Smashing CSS: Professional Techniques for Modern Layout (Smashing Magazine Book Series) [Paperback]

Eric Meyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2010 | ISBN-10: 047068416X | ISBN-13: 978-0470684160 | Edition: 1

PROFESSIONAL TECHNIQUES FOR MODERN LAYOUT

Smashing CSS takes you well beyond the basics, covering not only the finer points of layout and effects, but introduces you to the future with HTML5 and CSS3. Very few in the industry can show you the ins and outs of CSS like Eric Meyer and inside Smashing CSS Eric provides techniques that are thorough, utterly useful, and universally applicable in the real world. From choosing the right tools, to CSS effects and CSS3 techniques with jQuery, Smashing CSS is the practical guide to building modern web layouts.

With Smashing CSS you will learn how to:

• Throw elements offscreen/hide them
• Create body/HTML backgrounds in XHTML
• Usemore than 15 layout techniques including clearfix, two/three simple columns, faux columns, One True Layout, Holy Grail, em-based layout, fluid grids, sticky footers, and more
• Use a variety of CSS effects including CSS popups, boxpunching, rounded corners, CSS sprites, Sliding Doors, Liquid Bleach, ragged floats, and more
• Apply CSS table styling including using thead, tfoot, and tbody, row headers, column-oriented styling (classes); styling data tables with jQuery, tables to graphs, tables to maps; and more
• Use CSS3 elements including rounded corners, multiple backgrounds, RGBA, using jQuery to do CSS3 selections and so much more.

Eric Meyer is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards, and has been working on the Web since 1993. Smashing CSS is for developers who already have some experience with CSS and JavaScript and are ready for more advanced techniques.

Smashing Magazine (smashingmagazine.com) is one of the world's most popular web design sites. True to the Smashing mission, the Smashing Magazine book series delivers useful and innovative information to Web designers and developers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eric Meyer is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards, and has been working on the Web since 1993. Smashing CSS is for developers who already have some experience with CSS and JavaScript and are ready for more advanced techniques.

Smashing Magazine (smashingmagazine.com) is one of the world's most popular web design sites. True to the Smashing mission, the Smashing Magazine book series delivers useful and innovative information to Web designers and developers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (November 9, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047068416X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470684160
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #321,998 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #67 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > CSS

More About the Author

Eric A. Meyer starting working on the web in late 1993. A past member of the CSS Working Group, he is the author of several acclaimed CSS books as well as many articles on CSS and web standards. More recently, he co-founded the conference series An Event Apart with Jeffrey Zeldman and speaks about web standards all over the world. In recognition of his work, he was inducted into the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences in 2006.

A longtime resident of Cleveland, Ohio--which is a much nicer city than you've been led to believe--Eric used to be a weekly radio presence on WRUW 91.1-FM with a show covering the Big Band era. He now spends most of his free time reading, searching out great dishes, and playing with his wife and daughters.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but a little buggy January 11, 2011

By Ghost

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The content of this book is very informative and it's nice to have all the techniques together in a single volume. However, the examples do not always work the way the author intended so hopefully an errata will be published very soon. Also, the code examples on the companion web site are incomplete; it would have been useful to have completed examples available for testing purposes.

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst Eric Meyer book February 11, 2011

By Dessie

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is by far the worst Eric Meyer book ever. What were they thinking? This book recaps CSS techniques from Eric and others that have been in use for years! A majority if not all of this information is readily available on the internet and some of it is very old.

Smashing CSS: Professional Techniques for Modern Layout

CSS3 is the biggest thing to hit the web and there are only a few pages dealing with CSS3. OK so the book should be about quality layout techniques. CSS3 will include columns and layered (multiple) backgrounds. I was blown away by the lack CSS3 subject matter. This is not a book for those who have been using CSS for some time (you will know this stuff or be able to find it on the web) nor is it a book for beginners.

There are several other books out there that are better. If you are wanting to learn CSS3 I would try the Visual Quick Start guide by Jason Cranford Teague. I do fault it, because the title is CSS3 and the book is not devoted to CSS3 alone.

I have the impression this book was just thrown together for the purpose of people like me who try to absorb as much information as possible.

Look else where for your CSS or CSS3 knowledge.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect book for those just learning CSS May 10, 2011

By Webuquerque

Format:Paperback

This is a very different sort of book by Eric Meyer. Not in subject matter, of course, but in tone and purpose. Instead of his previous rather pedantic and encyclopedic listing of every thing you might ever want to know about CSS, this book is light, humorous, and organized to be read from front to back.

If you've been paying attention to CSS for the last few years, most of this book will be old news to you. But the book isn't aimed for those already literate with CSS. It's meant to help the newbie learn enough to master the basics and go on to create some cool looks and layouts with CSS. Every chapter has lots of examples, screen shots, code, and advice.

The first section starts right at the beginning with a chapter on Tools such as Firebug and SelectORacle. Chapter 2 talks about every kind of selector with advice about what works best when there is more than one way to accomplish something. The second section of the book deals with Essentials. In the chapter called Tips you learn about things like unitless line-height values, image replacement, and list styles. The chapter called Layouts reviews float containment and explains layouts like faux columns, liquid bleach, the one true layout, fluid grids, and the holy grail. In the Effects chapter he explains how to create an effect like his complex spiral. He also explains CSS pop-ups, menus, rounded corners, sprites, sliding doors, parallax, ragged floats, and constrained images.

The final section of the book is Cutting Edge, in which he moves away from reviewing the foundation CSS knowledge of the past and jumps into new ideas. There's a chapter on Tables that shows new techniques for styling tables. He gives tips on using head, body and foot for table design and shows how to use a table to make a graph or provide data on a map. The final chapter is Cutting Edge. This chapter looks at HTML5, media queries, occasional children, occasional columns, RGBa, shadows, multiple backgrounds and transforms.

From a web education perspective, this would be an excellent book for teaching a CSS class.

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A Webuquerque community member review by Virginia DeBolt