Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook (Pioneering Series) (Paperback)

by Dan Cederholm (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Web standards are the standard technology specifications enforced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make sure that web designers and browser manufacturers are using the same technology syntax. It is important that these implementations are the same throughout the Web, otherwise it becomes a messy proprietary place, and lacks consistency. These standards also allow content to be more compatible with multiple different viewing devices, such as screen readers for people with vision impairments, cell phones, PDFs, etc. HTML, XML, and CSS are all such technologies. This book is your essential guide to understanding the advantages you can bring to your web pages by implementing web standards and precisely how to apply them. Web standards such as XHTML and CSS are now fairly well-known technologies, and they will likely be familiar to you, the web designer—indeed, they are all around you on the Web. However, within web standards still lies a challenge—while the browser's support for web standards is steadily increasing, many web developers and designers have yet to discover the real benefits of web standards and respect the need to adhere to them. The real art is in truly understanding the benefits and implementing the standards efficiently. As a simple example of its power, you can use CSS to lay out your pages instead of nesting tables—this can make file sizes smaller, allowing pages to load faster, ultimately increasing accessibility for all browsers, devices, and web users.

* Use XHTML elements correctly so that your markup is compact and more easily understood.

* Use CSS to style different elements of a web page.

* Lay out pages easily and effectively.

* Compare multiple methods of achieving the same results to make better design choices.

* Learn about advanced web design techniques and their important caveats.

About the Author
Dan Cederholm is a web designer and independent web author currently living in Salem, MA. His CSS redesigns of Fast Company and Inc. magazines' web sites have gained him the respect of web designers all over the world as an advocate of building clean, accessible sites with Web Standards. Dan also publishes markup and style tips and techniques on SimpleBits, his personal web site.

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: friends of ED (June 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590593812
• ISBN-13: 978-1590593813
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #166,646 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

128 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfectly practical, and will become indispensible to me..., July 22, 2004

By	Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I've mentioned in the past that books on web standards and markup tend to irritate me due to their "I'm an expert and my opinion is always right" attitude. But never one to give up, I had the chance to review Web Standards Solutions - The Markup and Style Handbook by Dan Cederhold (Apress). Much like the book Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman, this is a refreshing change and extremely practical. I really like it!

The chapter breakdown: Lists; Headings; Tables Are Evil?; Quotations; Forms; <strong>, <em>, and Other Phrase Elements; Anchors; More Lists; Minimizing Markup; Applying CSS; Print Styles; CSS Layouts; Styling Text; Image Replacement; Styling ; Next Steps; Index

The chapters follow a common format... A topic is introduced, and three or four different methods are shown on how to accomplish the task (like lists). Each method is explored for pros and cons, with the goal of finding a solution that puts emphasis on semantic meaning and clean markup. This is followed by an "extra credit" section that pushes past the basic topic and starts to show some more unique ways to use CSS for appealing page images.

For one, the tone is conversational in nature. You're not being lectured to or scolded for not adhering to perfect and exact standards (or opinions). The book is also not a reference manual as such. It's a practical guide on how to use CSS to get the job done and give yourself a solid design that will work for multiple types of browsers. Throw in a little humor along the way, and this book becomes one which you find yourself picking up repeatedly.

The sign of a good book for me is one where I'm using the book either before or during my review. Based on a project I'm currently coding, I've already started to memorize certain page numbers I keep going back to. This book will definitely secure a spot on the bookshelf at work, and will be closely guarded to make sure it doesn't disappear.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much needed book with superb approach, March 13, 2005

By	Adam Helweh "Creator of all things web & print" (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For just under a year now I have been dipping into the online community of advocates for the many uses of CSS. As someone who is a graphic designer and part time web designer it can sometimes be a pain to find that mix of visual, structural, and functional design needed to take your portfolio and skills to the next level.

This book takes a very clear approach to laying out many paths to a single, or similiar, solutions. I think a big problem with all of us "non gurus" who are trying to get into CSS is knowing whether a tag or style is compatible with the "popular browsers" and if we are going to hand off the project to our clients full of holes and subsequently full of complaints. You can trust Dan as a professional who lays down a number of approaches that can be used, none of which are totally obselete and are going to leave you with an unhappy client.

Another great element of this book is the value it adds to your work. When you put these skills to work on your sites, your not only creating visually great work, but your also making your work compatible on all levels (hand helds, multiple browsers, screen readers, non CSS compatible browsers)and the book even shows why using specific techniques will optimize your code for search engines (and anyone worth thier weight in gold knows how important search engine optimization is for clients).

There are alot of great reasons to fork over your money on this book. As I believe I heard someone mention before, if you have basic CSS knowledge and this book you will be ready to rock. Just dont pick it up expecting to learn CSS from the ground up. For those who have that basic working knowledge, this is the next step in your CSS revolution!

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction, February 23, 2007

By	Jørgen Arnor G. Lom - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I whish I'd read this one sooner. This book is a great introduction to the fabulous world of web standards. This is not, however the right book if you are already an experienced coder of standardized (X)HTML. Unlike books such as CSS Mastery (Budd, Moll, Collison), this book contains little of the "oh, right - I had completely forgot about that" tips, that experienced users could use.

If you have done little web standards (X)HTML and would like a good place to start, this is absolutely a book I would reccomend. If you know your web standards, and like them too, I would reccomend looking elsewhere.