Customer Reviews

Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide

5 star:		(87)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When I started browsing Amazon for a CSS book appropriate for a beginner, I was overwhelmed by just how many there are out there! I read all the reviews and such, but could not really determine any major difference between the books or figure out which ones were `better than the others.

I decided that in order to make my decision I was going to have to flip through the books a little myself before purchasing. I took my little list to the local bookstore, gathered all of them up, and plopped down on a couch. I flipped through about 6 different books including Designing with Web Standards, CSS Core, CSS Cookbook, Beginning CSS, both Eric Meyer books, and of course, Stylin' with CSS.

I really didn't expect much from this book, I kind of grabbed it as an afterthought, or "might as well..."
I spent a good hour or so browsing the table of contents, reading bits and pieces of each book to get a feel for the author's style. I have to say I was not impressed with most of these, particularly the Eric Meyer books that so many people seem to swear by. My decision came down to Stylin' With CSS or Designing with Web Standards by Dan Cedarholm.

I chose Stylin' with CSS for several reasons. For one, Charles Wyke-Smith has a great, easy style of writing and explaining the concepts behind the rules of CSS. CSS is not overly difficult, but there is a learning curve and Wyke-Smith breaks it down into plain English. Secondly, the organization of the book is probably the most logical among the CSS books. It is not a reference book, as there are thorough explanations, but it is organized like a reference- by topic, in a sensible order. This makes it not only easy to follow the first time around, but makes it much easier to jump back to as a reference when needed. The quick reference chart in the back also comes in handy, and this book stays next to my computer at all times. Lastly, the page layout of the book is also visually appealing. It's not a picture book, but it doesn't look like a dictionary either. There's just the right amount of helpful images and screenshots, as well as colored text to differentiate code from explanations.

This book is the best that I can recommend for getting started in CSS. I can honestly say that my purchase was the best $20 I've ever spent on web design.

Stylin' has easy to understand examples, and gets straight to the point. If anyone wants to learn CSS, in an easy and none confusing way, I really recommend this book. Unlike other books I read on the subject, books that tend to overwhelm the reader with un-necessities, Stylin' gets to the heart of what's important and provides examples of how to do the design.

I originally pursued this book because I wanted to learn how to design web pages without using tables, and this book has helped me tremendously. It's a starter book, not an advanced. But after reading, you'll be designing web pages properly using cascading style sheets for presentation, and XHTML for content.

If you are a beginner or an intermediate user who wants to learn CSS from the ground up this is simply the best source out there.
I got this book two days ago and I did not stop reading it since.
It is very well written - detailed, funny, interesting and it does not treat you like a CSS dummy, but like someone who has to learn this skills to apply it in practice.

Its use of visuals, step-by-step examples and supporting tips is excellent.

If you are looking to learn CSS styling, specially for business applications - buy this book. I also liked "Eric Myer on CSS" book, but that one was more design oriented, and less pedagogical.

I had already some HTLM background, at least enough to build some basic personal sites, but almost no CSS knowledge. I wanted to get rid of using tables in my layouts, get a more consistent look throughout the different browsers and also benefit from the separation of content and markup. CSS does all those things for you.

I found this book a solid introduction to CSS. In fact, it is probably only an introduction for professionals, because for those that want to create small to medium sized web-sites, I believe the material contained in the book is all you need, not only an introduction.

I like very much the author writing style; The book contains a lot of images that really helps you understand what he is trying to explain; There is a lot of references to web-sites where you can find more information for a specific topic; He explains why to use this or that and why some features do not work with Internet Explorer and how to fix it; There is a web-site for the book where you can download all the examples and templates he uses in the book.

I recommend this book for everyone starting with CSS.


As by the time I am writing this review we can not see inside the book, I am adding some insight of the contents of each chapter.

The first chapter, Giving Structure to Content, gives you a quick overview of XHTML and explains why do you need CSS and what it can do for you. Even though it's a good idea to have some previous knowledge of HTML/XHTML, the first chapter does a good job on giving you the basis that is explored in the next chapters, so one can understand the book without even having much knowledge of HTML/XHTML.

The second chapter, How CSS Works, explains how to use CSS in your XHTML pages (inline, embeded and linked styles), how to target tags within your document hierarchy (contextual selectors, class, ids, universal selector, attribute selectors, pseudo-classes, etc.), among other things like inheritance and the cascade rules.

