creative html design.2 (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Lynda Weinman (Author), William Weinman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0735709726 | ISBN-13: 978-0735709720 | Publication Date: April 17, 2001 | Edition: 2

It¿s time. International best-selling author, Lynda Weinman, circles back to update this HTML guide and to add her unique creative energy and wisdom to The first edition is best known for its unique quality of combining solid design with coding technique and HTML theory. This second edition will incorporate the significant changes in Web tools and technology since this original edition published in December 1997. Updated content includes coverage of Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, GoLive! and more! In standard Lynda Weinman style, you will find easy reading, straightforward talk - practical "how to's" that reads like you expect her to talk -- with just the right amount of coding and technical coverage to provide you with a solid HTML guide.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Who better to ease you into the detailed world of HTML coding (where even an errant spacebar can gum up your creative masterpiece) than well-known Web design instructor Lynda Weinman and her programmer brother, William. This book's first edition came out over 3 years ago, and the Web has changed a lot in that time. Novices will appreciate this HTML primer that not only helps in hand-coding Web pages but also in troubleshooting the HTML generated by WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors like Dreamweaver and GoLive and image/animation applications like Flash, Fireworks, Photoshop, and ImageReady.

Creative HTML Design.2 covers basic page structure, images and compression, color, links, buttons, transparency, typography, organization, style sheets, navigation, rollovers, forms, and other issues. (A good description of the first edition, including a sample chapter, can currently be found at www.lynda.com; this new edition will most likely be detailed there soon as well. They also maintain an errata section, important for any book that includes code.) Lynda Weinman's specialty is her friendly yet tech-savvy teaching style--there aren't many who can walk readers through the minutiae of client-side image map coordinates and not confuse them (or bore them to tears). Brother William[SS1], an engineer and programmer, presumably provides the finer points of HTML, plus the JavaScript and CGI scripts. The book offers all the good aspects of Weinman's other popular books: text that's affable yet clear, with a view to anticipating problems beginners may stumble into; lesson projects that are neither too complex nor aesthetically amateur; and a book layout that doesn't crowd pages, but rather serves up ministeps and clearly captioned screen shots in easily digested morsels.

With editors that do it all--like Dreamweaver and GoLive--why would a non-tech-head Web designer want to learn HTML? As Weinman explains, "The advantage of knowing and understanding HTML is that you are in better control of knowing what is possible and what is not." Even if you use an HTML editor, you will at some point have to go "under the hood" and fix troubled code, and at this point even a little familiarity can make a big difference in relieving Web design stress. --Angelynn Grant

Topics covered:

• Choosing an ISP
• Creating a basic page and uploading
• Creating graphics, including how compression works
• Web color palettes and color tags
• Links, alt text, image maps
• Background images and tiled patterns
• Custom rules, bullets, and other artwork
• Working with transparency
• Tables
• Typography and fonts
• Site planning and management
• Cascading style sheets (CSS)
• Frames
• Rollovers
• Forms
• Animation and sound
• Listing with search engines
• HTML 4.0 reference, including the finer points of "good HTML"
• CD includes all project files for sample Web site used in lessons as well as JavaScript and CGI scripts used

From the Publisher

Behind all web design, there is code. Many accomplished web designers do their work in WYSIWYG editors such as Dreamweaver or GoLive, but many others work largely in Notepad or other text editors. And even using WYSIWYG front-ends doesn’t get you off the hook when it’s time to troubleshoot. You still have to pop the hood and tweak the code behind your design. Fact is, if you want to be a better web designer, you need to truly understand, retain control over, and exploit the power of HTML.

And no book walks web designers through this better than Lynda and Bill Weinman’s . The first edition was a bestseller since its release in 1998; the new edition has been updated to address technological developments we’ve all seen since: the maturation of WYSISYG editors, the advent of Flash and motion graphics, need-to-know updates on best practices in working with Photoshop, and more.

What makes this book different is its extraordinary combination of practical learning and thorough coverage. is no dummies book, and it’s definitely not one of those doorstops disguised as a bible. It’s written for you, the designer. The lessons are easy to take and will make you a quick study as you walk through the process of learning and practicing HTML. This stuff isn’t hard; it’s liberating. Bill Weinman is an enormously talented programmer; teamed with his sister, the Weinmans have an unsurpassed talent for making the intricacies of how code works accessible to anyone. And with Lynda, you know that it’s all done with style, grace, and good humor.

It’s pretty simple: Vital information, chunked logically, and paced sanely: Introduction of a subject, concise explanations, and brief hands-on exercises using code supplied on the CD that bundles with the book. (The parts of the HTML code you need to modify yourself are set in a second color to make it that much easier to do yourself.) You can work through the book beginning-to-end, or you can keep it on hand as the most user-friendly code reference a designer could ever want.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Waite Group Press; 2 edition (April 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735709726
• ISBN-13: 978-0735709720
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,421,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beginner's Guide to NOT SO CREATIVE HTML, November 9, 2001

By 

Jared D. Matfess "J-Rod" (Ellington, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: creative html design.2 (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

When I was told that this book was going to be used for my technology class I was kind of excited because I am fairly familiar with the Lynda.com material. I had picked up her Learning Flash 5 CD-ROM and walked away with a feeling that it was money well spent, and that I had come away with a great deal of knowledge about Flash. Now keeping this in mind, when I picked up this title and read through it (mind you unlike some reviewers I read cover to cover), I did not feel like there was too much content that I could walk away with and use in any real world situtation. The techniques she used, produced very amateur-like pages that would not pass for a high school student's work. Mind you, for some of the fundamental HTML concepts the book was good, but for any real world stuff I felt like I was lookig at those pages where you know the person made it in Frontpage 98' without the plug-ins. Any of the cool stuff like the Javascript Rollovers was gone over so rushed and with so little detail, that it would have been better to have omitted it from the book. I am sorry this book just really was not worth the money.. I would look to that HTML Quickstart book over this one any day.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Bible for HTML coding, May 1, 2001

By 

Barbara Rhoades "Jackie of all Trades" (O'Fallon, MO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: creative html design.2 (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

Lynda Weinman has again written a book that is a must for your library. She has teamed up with William Weinman and between them, they have written a clear and simple to follow and understand help reference for HTML.

The first thing you find upon opening the book is a browser safe color chart. There are 20 chapters beginning with Home Pages and including such things as buttons, alignment, style sheets rollovers and even how to get listed on a search engine.

There are exercises to do and then an explanation (understanding) of what you have just done. The authors have written out code and the publishers used a font face and size that is easily readable. A 57-page reference section defines tags and attributes, whether or not they are optional, the parent tags and a description of the item. A glossary, index and CD round out this clearly written and very useful book.

This book will find a good home on my library shelf. Be sure to add it to yours

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very good, must have book for all web designers., April 27, 2000

By 

David Sarabia (San Diego, California (USA)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: creative html design.2 (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

This is a great, much needed, update from the past version of Creative Html Design. HTML Design is a very important subject to know as a web designer and developer, simply because not everyone is capable of seeing media, such as Shockwave Flash. This book covers everything from Layout to Effective Design techniques using new HTML programming improvements (DHTML), always keeping the readers' attention and interest using a unique style that you can notice in most of Lynda's books. If you are a web designer you definitely need this book, not only for a souce of learning, but also for a great reference. Knowing effective design techniques and having good layout skills is totally going to affect the effect and impact of your multimedia designs. I recommend this book if you are looking for an easy to read yet effective approach at creative web design with HTML, from a web designers' point of view.