Customer Reviews

XHTML 1.0 Language and Design Sourcebook: The Next Generation HTML

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XHTML 1.0 Language And Design Sourcebook -- The Next Generation HTML Ian S. Graham John Wiley & Sons, 2000 ISBN: 0-471-37485-7 Paperback, 692 pages, ...XHTML 1.0 Language And Design Sourcebook -- The Next Generation HTML is an extraordinary book. Before I explain 'why' it may be necessary to explain 'what': What is XHTML?

Some months ago, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) replaced the HTML language with a more complex, subtle, precise, and powerful language called XHTML. In January of this year, another acronymic body, the OEB, selected XHTML to become the standard language for the world of publishing ebooks. XHTML works optimally with the new language called Cascading Style Sheets (or 'Style Sheets' for short, or 'CSS' for shorter), which not only yields handsome formatting features, but also allows designers to make instant updates throughout the website by simple changes via one master document.

HTML was relatively easy to learn and use, so why the change? ... XHTML documents are easily convertible to an influential language called XML. And XHTML documents will be readable by the plethora of new browsers: Braille, text-to-speech, TV browsers, browsers for PDAs, cell phone browsers, and more to come. While these benefits are appealing, they are useful only to those of us who become fluent in the new languages. Learning these new languages is the problem, and the solution is Graham's new book, devoted to the details of XHTML and CSS.

Let us return to our sheets. Aristotle, the great Greek Philosopher, once explained his literary method: "Think like a philosopher and speak like a common man." Throughout this work, Graham tackles all the intricacies of XHTML and CSS with this same kind of intelligent prose. The very first pages of the book's introduction, which describes the six components of the Internet, made me understand -- deeply understand for the first time -- the structure of the whole Internet. Each succeeding chapter confirmed this first impression: as a technical writer, Graham is a genius. He illustrates how each part fits snugly into a greater whole; he anticipates every one of his readers' questions; and he explains how things work -- the easy, the uneasy, and everything in between -- with a style that is patient, vivid, easy to follow, brilliantly clear.

Graham begins by exploring markup languages in general, then gives the best explanation that I have read anywhere about how to convert HTML documents to XHTML. The chapters that follow delve into CSS details, progressively moving from the simpler topics to ones which are more complex. After thorough lessons in the how-to basics about all the essential CSS features, the book concludes with advanced Style Sheet tools, scripting, XHTML handled as XML, and a whole chapter containing all the elements and attributes in the latest specifications of XHTML 1.0 and HTML 4.01.

There's no CD-ROM with the book, but there's something even better: a companion website... which can be downloaded in less than five minutes. The site provides updates to the book, and codes for many of the book's examples.

Beginners and expert users will find here, in one book, everything they need to immediately begin writing simple and complex documents in XHTML and CSS. Clearly, as a comprehensive reference book as well as a lucid tutorial about the hottest Web topics in town, XHTML 1.0 LANGUAGE AND DESIGN SOURCEBOOK is headed straight for the computer bestseller lists, and for all the right reasons. We eagerly await the book's companion volume, The XHTML 1.0 Web Development Sourcebook, scheduled for release during this Summer, 2000.

Michael Pastore, Reviewer

Ever wondered what next after HTML 4.0.... There will not be a HTML 5.0. HTML is not extensible.... imagine needing new tags for some purpose,... you will be stuck with what is available in that version of HTML. Thus the need for an extensible markup language and hence the need for XHTML...

Whether you like it or not, XHTML which uses ideas from XML will be here to stay. This book is your key to learning XHTML, and also the explanation on style sheets are well done.

What I regard as good is the clear explanation provided by the author, with references to the coding in the book. I find line-by-line explanation of code the best way to know what is going on; in contrast, some authors do not provide detailed explanation and I think this will leave the reader unsure of some parts of coding.

Why code in this way and not in another way?--- Yes, it would be certainly enlightening to know answers to such a question. He does bring this up where appropriate. That is a plus, plus to me.

If you have a firm foundation of HTML and some basic knowledge of CSS, this book will be a gem to you, otherwise, if you do not know HTML well, XHTL is not for you yet and you cannot blame the author if you cannot understand (since you do not have the foundation).

After HTML, the next step is learning XHTML. This book will help you to see, appreciate and learn XHTML. Thanks Ian, for writing such a book !

This is a really good book for Web developers who really need to know the ins and outs of HTML (XHTML) and CSS--the book really does cover it all. Although I've been doing Web page design for some time, I actually learned a fair bit that I "thought" I knew, but didn't--and I am only part way through. In particular, the index is really good--I spend a lot of time trying to look things up and this one really helps.

I do website development and I found this book to be very helpful, both as a reference and as a learning tool for mastering this new version of the web page markup language. XHTML is pretty much the same as HTML except for a few syntactical changes, but its biggest innovation is XHTML's extensive use of cascading style sheets, which are a great advancement in web page markup in allowing much greater control over page design and management (change just one master style sheet and you can change the formatting of all pages that use the sheet). This book provides many examples of style sheets in action. Soon after reading a few chapters you will be incorporating some of them in your own webpages.

This work is filled with many examples that illustrate the sections in the book (all of the examples are downloadable for free from the author's website). It helps a great deal to see and experiment with actual examples that use the markup techniques the author discusses. This work is logically presented and clearly written, which is surely a virtue in technical books. The excellent job that the author did with this work makes me want to read the companion book, the Web Development Sourcebook. I would recommend this work to anyone who does website development or who wants to begin learning it.

Ian Graham is the only person to learn from. He walks the reader through each step of the learning process. He carefully explains each concept completely. Most importantly, he teaches the compatability problems elaments and attributes have with various browsers--this is the crux of any markup language. You must own Mr. Graham's books!

Without knowing any xHTML, but with some HTML background I was able to put together a full xHTML-strict compliant site. A good reference book as well as a teaching book.

This is the only book on XHTML/HTML I've looked at in much detail, so I've no basis for comparison. However, this book is packed with very useful information on the tags, attributes, and CSS properties. The examples are good and are nearly always provided with screenshots of the renderings in one or more browsers. Contains a good summary of CSS support by the major browsers.

My biggest complaint is that this book is rapidly falling apart! It is not from overuse. I have other paperback reference books that are older which I refer to more frequently that are fine. The binding on this one is failing fast.

Hey,

I read this book cover to cover, and learned a lot more about HTML and XHTML than ever before. This book is VERY technical and while it may not be that helpful to the novice, it is invaluable to intermediat - advanced/expert users. ***** A five star resou rce book! *****

In the world of web development it's becomming necessary to run faster and faster just to stand still. In our company we thought we had mastered HTML 4.0 and we're getting out heads around XML and now we find we already need to get ourselves up to speed on XHTML. The danger with books that document the 'leading edge' of development is that they often present the basics and the (potential) advantages of the new technology. Thankfully this book also manages to highlight some problem areas and suggest solutions. I'm impressed that such a good book on the subject has been developed and published so quickly.

Best book on XHTML around!