The third chapter, Stylin' Fonts and Text, talks about all the font and text properties, like sizing, font-style, text-indent, letter spacing, etc. There is a lot of good information about why and when to use certain styles and fonts.

The fourth chapter, Positioning Elements, explains the box model and the static, relative, absolute and fixed positionning options. It also shows how to use floated elements and the clear property, that can be used to create column layouts.

The fifth chapter, Basic Page Layout, shows how to use all the knowledge of the previous chapters to build two and three column layouts using absolute positioning and the float/clear methods.

The sixth chapter, Advanced Page Layout, starts talking about backgrounds and expand to advanced layouts with fluid center layouts and negative margins layout.

The seventh chapter, Creating Interface Components, shows how to use lists to build navigation bars and CSS based drop-down menus. It also talks about how to control the formatting of forms, radio buttons, form select, and other things.

Finally the last chapter, Building Web Sites, walks you through the task of getting a template of a three column layout, that you learned how to build in the preceeding chapters, and transforming this template into a professionally looking web-site.

Reviewed by Jim Lauria HuNTUG member

"Stylin' is also a very practical book, from which it is very easy to take ideas and code for your own work."

Right from the introduction to the CSS Properties and Values appendix this book is a winner. Charles Wyke-Smith does an excellent job of getting into the meat of CSS from theory and W3C rules of syntax to step-by-step how to's for creating layouts, including tricks and shortcuts.

The writing style is informal and informative by an author who obviously knows his stuff.
For example:
A simple two-column layout-Smith describes "the document should be styled to look like this
< body >
< div id="nav" >..." etc. providing all the necessary code
and finishes the example with "It looks like this in the browser" with a screenshot

Smith covers CSS rules, drop-down menus, text formatting, 2 and 3 column layouts, advanced page layout, element positioning and background image element additions to text and links. The appendix lists all CSS properties and values in a table from W3 Schools.

He is also not shy about scolding Microsoft about it's adherance to a non-standards past-he tells the reader when a CSS feature may have some trouble with MS, It Doesn't Work in Microsoft Internet Explorer aka "IDWIMIE". He does however mention workarounds or hacks.

The book level is marked beginning/intermediate and it is so. It is an excellent text for beginners and has plenty of good stuff for those who have some web design/Cascading Style Sheet experience as well.
A good reference.
I rate this title 5 stars.

Title: Stylin' with CSS
Author: Charles Wyke-Smith
Publisher: New Riders
ISBN: 0-321-30525-6
Pages: 265 pages
Reviewer: Philip High
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I admit it. I'd rather read a really good "How To" book than the latest "Whatever Code" adventure. And for me, this title did not disappoint. Early into the attractive and logically designed pages I would have enthusiastically given out 5 stars. Unfortunately I had to pull back from that a little for a couple of reasons I will go into later. Still, for content and readability I would not hesitate to recommend this book.

I have been using CSS styles and style sheets for 6 or 7 years via Macromedia's Dreamweaver. Yet, I always felt I wasn't really maximizing their potential. And after reading this book I confess, I was basically clueless! Now I am enlightened; let the brethren rejoice. From now on, content and presentation will be safely segregated in my brain and on my web pages. Well, actually it might take a while to reach this Valhalla, but such is the quest of "Stylin' with CSS."

All of the essentials for implementing the power of Cascading Style Sheets are here. From basic text styles to total page control, including multi-column fluid layouts with drop-down roll-over menus floating in the horizontal center of a vertically tiled background image -- Charles Wyke-Smith has got you covered. And any "deeper knowledge" not encoded here is conveniently referenced in the text and in the many, actually informative, sidebars. Can I get a witness?

Yes, the information is abundant. But, what really sets this book apart is the writing. The style is both clear and entertaining with the lessons building skillfully and solidly on each other. Code examples are helpfully separated from the text by paragraph style, font, and color, with new lines highlighted in red each time they are added. The author also makes use of the time-honored teaching technique of "tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em - tell 'em - then tell 'em what you just told 'em." Sound boring and redundant? Actually it's very effective and herewith handled transparently so that you don't even mind having your ignorance thrice pummeled!

