Customer Reviews

HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible

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

 

 

The title is misguiding. It's everything but an HTML, XHTML & CSS Bible. Title should read "Become a webmaster in a month". I expected to have: - The full HTML Specification with an example for each definition - Same for XHTML (DTD, rules to respect, validation, etc...) - Same for CSS and *PLEASE*, at least the basics of tableless CSS layout If the book were to expose the aforementioned information, it would exceed the 800 pages, and the author wouldn't have had to put some more information that is useful, I agree, but it's off-topic, sorry. The author should stress a lot more on standards. Standards are important, and one can't call a book a "Bible" if it only covers 75% of HTML, 50% of XHTML and hardly covers basics of CSS. It lacks information on the PNG file format (open source). Mention of the Opera Browser is almost non-existent, even if it's the most standard-compliant browser. Using tables to create a layout is old-fashioned and many good books (by Dan Cederholm, Jeffrey Zeldman or Eric Meyer) proove that one should *NOT* use tables for layout so that structure and content are clearly seperated from presentation. Without this discipline, the web won't be able to evolve toward XML. The book talks about image retouching, which again is off-topic, pretty much like SMIL, multimedia, FTP, maintainance, databases, weblogs, PHP & MySQL. I noticed several errors, and then I stopped writing them down. These are some of them: - p.93 PNG, is stored without being compressed doesn't loose color or image quality, and does support transparency. At least this can be achieved in Photoshop CS. - p.108 I find it sad that the author doesn't show how image maps are done with circles and polygons - chap.9 "Special characters" should show a sample for every single entity - p.184 The author puts the e-mail address into the code. How is it possible?! With all the spam problems people keep complaining, how come the author doesn't display the e-mail address thanks to a javascript to hide it from spambots? - p.188 in Part III instead of in Part II - p.210 He forgot that the label tag can nest the radio button and the text without ID. - p.284 div.div1 table should read div.div1>table - All examples are shown in IE or Netscape 4. Why not show modern browsers (Opera 7.8, Mozilla 1.8, Firefox 1.0) - p.379 user agent is not Opera but Firebird This is not a bad book, it has a lot of useful information, but what drove me nuts is that I wanted a "Bible" for these 3 languages. I had to buy other books. I hope now people who buy this book know it's a general-purpose book on web design.

If you are an experienced coder looking for an strict HTML, XHTML, or CSS reference, I suggest you move on to another title. If you are a novice in HTML using a WYSIWYG editor and want to start getting into the HTML code itself, then this is a good book for you. I bought this book to refresh myself in HTML, and CSS being away from it for several years. I program in VB and VC++ and have many programming references that are excellent and very concise. Unfortunately this book is neither. The writers persistently wander off on long winded tangents that seem to ramble on and on.... and on! The analogies had me scratching my head wondering just what exactly the comparative <sp> was? There are many small chapters in the last half of the book that are nothing but fluff and offer no real information.
In closing, there is useful information in this book for the novice. However it is not complete or in any particular order. Happy hunting.

I have used this book as a textbook for an "Introduction to HTML" class I taught. I looked at several references prior to choosing on one, and this was by far the best formatted and most appropriate for those with little to no existing knowledge of HTML.

The previous reviewer's complaints are mostly unfounded, in my opinion. The appendix contains a more or less comprehensive listing of all HTML tags and their usage, etc. The chapters are well organized, easy to read, and comprehensive. If this book spreads itself a little thin at times trying to cover so much ground, it is necessary due to the inherently connected nature of HTML, XHTML, and CSS. Covering only HTML would not be useful for beginners who want to gain a basic understanding of these technologies. I assume the "HTML 4 Bible" by the same publisher is more what the previous reviewer was probably looking for.

I highly recomend this book to anyone wishing to learn HTML.

This book is not worth your money. It is poorly written, does not explain code, and is very incomplete. Bible in its title is very misleading...

If you are a complete novice at building web sites and you feel a little frightened about even beginning to learn, there are several more basic books available to help get you started on this adventure. However once a few rather simple lessons are learned and you are gazing in joy at your first attempts at web pages, Schafer's book is your next step. He also covers all of the basics for beginners but those chapters are useful more or less as a review rather than a starting point. His coverage of HTML is not offered in a hand-holding fashion for the meek but rather in a straight-forward, "here's how to do it" format. His presentations and explanations are perfect though for everyone who eventually comes to the realization that they are not "dummies" and who want a more grown-up approach to learning basic web site construction. Schafer's conversational style helps those who have a grasp of the basics and is also the book they will continue to use throughout their web site creation careers: HTML, XHTML, AND CSS BIBLE, Fourth Edition is a long-term reference tool. The one drawback to the book is that it lacks any color to help brighten some of the many examples he creates. However, this loss is offset by the affordable price of the book and in the long run does not detract from its usefulness. For anyone who wants an accessible text they can grow with, Schafer's book is their answer.

We've been in the web development business for over 11 years and have watched so much change in that time. We're often asked what tools are vital to learning how to work in our field. Many from the 'bible' series books have been on our office shelves over the years. This one is the latest to actually take up residence on each of our desks as a regular reference tool. Buy it, use it, use those nifty post-it flags & highlighters all over it, and when the pages start falling out, tape them back in & keep using it. As for the bad reviews - my suggestion is that if you're advanced in HTML or looking for advanced techniques in CSS there are books for that, too. It takes an entire library of reference books to stay up with all the changes & aspects of this industry, and as you grow beyond the levels found here add to your collection, but this one really is important to your library!

This up to date HTML coding book is a good one. It gives you an inside look at HTML4 and also goes into some of the key elements that HTML 5 will hold. I am pleased with the book, and I feel you would be also. Anyone wanting to learn HTML 4, and be able to write code, using CSS, and HTML 4 and going into 5 will benefit from the information provided.

I bought a dutch translation of this book, and was rather disappointed. I wanted to learn more about xhtml, to be able to work on my own website, and not having to ask a friend for every little change I wanted to make.
In my opinion the book clearly lacks good editing work. For instance on parts where certain elements are introduced, the authors start elaborating on styles. This complicates things a lot, because explaining styles should be reserved for the chapters that are devoted to it.
Where it says in the first chapter that layout and content should be separated, they give examples where there is layout mixed with the content. This doesn't make it easy to develop my own writing of html.
The meaning of document type definitions didn't become clear to me, because they use different type definitions throughout the text. So as a beginner I can't follow any more...

I'll do my best to go learning with this book, but if you still have to decide which one to buy...

This is a bible for beginners, written in clean and simple language. For me, it has been the ideal reference. For somebody just beginning in web design, I recommend pairing "Head First HTML..." with this book, as the "Head First" series takes more time teaching certain basic concepts.

It is both a reference and a chapter by chapter teaching guide. All in all, it has been very helpful.

It's easy to read, full of useful information, and up to date. It is well written and has great examples.


I don't know what more to say. If you are interested in using HTML/XHTML or CSS, I'd say this is a very valuable book to own.


Jenn
ihatechunli@yahoo.com