HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS (Paperback)

by Rachel Andrew (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS, 2nd Edition is for web developers looking to create websites using Cascading Style Sheets for layout, which allow for faster page downloads, easier maintenance, faster website redesigns, and better search engine optimization.

HTML Utopia covers all aspects of using Cascading Style Sheets in Web Development, and is a must-read for Web Developers designing new sites or upgrading existing ones to use CSS layouts.

This book includes one of the most comprehensive CSS2 references on the market. Jeffrey Zeldman, web design guru and co-founder of the Web Standards Project, says "After reading this book, you will not only understand how to use CSS to emulate old-school, table-driven web layouts, you will be creating websites that would be impossible to design using traditional methods".

The second edition of this popular book includes brand new coverage of Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 1.1, new CSS Solutions, and greatly expanded coverage of popular, cross-browser, CSS layout techniques.

From The Back Cover

"Now You Too Can Easily Create Modern 'Table-free' Websites Using CSS from scratch"

Rachel Andrew and Dan Shafer's book is a comprehensive guide to learning and applying the principles of CSS to your Website.

This book will teach you how to

• Write faster loading, dramatically smaller pages
• Speed up site maintenance by separating the content from the layout
• Create flexible 3-column designs with ease
• Write device-independent CSS that will work on everything from a PC to an internet refridgerator
• Write search engine friendly pages that can actually be understood by search engines
• Design sites that are standards compliant
• Accomodate older Web Browsers
• And much more...

About the Author
Rachel is a director of edgeofmyseat.com, a UK-based web solutions company, and is an experienced web developer. Rachel is a member of the Web Standards Project on the Dreamweaver Task Force, and hopes to encourage best practices in the support and use of W3C Standards in Dreamweaver. In addition to co-authoring several books, Rachel writes for various magazines and resource sites, both online and off. When not writing code or writing about writing code, Rachel spends time with her daughter, tries to encourage people to use Debian GNU/Linux, studies with the Open University, and enjoys a nice pint of beer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 520 pages
• Publisher: SitePoint; 2 edition (April 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0975240277
• ISBN-13: 978-0975240274
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #145,923 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful CSS Guide, July 27, 2006

By	Daniel McKinnon (Tewksbury, MA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Being a web software engineer, I have probably more experience with net and database related books than any others that I review. With this solid background, I can quickly tell if a web-related book is a good one or not and sitepoint puts out a lot of SOLID books. 'HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS 2nd Edition' by Rachel Andrew is a wonderful CSS reference that is a great guide for any and all web developers that use CSS in their daily jobs.

With over 450 pages of material, the book is broken down into the following parts:

01. Basics
02. CSS 101
03. CSS Code
04. Validation & Backward Compatibility
05. Color
06. Fonts
07. Text Effects
08. Simple CSS Layouts
09. Three-Column Layouts
10. Fixed-Width Layouts
A. CSS Miscellaneous
B. CSS Color Reference
C. CSS Property Reference

If you want to determine how to produce a professional looking web site that doesn't rely on tables throughout to get the design working as you would like, you really owe it to yourself to pick up this guide. The writing is easy to follow and the layout within is easy on the eyes and a pleasure to open up.

My only complaint with this book is the complete lack of color contained within. You would figure that a book that talks about design would have color pages to drive home points. Appendix B is an oxymoron in itself, titling itself COLOR but then only using the NAMES of colors to explain what they are. When comparing this text to the Pogue Press Missing Manual series, it's incredible that a book which is MORE expensive than those books has no color within while those books are absolutely drenched with pigments.

All in all, a nice effort but the field goal is way way wide right as it concerns the decision (no doubt to save a few bucks on production) to include no color pages.

**** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding the CSS Revolution, August 17, 2006

By	Warren Kelly (Southern Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

CSS has completely changed the way that websites are designed. That is, if anything, an understatement: CSS has revolutionized Web design. Designers can do things with CSS that would have taken a LOT more time and effort to do using straight HTML 3.2 - if they could have been done at all.

But for old-school designers who haven't kept up with things, or the self-taught HTML coders who cut their teeth on 3.2, CSS can seem a bit daunting. The temptation is always there to use the old methods, like tables. And that's where HTML Utopia comes in handy.

HTML Utopia isn't a beginner's tutorial; Andrew and Shafer make it clear at the beginning that you should have "at least a little experience building sites" to get the most out of the book. It builds on the experience that you already have to show you how to do things better with CSS.

I appreciated the fact that the book doesn't start out with the nuts and bolts of CSS - what an attribute is, what a property is, etc. It starts with how CSS can help you. I think that's important, because if you overwhelm someone right away with a totally different way of coding a page, they're going to run away, no matter how much better it is than what they're currently using. Andrew and Shafer start off with showing how CSS benefits the designer, and from there gradually introduce the nuts and bolts.

Another benefit to this book is the website. You get all the code from the examples in the book, as well as updates and errata. With any tech book, a good website is crucial - things change too quickly, and a book that is static is pretty worthless. With ready updates, and the Sitepoint discussion forums, there is a steady source of new information and support.

So many web design books end up being a step-by-step guide to creating a website (and never show you how to design anything that is different from their example), or go the other direction and end up being a reference book that doesn't show you how to use any of the tools it contains. HTML Utopia does both. It is a great resource for anyone who has been wanting to use CSS to spice up their existing sites, or who wants to create something from scratch but doesn't know how to do it.

While it's not designed for advanced CSS users, it's perfect for the beginner who is trying to bring their Web design skills up to date. This second edition adds content concerning Internet Explorer 7, and gives a lot of great information about cross-browser design techniques.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A broad introduction to CSS for new users, May 1, 2007

By	M. Magner - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In a sea of books on CSS, this one stands out because of its title, which promises to reveal CSS's great layout powers. Unfortunately, that's as much marketing as truth.

The first third of the book is a very elementary primer on CSS which can be found in all other books and all over the web. The last third of the book is comprised entirely of appendixes, primarily dedicated to describing every CSS property available, and again is widely-available information.

The middle 150 pages does focus on layout, but again its information is fairly elementary and widely available. An experienced developer looking for the secrets of making very complex cross-browser layouts in CSS won't find a lot here. And like too many books, all of the information provided is bound up in a single end-to-end layout project, the creation of a fairly simple three-column layout. If looking for information on a certain feature or technique, the reader can't easily just read a few pages for the information. S/he must stumble around trying to understand the current state of development of this single project before s/he can glean much on the topic.

So, why am I giving it a 4-star rating? I've read at least a half-dozen books on CSS and this one is by a long shot the best introductory text I've seen. The writing is very clear and focused, the examples are well written and illustrated, the appendixes provide a thorough reference, and the book occasionally nods towards the complexities that cross-browser application of CSS can bring.

It just isn't the advanced Holy Grail of complex layouts that I was hoping it would be.