Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)) [Paperback]

Jennifer Niederst (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0596009879 | ISBN-13: 978-0596009878 | Edition: Third Edition

Are you still designing web sites like it's 1999? If so, you're in for a surprise. Since the last edition of this book appeared five years ago, there has been a major climate change with regard to web standards. Designers are no longer using (X)HTML as a design tool, but as a means of defining the meaning and structure of content. Cascading Style Sheets are no longer just something interesting to tinker with, but rather a reliable method for handling all matters of presentation, from fonts and colors to the layout of the entire page. In fact, following the standards is now a mandate of professional web design.

Our popular reference, Web Design in a Nutshell, is one of the first books to capture this new web landscape with an edition that's been completely rewritten and expanded to reflect the state of the art. In addition to being an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, this book also provides an overview of the unique requirements of designing for the Web and gets to the nitty-gritty of JavaScript and DOM Scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. It is an indispensable tool for web designers and developers of all levels.

The third edition covers these contemporary web design topics:

• Structural layer: HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 (9 chapters), including an alphabetical reference of all elements, attributes and character entities
• Presentation layer: Ten all-new chapters on Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2.1, including an alphabetical reference of all properties and values.
• Behavior layer: JavaScript and scripting with the Document Object Model (DOM)
• Web environment: New web standards, browsers, display devices, accessibility, and internationalization
• Web graphics optimization: Producing lean and mean GIF, JPEG, PNG, and animated GIFs
• Multimedia: Web audio, video, Flash, and PDF

Organized so that readers can find answers quickly, Web Design in a Nutshell, Third Edition helps experienced designers come up to speed quickly on standards-based web design, and serves as a quick reference for those already familiar with the new standards and technology.

There are many books for web designers, but none that address such a wide variety of topics. Find out why nearly half a million buyers have made this the most popular web design book available.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jennifer Niederst Robbins was one of the first designers for the Web. As the designer of O'Reilly's Global Network Navigator (GNN), the first commercial web site, she has been designing for the Web since 1993. Since then, she has worked as the creative director of Songline Studios (a former subsidiary of O'Reilly) and as a freelance designer and consultant since 1996. She is the author of the bestselling "Web Design in a Nutshell" and "Learning Web Design (O'Reilly), and she has taught web design at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and Johnson and Wales University in Providence. She has spoken at major design and Internet events including SXSW Interactive, Seybold Seminars, the GRAFILL conference (Geilo, Norway), and one of the first W3C International Expos. In addition to designing, Jennifer enjoys cooking, travel, indie-rock, and making stuff. She maintains her own professional web site at http://www.littlechair.com as well.

Product Details

• Paperback: 826 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Third Edition edition (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596009879
• ISBN-13: 978-0596009878
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #36 in Books > Computers & Technology > Web Development > Web Services
  • #62 in Books > Computers & Technology > Home Computing > Internet

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential update of a good book on web design technologies, November 12, 2006

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

This book focuses on frontend matters of web design and development: markup, style sheets, image production, multimedia, and so on. Ironically, despite its title, there is little in the way of "design" advice, per se. Rather, it strives to be a thorough reference for the technical details and requirements faced in day-to-day work designing and developing web content. Although it is a good introduction to all subjects covered, if you really want to dig into the details of any particular technology, you will probably need other reference books. As far as "big picture" instruction, though, I highly recommend it. I review the book further in the context of its table of contents. The book is divided into six parts plus appendixes, each covering a general subject area.

Part I: The Web Environment
Chapter 1, Web Standards, describes the current approach to web design and sets the stage for the entire book. It is essential reading. Chapters on designing for varying browsers and displays provide useful overviews of the unique challenges web developers face. Chapter 5, Accessibility, and Chapter 6, Internationalization, both serve as introductions to the ways web content may be created to reach all users, regardless of ability, browsing device, or language. Chapter 4, A Beginner's Guide to the Server, is a primer on basic server functions, system commands, uploading files, and file types.

Part II: The Structural Layer: XML and (X)HTML
This part of the book is about document markup, commonly referred to as the structural layer because it provides the foundation upon which presentation (styles) and behaviors (scripting) are applied. Chapter 7, Introduction to XML, covers critical concepts that guide the way (X)HTML is handled in contemporary web design. Chapters 8 through 15 focus on HTML and XHTML markup, including detailed descriptions of all the elements and the way they should be used in standards-based web design.

Part III: The Presentation Layer: Cascading Style Sheets
Part III provides a thorough guide to using CSS for controlling the presentation of web content with a focus on visual media. It begins with an overview of the fundamentals in Chapter 16 and continues on with an introduction to CSS selectors in Chapter 17. Chapters 18 through 23 provide detailed descriptions of all the visual properties in the CSS 2.1 specification. Finally, examples of how CSS is used in the real world are provided in CSS Techniques (Chapter 24) and Managing Browser Bugs: Workarounds, Hacks, and Filters (Chapter 25).

