse, tended to gravitate towards the academic side of web design rather than real life requirements often imposed upon website builders.

After general introductions, the main sections of this book consist of chapters dedicated to styling text, images, navigation, tables, page layouts, forms, and putting everything together when building complete websites. A special place in the book takes the chapter on dealing with browser quirks. This is a very important chapter that teaches how to deal with browser compatibility issues; it is especially relevant as some of the examples from other chapters do not work as expected in Internet Explorer versions 6 or earlier.

At the core of this book are HTML/XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), but the author also takes dives into various web technologies such as mail form scripts, PHP, JavaScript, and even mentions Ruby On Rails. There is practically no information on ASP.NET, but the web design lessons from this book are applicable to any server technology.

The book appendix contains handy references of most important XHTML and CSS elements and attributes, character encoding tables, web color guide, and information on browsers and recommended software.

The CSS and HTML Web Design is an excellent title containing a wealth of information useful to website designers of any level.

The author promises this book is different. I suppose it is, thanks to the author's friendly and comprehensive approach to the material. This is a surprisingly complete guide for beginning and intermediate CSS designers with a lot of useful answers to practical design problems. For instance, many books discuss how to write a form, but this book tells you how to write a mail form, including the fact that the form won't do anything without script support and where to find that support. It's that level of detail that sets this book apart.

As one would expect, the author begins with the basics, discussing CSS and its benefits. Then, he talks about typography and working with type before moving on to images. He even includes a brief discussion of color theory. He shows how to display random images using both JavaScript and PHP and provides an exhaustive discussion of links and navigation, including some discussion of accessibility. Of course, he discusses tables and the box model before moving on to forms and page testing. He has a coherent discussion of IE issues and using conditionals to call version-specific style sheets. He moves on to discuss creation of an online storefront and business websites, ending with useful XHTML, entities, and CSS references. The book is over 500 pages with many code examples.

I'm sure there are advanced designers who don't need this book; but for the beginner, this book is an excellent place to start. For the intermediate designer, this is a very good reference. I really like Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter) for the author's presentation of information and the book's attractive physical design; but if I am objective and fair, Craig Grannell's "Essential Guide" is the better book. Grannell supplies more information in greater depth over the entire span of CSS design. So, beginning and intermediate designers who buy this book will not be disappointed. Thanks for reading.

It's a very good guide for people who haven't done any graphical background. A good intermediate level of XHTML and CSS. Not for experienced designers.

Craig Grinnell's book is excellent and helpful in any sense. If you want to really dive into CSS and HTML and how to structure a website according to standards this is the book to buy. The book is well organized; the text is smooth and the information valuable. This is a book I am relying on to enhance my ability to structure websites and it is working.

This is one book on my shelf that covers key topics that are completely left out by other authors. I can tell that Craig is building websites out there in the real world because he's going straight to the heart of what clients are asking for. I have read other great books which teach the basics of XHTML & CSS. Those books give you a basic understanding that set you up for a book like this. When I get out to meet clients they'll inevitably request things like an online photo gallery or may require a complex multi-column navigation system that I am easily able to build because of this book. I literally go straight to the section, type the code and the website has the feature. What I have found with other books is that they taught me the basics so that I know how to hand code with confidence. However I won't be winning any design awards and I haven't found some of the sophisticated features that clients demand in any other book. The chapter that covers navigation is the best I've come across. It covers how to code each of the navigation types, including the drop-down and multi-column types similar to the one here on Amazon.
This book is a perfect combination of the XHTML, CSS & Javascript knowledge that works in the real world of web design. If you have no idea how to go about building a drop down menu or can't find reliable information about how to build a cool web gallery then look no further. Absolute beginners should start with a simpler book that covers the raw basics of XHTML & CSS, and there's several out there on the market. Once you're ready to take on your first round of clients you'll find this book is invaluable for adding the more sophisticated features that your clients will require. Hope there's an updated edition on the way!

This book is one of the best web page design books I've used. Not only does it tell you how do get things done, it will explain multiple ways of getting the same result and the pros and cons of each way. It explains why to design your website using xhtml strict instead of any other form, but still lets you know how to go about using the other doctypes. It explains the correct way to use tables, manipulate images, and format your text. The author goes into a great amount of detail in an easy-to-read way so that you aren't overwhelmed even if you have no idea what you've gotten yourself into. I have benefited from it greatly, and would recommend it to any beginner web-page designer.

I just got this book about a month ago. I have a basic knowledge already of CSS and HTML but I wanted to make sure I was doing it correctly and needed more explanation on some things and just wanted to really understand the coding more so I didn't have to rely so much on dreamweaver/photoshop to write most of it for me. I think that this book is great, especially for hands on learning. There is a folder you can download on the internet that contains documents for the exercises in the book. For every section there are exercises you can do to learn all the different parts of css and can see what everything does as far as navigation, type, lists etc etc. I think the author is very easy to understand and very thorough. Overall I think it is definitely one of the more useful ones and will make sure to teach you how to do CSS and XHTML correctly to avoid errors in different platforms/browsers and to ensure compatibility across the board. Great book. Really enjoyed it and recommend even if you're knowledge level is very little. Although if you have never worked with css and html before it might be a little much too fast.

One good book, straight to the point and yet easy to understand. The author certainly exhibits some strong pedagogical skills and he does a fantastic job at integrating various technologies under one roof. Each of the ten chapters and six appendices focus on one aspect and is illustrated by lots of practical examples that could be reused almost as is in your own projects. The author's decision to avoid any reference to web design applications is a smart one. Not only does it allow him to focus on the very foundations of web design but also to be relevant to a wider audience, both in terms of platform and level. With lots of tips, plenty of warnings, and an emphasis on standards and industry best practices, this book is like having a private web design instructor. Highly recommended.

Excellent book, after reading and experimenting with css I have been able to convert a site to use css. Did not know anything about css until this book. Gives great insite to web design using css. Worth every penny.

This book is a good guide. It is comprehensive while not being overly technical. I got the book to use as a desk reference. The book starts out with the basics and does a good job building on that knowledge and bringing things together in later chapters.