HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, Fifth Edition [Paperback]

Chuck Musciano (Author), Bill Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 059600382X | ISBN-13: 978-0596003821 | Publication Date: August 2002 | Edition: Fifth Edition

HTML and its XML-based descendant, XHTML, are the fundamental languages for working on the web, and the new edition of our popular HTML guide offers web developers a better way to become fluent in these languages. HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 5th Edition is the most comprehensive, up-to-date book available on HTML and XHTML. It covers Netscape Navigator 6, Internet Explorer 6, HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, CSS2, and all of the features supported by the popular web browsers.

Learning HTML and XHTML is like learning any new language. Most students first immerse themselves in examples. Studying others is a natural way to learn; however, it's as easy to learn bad habits through imitation as it is to acquire good ones. The better way to become HTML-fluent is through a comprehensive reference that covers the language syntax, semantics, and variations in detail and demonstrates the difference between good and bad usage.

In HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, the authors cover every element of HTML/XHTML in detail, explaining how each element works and how it interacts with other elements. Tips about HTML/XHTML style help you write documents ranging from simple online documentation to complex presentations. With hundreds of examples, the book gives you models for writing your own effective web pages and for mastering advanced features like style sheets and frames.

HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 5th Edition, shows how to:

• Use style sheets to control a document's appearance
• Work with programmatically generated HTML
• Create tables, from simple to complex
• Use frames to coordinate sets of documents
• Design and build interactive forms and dynamic documents
• Insert images, sound files, video, Java applets, and JavaScript programs
• Create documents that look good on a variety of browsers
• Make the transition to XHTML

The book comes with a handy quick-reference card listing HTML/XHTML tags.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Chuck Musciano has spent his life on the East Coast, having spent time in Maryland, Georgia, and New Jersey before acquiring a B.S. in computer science from Georgia Tech in 1982. Since then, he has resided in Melbourne, Florida, in the employ of Harris Corporation. He began his career as a compiler writer and crafter of tools and went on to join Harris' Advanced Technology Group to help develop large-scale multiprocessors. This led to a prolonged interest in user-interface research and development, which finally gave way to his current position, manager of UNIX Systems in Harris' Corporate Data Center. Along the way, he grew to know and love the Internet, having contributed a number of publicly available tools to the Net and started the still-running Internet Movie Ratings Report. The Web was a natural next step, and he has been running various Web sites within and without Harris for several years. Chuck has written on UNIX-related topics in the trade press for the past decade, most visibly as the "Webmaster" columnist for Sunworld Online (http://www.sun.com/sunworldonline). In his spare time he enjoys life in Florida with his wife Cindy, daughter Courtney, and son Cole.

Bill Kennedy is currently president and chief technical officer of ActivMedia, Inc., a new media marketing and marketing research company based in beautiful Peterborough, NH, but which conducts business with clients and associates from around the world primarily over the Internet (http://www.activmedia.com). When not hacking new HTML pages or writing about them, "Dr. Bill" (Ph.D. in biophysics from Loyola University of Chicago, of all things!) is out promoting a line of mobile, autonomous robots as real-world platforms for artificial intelligence and fuzzy logic research and for education (http://www.rwii.com). Or he's out drumming up writing assignments from his former colleagues at IDG's SunWorld/Advanced Systems Magazine (now SunWorld Online; http://www.sun.com), where he served as a senior editor-features (at-large over the Internet, of course) for nearly five years. Contact Dr. Bill directly at [e-mail].

Product Details

• Paperback: 800 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Fifth Edition edition (August 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 059600382X
• ISBN-13: 978-0596003821
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #471,429 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #76 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > XHTML

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but time for a new edition, September 3, 2004

By 

James R. Mccall (Libertyville, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, Fifth Edition (Paperback)

This is a fat book with a lot to like in it. The authors thoroughly explain HTML (and its recently-standardized twin XHTML) in its latest version (4.01). They also give a good explication of layout using the current standard (CSS2) of Cascading Style Sheets. They spend some time talking about embedded content such as pictures, Java applets and Javascript scripts. They look, too, at XML, which is the "meta-language" used to define XHTML.

At the time they wrote this book (2002) the versions of the standardized languages they discuss were in the avant-garde. But many of the old ways of doing things are now obsolete, and older browser versions gone. Unfortunately, the authors constantly advert to these early browser versions and their quirks, and spend much time discussing outmoded and non-standard techniques that by their own admission should be avoided. (Let me emphasize that they whole-heartedly approve of the direction away from non-standard and layout-laden HTML and toward the CSS approach.)

As it is, this book is quite usable whether you are writing old-fashioned HTML and loading your documents with physical layout instructions, or writing austere strict-version XHTML and restraining yourself to using style sheets to do layout. It has detailed essays on all the tags and a good chapter on CSS, and has useful appendices at the end for HTML grammer and tags, and for style sheet properties. It also has much that no longer applies. Perhaps the next edition will be less universally useful -- but also lighter.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the beginners book for learning HTML, September 13, 2002

By 

Golden Lion "Reader" (North Ogden, Ut United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, Fifth Edition (Paperback)

This is the beginners book for learning HTML. As a professional Web developer, I appreciate finding a book, with impact and difference, in my career; this is one of those books. Each chapter is filled with valuable technical content. The chapter information provides simple and understandable samples. Even if you know alittle about HTML and have been programming in html, its not a bad reference. For those without HTML programming experiece, you'll be programming in no time at all. HTML editors are great, but sometimes you just need to know the HTML language, to be an effective programmer. You'll find this book very useful. I don't believe any understand of HTML is necessary before purchasing this book. A novice can easily pickup the book, read the chapters, and start programming. I've use the bookly constantly to look html properties and assist in my daily programming. Occassionally, I find a tip or trick and will help me overcome a programming barrier. This is an excellent book for indepth study of HTML.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The values of each attribute shoud be added., September 26, 2002

By 

Y. Jiang (Alpharetta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, Fifth Edition (Paperback)

The book has a very completed list of all of the tags and their attributes. However, no possible values for the attributes are listed. For people to learn HTML or to use this book as a reference book, this information is very important.