Part IV: The Behavioral Layer: JavaScript and the DOM
Part IV is all about adding interactivity to your pages with JavaScript. Chapter 26 is an introduction to JavaScript, and covers syntax, control structures, object-orientation, and the whys and hows of unobtrusive scripting. Chapter 27 introduces the Document Object Model and shows how to tap into it to manipulate both content and design. As a supplement to Chapter 27,a brief introduction to Ajax techniques is included that will help you on your way to building richer Internet applications.

Part V: Web Graphics
The chapters in Part V contain essential information on working with RGB color and choosing the appropriate graphic file formats. The chapters dedicated to GIF, JPEG, and PNG graphics offer practical tips for graphic production and optimization based on the compression schemes used by each format. The Animated GIFs chapter is a further examination of GIF's animation capabilities.

Part VI: Media
Because the Web is not limited to text and images, Part VI is included to provide a basic introduction to adding audio, video, and Flash movies to web pages. There is also a chapter on printing from web pages using print-specific CSS style sheets as well as an introduction to the PDF format for document distribution.

Appendixes
The Appendixes in this book are very useful. Appendix A is an alphabetical listing of all elements and attributes in the HTML 4.01 Recommendation, as well as a few nonstandard elements that are well supported and in common use. Appendix B is an alphabetical listing of all properties defined in the CSS 2.1 specification. Appendix C lists all the character entities defined in HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 with their numerical references. Appendix D provides a detailed explanation of the color names and RGB color values used both in (X)HTML and CSS. Finally, Appendix E describes the future of XHTML and Microformats.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Update to an Already Excellent Reference, July 26, 2006

By 

Todd Hawley (San Francisco CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

As another reviewer has pointed out, it's difficult to write a review for a book that is a reference book. But oh, what a reference book this is. If you do any web design work, you need this book. It covers virtually everything a web designer needs to know/or to be able to refer to. Among the topics Robbins covers are XHTML, CSS, web design standards, also mentions XHTML 1.1, DOM, JavaScript and so forth. While some topics are given a brief mention, that's only because a full description of some of them (like DOM) would take a book of their own.

Part 1 (the Web Environment) takes on topics like designing for different browsers (which can be a challenge with all the different web browsers and versions around), "A beginner's guide to the server," which explains basic web server topics, and internationalization.

Then it's on to The Structural Layer of XML & XHTML in Part 2. It starts off with an intro to XML and then into a HTML & XHTML overview. I liked how Robbins took the time to explain XHTML 1.1 and various new and upcoming standards, it's one of the reasons why I got this book. As a part time web designer, I want to keep up on the latest trends and make sure my web sites are up to date and will appear as they should on both newer and older browsers. There's also sections that explain text elements, images and objects, tables, frames (even if frames are "frowned upon" nowadays).

Part 3 is devoted to Cascading Style Sheets, some ten chapters worth. This I feel is a very good thing, since they've become a vital part of web design.

Subsequent sections of the book touch on JavaScript, DOM, Web Graphics, even Web audio and video.

If you don't have this book you need to get it, it's that's comprehensive a reference.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Standard Reference Updated!, July 6, 2006

By 

Warren Kelly (Southern Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

It is hard to write a review for a book that is in essence a reference guide. In it's third edition, Web Design in a Nutshell has become a go-to book for many web designers. However, its strength is that it's accessible for anyone who wants to learn about web design, and creating standards-compliant content - even beginners.

Robbins does an outstanding job at first defining what "standards-compliant" actually means, and why anyone should care. With the number of Internet browsers out there, web designers want to make sure that the pages they create are viewable by everyone, not just the people who have the latest browser, or the most popular, or the "hippest." The person who can't access your site easily is the person who will leave the site and not come back - not good news to businesses that depend on their web sites for customers.

To that end, Robbins also shows the importance of gathering visitor stats - not just to brag about how many unique hits or repeat visitors you get, but also to make sure that the people who are coming to your site can actually view it the way you designed it. The statistics you collect should not only show which browser the visitor used, but what display setting they used, so that you can design the site with the correct resolution in mind.

I think that the most valuable aspect of the book is its breadth. Robbins covers XML, HTML, and CSS (which are expected), JavaScript, DOM scripting, graphics, color schemes, and multimedia. She admits when things aren't covered in detail, and refers the reader to other reference works that will give a more in depth treatment of the subject.

Web Design in a Nutshell has been a standard reference for web designers since 1998. This third edition is revised enough that it keeps the book current, but retains the layout and style of the older editions. Experienced designers will feel instantly comfortable with this latest edition, and novice designers will welcome this handy, easy-to-use reference work.