Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer's Edge (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Every Web designer should have a copy of this book...[It] takes something possibly difficult and makes it very easy." -- Jennifer Kyrnin, Web Design Guide

"Substantially more useful than even the best tutorial I've seen...It is a must-have for every web designer/developer." -- IT-Enquirer

Product Description

CSS is finally supported by all modern web browsers, empowering Web designers to do what they've been hungering to do for years: control layout more precisely, use color more effectively, and expand typographic options beyond the frustrating limitations of the past. So where to begin? Where can you get design-focused instruction on CSS while learning the technical details?

Cascading Style Sheets: The Designer's Edge is precisely the resource you've been looking for. Written by renowned web designer Molly Holzschlag, this book begins with an in-depth look at structured markup, both XHTML and CSS. It then explains how to use CSS to achieve specific design goals involving typography, color, layout, and more. Finally, it deconstructs a series of impressive designs, showing you how the authors used CSS to maximize their efficiency and get exactly the right effect.

Key topics you'll learn about include:
* Writing valid XHTML
* Authoring effective CSS rules
* Working with classes and IDs
* Validating your CSS
* Creating great typographical designs with CSS
* Using CSS for backgrounds, borders, and color
* Creating multiple link styles
* Using absolute positioning
* Working with relative positioning
* Positioning with float
* Creating great CSS layouts

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Sybex; 1 edition (March 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0782141846
• ISBN-13: 978-0782141849
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #376,728 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent primer on CSS, March 25, 2004

By	M. Erb (Syracuse, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

I grabbed this book at Barnes & Noble and sat in the cafe with a cup of coffee just to check it out. 2 hours later I felt like I had just learned an amazing amount of information.

When I got home I started reading the reviews of this book on Amazon and was dumbfounded by the criticism of this book.

This book is fantastic for the person who hates "computer talk" books. You know what I'm talking about... books that are written so dryly and by people who write so technically that you can barely understand anything you are reading.

This book is like a breath of fresh air. The fact that the author provides a history of SGML, HTML, XHTML, CSS and such is great because it gives you an underlying basis of knowledge, a foundation from which to grow.

Her style of writing is conversational, perhaps a bit repetitive but that helps drive home the concepts. I did not find it distracting at all. I like this style of writing because it helps me to learn better. The book takes a measured, logical approach to the subject. I put this book down realizing that I had LEARNED the fundamentals of CSS without any confusion whatsoever.

This book is not intended for people already familiar with CSS concepts. It is best for newbies to the subject. I've looked at a lot of CSS books and I would rate this as one of the best I've ever read. Even better than the knowledgable Eric Meyer books. I prefer this author's style of writing compard to Eric's. However, Eric's books are more comprehensive and are better suited for taking you to the next level.

The biggest negative with this book is that there are numerous typos and errors. an astute reader may pick them out quite easily but it is a very poor reflection on the publisher and that is why I can only rate this book a 4.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Beginners only - and wait for next edition, August 18, 2003

By	"jespera123" (Spring, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This book is very beautiful, printed on high quality paper, with high quality screen shots. But it is boring, by repeating the simplest things over and over. If you need to be guided by hand and can't remember what was written on the previous page, you need this book. If you have the slightest idea about CSS already you should put your money elsewhere.

This book could easily be 30% (or more!) smaller. Every sample is repeated, adding one new line to the styles or HTML at the time. Even dummy text is repeated: one half page dummy text is repeated four times! I didn't buy this book to read poetry (or whatever it is).

At the end of the book there's a display of the "gurus" web sites - but not a single line of CSS to show what they did to achieve this! The author doesn't even use her own web site as an example. She could have shown how she built it and why (assuming she knows...?)

I'm sure the author knows CSS inside out (much better than I do). But this book is not for designers nor for implementers. There are no useful, complete samples - a total of seven pages deal with "Experimenting with layout"!!!

Things that are not addressed in this book:
Using alternate style sheets
How to use :focus
The future of CSS - a heads up on CSS2 would have been nice.
How to use attribute selectors (the book says: "The level of control that can be gained by using this type of selector is quite amazing when you think about it". I thought about it, but still think the book should have shown me why it is so "amazing")
How to create ANY layout - you can find the two mentioned on the web in 0.01 second using Google.

Finally, Sybex did a poor job proof reading this book (if they did it!). Beginners should not (and can not?) find and correct errors in code. I wrote Sybex to tell them about 12 specific problems between page 43 and 83 (there are plenty more). They replied "Sorry you didn't like it."

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good primer for beginners and intermediates to CSS, July 13, 2003

By	J. M. Bellis (Silver Spring, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Molly Holzschlag has produced a well-crafted, clear and helpful book that fills a gap in Web site development literature. I had been looking for a primer on CSS that will prepare me for deeper treatments of the subject, and this book fits the bill.

Ive been using CSS for some time, but doing so timidly, confining it primarily to font specifications. This was partly because of the browser compatibility and compliance problems that have plagued CSS but also because I needed a better understanding of CSSs big picture. CSS: The Designers Edge certainly addressed the latter problem for me. After working through the book (doing all of the exercises), I have a much clearer picture of CSS, my CSS skills are much further along, and I have greater confidence in my execution of those skills.

I should note that Molly starts from the beginning. It is a book for the beginner and the intermediate. It is certainly not for the advanced CSS technician. In fact, if anything, I would have preferred that she had delved deeper into some of the subject areas, especially the box model and positioning in general. With that said, the book has allowed me to comfortably read on various topics that I wanted to know more about. And I now feel ready to tackle CSS on an advanced level.

What I really like about Mollys writing is her commitment to being helpful to her readers. I get the distinct sense that she really cares that her readers learn the material and learn it well. Besides being careful in presenting the material, she is always inserting valuable tips and practical ideas along the way that one usually only finds out about after long periods of trial-and-error.

I would have liked to have given this book four-stars. I give it three-stars instead. One flaw has prevented me from the higher rating. The book is laden with typos (confined primarily to the first half). It was as if Sybex (the publisher) paid the copy editor to sleep on the job. I e-mailed my displeasure of this directly to Molly. Im sure plenty of others have done the same. She is fully aware of the problem. Sybex has done the author a major disservice. Nonetheless, as annoying as the typos are, I think that the book is a valuable learning tool for developers who want a good intro to CSS.