I also appreciated the writer going beyond just the "how" of rules to include illuminating bits of "why," such as the move to XHTML and the rationale behind a "web standards" approach that separates content from presentation (to accommodate multiple platforms and media). And, do you know what pseudo-classes really are besides esoteric cryptology? They are styles that cause rules to be applied dynamically when certain events occur! Amazing!

Now for the stale bread and whiney part. The subtitle says this book is written for designers (i.e. me) but the examples are less than inspiring visually. I know, it's for clarity and focus. But at least a little "dazzle" would help to motivate the sometimes nodding back row. Thankfully there are some inspiring sites referenced for your own research. OK, forgiven. But the worst sin is that the glorious path to stylistic freedom is littered with piles of typos! I'm not just talking about the odd gum wrapper here. Sometimes it gets a little confusing and definitely distracting. Perhaps this is the result of contemporary budgets and schedules that have replaced hands-on editors with spell-check, but maybe we should reconsider and S L O W D O W N just a little.

I realize I point this out at my own peril as a frequent offender myself, but then nobody is paying to read this! To be fair, this is not the only book or publisher that suffers in this way. It's practically a trend! The author has gracefully acknowledged the problem on the related website and asked for feedback to improve the next edition. That website, by-the-way, also contains very helpful downloads of the written examples. So heaven smiles again. Final judgment -- if you are a designer with beginning to intermediate web building skills and are interested in the fundamentals of CSS -- get this book. Amen.

With an intermediate skill set in CSS, I found this book to be average. It is geared more towards beginners. I found several errors which I reported to the publisher and learned that the book had a tight production schedule.

If you have intermediate skills, don't bother with this book. If you're a novice, you will find it's easy-to-read style helpful to learning CSS.

Wanna actually learn CSS in the shortest time possible and start building websites that break free from table-based layout? This is the book.

The author explains and illustrates how to take CSS to the next level and does it in a way that makes learning an enjoyable experience. I've already started to recommend this book to my friends and colleagues, and I've started using its principles in my own work. I wish other webdev books were as well-thoughtout and crystalized in their focus as this one.

I rarely write book reviews, but I've gotten so much out of this one I just have to let you know.

If you haven't bought a CSS book yet, buy this one. If you have bought one, put it down and read this one first. I've been a software developer for many years. I've read many of the CSS books out there. This one is the best. It takes a lot of complicated information and organizes it in bite size chucks.

There is a great deal of useful examples and source code to experiment with. Lots of help on dealing with browser quirks.

In short, if I had to have just one book on CSS, this would be it! Kudos to Charles Wyek-Smith for writing such a useful text on CSS.

I'm only at page 53 of this book and already I know it is one of the best instructional books I have ever read. Charles has the all-to-rare ability to put himself exactly in the place of the person who doesn't know much about the subject and lead them through it. He is excellent at EXPLAINING things. Doesn't assume that you understand the difference between p.mydef and p#mydef without being told, as others do! (OK, you can backwards-figure it by seeing how mydef is referenced, but it's a detour from the forward path you want to follow.)

Also, he is very thorough. I had already done some work with other books on CSS, but only here - and already in Chapter 2, at that! - did I encounter pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements - very interesting and I can see why he says he will make more use of them later on.

Small niggle: the site for the download of the code is not really prominently given, just mentioned in a paragraph of the Introduction: it's www.bbd.com/stylin. You need the download, because he doesn't reproduce it all in the book - that's probably why the size (and therefore the price) is reasonable for a full-color book. The color of course is immensely helpful. It's pretty silly when some books say "so this will turn word A red and word B green" and show you a black-and-white illustration.

Also, you can experiment with the examples - you can learn a lot that way. (Tip: my favorite editor for that is EditPlus - fast, simple, with nice helpful color-coding but no annoying auto-insert of closing tags, like VS.Net - which is overkill for this kind of exercise anyway, of course).

It's worthwhile to have the major browsers available for testing. I have IE 6, Firefox, and Opera, and that certainly shows up the deficiencies of IE! Now I understand why hard-core Web jockeys are so scornful of IE. It simply fails to implement lots of the CSS standards. My default browser has been Firefox for a while and I'm not going back.

I have lots of programming experience, from mainframe to VB.NET, with plenty of XML, which naturally helps, but never really got into Web UI and applications, beyond basic HTML and some code-based IP communications using objects from System.Web: finally decided a skills upgrade was in order. This book is a great step in the path I'm following from XHTML thru CSS to ASP.NET. Recommended.