Customer Reviews

Special Edition Using Html 4

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I purchased this book because I had the 5th Edition and a colleague bought it off me. Fortunately I couldn't get version 5.0 and had to buy this one. I found both versions to be extremely powerful reference books with excellent explanations on cutting edge technology. It's such a great reference I take it everywhere - I tested all references to CSS1 and CSS2 and produced extensive examples in different browsers for useability. I have just finished designing over a 1000 page set of Web guidelines for designers at basic, intermediate and advanced level for a big company and this tome has proved invaluable for cross referencing. My co/writer and I, don't refer to the title of the book but simply quote 'Molly' - as far as were concerned she can't do no wrong. I thoroughly recommend the book and will continue to support the Author in future publications. Money well spent! especially at Amazon's Price.

This is the book that taught me HTML. It took me from barely knowing what a table is to building complex sites by hand. It doesn't (and can't) cover absolutely everything in-depth, but the writing is clear and the examples are descriptive. I couldn't have asked for a better teaching tool, and I still refer to it almost every time I code.

I read this book from cover to cover. After reading this book you will know: Basic HTML. How to use CSS. What is XML, VRML, DHTML, CGI...(major web technologies). How to desing Web sites. How to publish you Web site to the Web. You won't know: Advanced HTML. How to make forms. You will have: A great reference to HTML 4 and CCS.(The most valuable part of the book, about 200 pages.) A CD with many shareware programs mentioned in the book. This book is simply too thick. By reading it, you can see how the author tries to make it longer. If you need a good HTML 4 reference, buy it. If you want learn a lot of HTML, pick another book. If you got all those little questions about the computer screen, resolution, browsers, colors, graphic files, scanning for the web, if you want to make your Web site look good on as many platforms and browsers as possible, buy this book.

I have been working with and teaching HTML 4.X for over a year now and I finally found the go to reference book. Finally there is a manual that not only covers HTML 4 but also gives you step by step instructions as well.

IN the book you will learn tags, attributes and values to masking a better web page. You find information about structure of the document, what to do to format and align text as well as lists.

Also covered are topics like images, links, fonts, CSS, tables, frames, forms, JavaScript, DHTML, XHTML and XML, colors, graphics, image maps, animations, video audio, plugins, ASP, CGI, databases, e-commerce, intranets and extranets and finally publishing, this covers over 1,050 pages.

The cd-rom that comes with the book included the following: DreamWeaver 2, Homesite 4, HotDog Pro 5.5, MapEdit 2.6, FireWorks2, Flash 4, Netscape 4.7, IE 5, ColdFusion 4.0.1 and other utilities. Most of the software on the cd is in demo version. Overall a very good book for the money.

I have found this book and the previous edition very helpfull, to start to teach me web-development. As a programmer I sometimes found certain aspects given to much discussion, but I kept in mind that the book had to be written for everbody. The book covers all the web-stuph I know off, some in more depth, others not so much. What I did like is that it did cover everything, and topics that wasn't discusses in depth, at least gave me idea of the technologies capabilities. No book can cover everything in depth and I found it a great book to start web-development with.

This book attempts to do too much. The title is a misnomer -- it covers topics well beyond HTML, including JavaScript, CGI, WYSIWYG, and database -- none in sufficient detail to be meaningful. Lots of superficial overviews with bits of flashy code and screen shots. No beginner could pick up this book and implement any techniques without additional resources; no intermediate or expert builder will find enough to be satisfied.

I found this book to be a thorough and comprehensive lesson on understanding and using HTML 4. I started from ground zero and feel that I could competently create decent web pages now (with the book as reference, of course). I also feel like I know the author because of her very personable style in writting this book. This helped in maintaining my interest. It wasn't dry or boring. ...Now if Molly would only write a book on Java for beginners!

For my money and time, the gold contained in this book is not worth the digging. The reason I say it is like a textbook, is that textbooks often seem to not be written so that the reader will be able to be quickly productive.

The section on DHTML spends some pages looking at DHTML in IE, but none specifically looking at DHTML in Netscape. (In the book's defense I will point out it is about HTML 4, which is a standard not completely adoped by MS or Netscape; it is not about being productive with the HTML used by IE and Netscape.)

Serious developers please note the following two quotes: From page 51, "However, if you're in a professional situation, you're going to have to ask your HTML expert to sweep up some of the code mess conversion utilities create and add your graphics and code by hand anyway." From page 413, "It's perfectly possible to call a function from inside itself as well as from inside another one. This is called recursion, and it is a risky thing to do."

All in all, I did not find this book to be in the least concise, and found it to be superficial in its covering anything beyond what I, as a developer, would consider basic HTML.

I received this book for Christmas and thought it would be like most other HTML books, rather "incomplete", as in skipping around and not really covering the topics. But, I was terribly wrong! I have been using it for 4 days now, and have read every piece of information on the 165 pages I have consumed hungrily.

Even though I already know HTML, this book helped me realise, that, since I taught myself HTML by looking at other people's pages, I learned a slap-dash method, and when I read this book I see all the places where I've gone wrong.

It is extremely thorough, and covers all topics you could possibly need to know about HTML 4.0. I think the CD is an extremely good idea, because I didn't have an editing environment already, and I sure didn't have any of the animation tools I will need later on in the book! So, now, I'm fully equipped (as they say).

I would reccommend this book to any novice through advanced reader. Everyone can learn something from this book, and have fun doing it! I never thought I would enjoy going through and taking notes and highlighting a 1,000+ page book, but I LOVE IT! I come back from my run every morning and dash to the computer and start working in this book. Please consider this book before any other!

This book is very informative. All of the coding samples and step by step tutorials help. You could not find a better book.