Customer Reviews

HTML Pocket Reference

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A pocket guide to HTML that covers HTML 4.0. This is about the most useful book, in terms of daily use, that you could ever own on HTML. I give it 4 stars because of two problems:

- The tags are ordered alphabetically, which is good. But it would have been better if tags had a "related tags" item that listed tags that are relevant to the given tag. For example, <TABLE></TABLE> makes no mention of <TR></TR> and <TD></TD>... I realise that this is a reference and not a textbook, but it would add to the usefulness of this book immensely.

- Insufficient (close to none) information on styles. It would help a lot to make this reference self-contained, if each with each tag, there was a very brief description of the style components that control its look.

The character entity table is very useful, if incomplete. The colour chart is a nice and useful addition.

All in all, this is a VERY useful book. Get it and stop carrying around those heavy HTML tomes... My criticism is just meant for improving the next edition... (hint, hint, ... )

This book is the functional equivalent of those "quick reference cards" that come with software manuals. You won't learn HTML from it, but that's not really the point; the point is to look up information you know exists, but can't reasonably keep in your head.

For example, this book lists all HTML tags in alphabetical order, rather than grouping them functionally (except as almost an afterthought) - not really useful if you have no idea what tag to use in a given situation, but useful if you need to know what attributes you can specify for a tag and what browsers support those attributes. And it excels when you're analyzing the HTML structure of an existing page and you run across a tag you don't know or have never seen used in quite the way you're seeing it used.

Combine this with a complete list of character entities ("&" characters), decimal to hex conversions and colors by name, and put it all in a small, thin volume you can keep in your briefcase without having to make room for it, and you have a pretty useful reference. Four stars for being what it sets out to be; not as a substitute for a more comprehensive HTML book.

This book is essentially just an alphabetical list of most of the HTML tags and attributes. Each is explained briefly and the browsers that support each tag are listed. At the end of the book is a list of "tag groups" that group functionally related tags, a list of character entities, and a table of colors. If you're very familiar with HTML and just need this listing of tags and attributes, this is the book for you!

If you're not an HTML expert, however, this book might be more confusing that helpful. For example, if you want to center some text but you don't want to use the deprecated <center> tag, you need to know which tag to look up. There are few examples, so if you want to add a Java applet to a page, you need to already know what to put in the <object> tag. There's no description of the <!DOCTYPE> tag that all HTML 4 compliant web pages need. Much of the HTML in the book is not XHTML compliant. Although the book claims to cover every tag in HTML 4, there are some that it leaves out. And the only web site the book refers to is yet another alphabetical list of tags.

If you already know HTML well and have a good HTML reference book, this book will allow you to quickly look up information tags and attributes. But if you're not an expert and want to write good, clean HTML 4 compliant markup, save your money.

After being disappointed with the 1st edition of this book, I was looking forward to the 2nd edition, which I expected to be much improved. The new edition does contain improvements in some areas, but also has regressed in others.

For example, the book is updated for IE 6, but is missing information on which tags are supported in IE 5. New information on character entities was added, but all information on color names was removed. Tags missing from the 1st edition were added, but now the <img> tag is missing. Most disappointing is the fact that most of the errata and suggestions sent to O'Reilly on the 1st edition were ignored when creating the 2nd edition.

The end result is that the 2nd edition is no more helpful than the 1st. The book contains most of the information that experienced web designers need to write HTML, but you will need a more comprehensive book handy to look up information that is missing or inaccurate. If the book were updated according to the suggestions on the O'Reilly site and many examples added, it would be far more useful on its own.

Since 1994 I've been writing HTML code occasionally for my collection of websites. Most of the time I don't need a guide, but sometimes I've forgotten some color codes or attributes of the tags. That's why I keep this pocket guide within reach - in those cases I find the answer within the minute. It's the only HTML book I need, having a lot of HTML experience, that is. If you have less HTML experience, you probably need to look elsewhere.

Not recommended! How can you create a web page without images? The <IMG> tag has been overlooked. There are other errors as well. This "reference" may have been a little too quick.

Thats exactely what I have done, I have bought two of these. One for work and one for home. This is a must have for any web developer. Unless your one of those people that can memorize every single HTML tag and all of its attributes I strongly suggest you purchase this book. Every HTML tag is listen in alphabetical order and every attribute listed following it.

The only thing I could have asked for more would be a small example below the tags themselves. I have been writing HTML, ASP, JavaScript, and more for over 3 years now and I use this book almost every day. I refrence it to make sure all my attributes are cross browser compatible and that I have labeled them all correct.

This is definately a must have and make sure to keep it close.

I'm not a techno-wonk, but the Dummies book on HTML drove me nuts with all its cutesy explanation, and frankly I couldn't figure out what it was talking about. This book shows the tags, shows all your choices with each tag, period. Buy this book, read some source code on other people's sites to see what they did, and you're set.

The sample code for client-side image maps contains the following text:

USEMAP="map1"

However, this code does not produce any effect, and IE gives no hint as to why it does not work.

After about an hour of frustration, I finally noticed in another HTML book that the code should have been:

USEMAP="#map1"

It would have been faster to look in a less concise book.

I am generally a fan of Pocket References. But this one seems poorly debugged. One example is claiming "align" is deprecated for <td>. Turns out, this bug has made it onto the Errata page for the book

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/htmlpr2/errata/ ,

but only under "Unconfirmed error reports and comments from readers." If you write a buggy book, at least do the work to confirm bugs and fix them in new printings!