Pro CSS Techniques (Paperback)

by Jeff Croft (Author), Ian Lloyd (Author), Dan Rubin (Author)
Key Phrases: modern markup, store locator, faux columns, Related Links, Internet Explorer, Page Title (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Pro CSS Techniques is the ultimate CSS book for the modern web developer. If youve already got web design and development basics under your belt, but want to take your knowledge to the next level and unleash the full power of CSS in your web sites, then this is the book for you. It is a collection of proven CSS techniques that you can use daily to get the most out of the time you spend on your projects, from start to finish.

Every topic is presented in an informative tutorial style, with each point backed up by several real-world examples and case studies. The authors cover all the essential areas of CSS development, like browser support (including IE7), hacks and filters, code management, advanced layouts and styling, typography, and much more. CSS levels 1, 2, and 3 are given a full treatment. The book also includes several reference sections that allow you to look up details quickly and easily.

The book aims to help you in four areas: maintainability, compatibility, reusability, and practicality. Youll be able to keep your code organized and easy to maintain, avoiding browser issues before they crop up (or hacking around them when absolutely necessary). Youll learn to get the most out of your styles with inheritance, and by using techniques you can build on. And youll learn to use what works in the real world, without getting too caught up in ideals, because you can always optimize later.

About the Author
Jeff is a web and graphic designer focused on web standards-based development living and working Lawrence, KS. As the senior designer at World Online, Jeff works on such award-winning standards-based sites as Lawrence.com and ljworld.com. Jeff also runs a popular blog and personal site at jeffcroft.com, where he writes about many topics, including modern web and graphic design.

In addition to his work with World Online, Jeff has also worked at two major Universities in an effort to bring web standards to the education sector, and completed many freelance and contract jobs for varying clients.

When he's not hunched over a computer, Jeff enjoys photography, music, film, television, and a good night out on the town.


Ian runs Accessify.com, a site dedicated to promoting web accessibility and providing tools for web developers. His personal site ‘Blog Standard Stuff‘, ironically, has nothing to do with standards for blogs (it's a play on words), although there is an occasional standards-related gem to be found there.

Ian works full-time for Nationwide Building Society where he tries his hardest to influence standards-based design (\"to varying degrees!\"). He is a member of the Web Standards Project, contributing to the Accessibility Task Force. Web standards and accessibility aside, he enjoys writing about his trips abroad and recently took a ‘year out' from work and all things web (but then ended up writing more in his year off than he ever has). He finds most of his time being taken up by a demanding old lady (relax, it\'s only his old Volkswagen camper van).

Ian recently wrote his first book for SitePoint entitled ‘Build Your First Web Site the Right Way with HTML and CSS‘ (in which he teaches web standards-based design to the complete beginner).


Music, design, typography, web standards, South Florida beaches. What could these things possibly have in common? Dan Rubin, that's what…er, who. From vocal coaching and performing to graphic design and (almost literally) everything in between, Dan does his best to spread his talent as thin and as far as he possibly can while still leaving time for a good cup of tea and the occasional nap.

His passion for all things creative and artistic isn't a solely selfish endeavor either&emdash;you don't have to hang around too long before you'll find him waxing educational about a cappella jazz and barbershop harmony, interface design, usability, web standards, and which typeface was on the bus ad that just whizzed by at 60mph.

Dan has been known to write the occasional entry on his blog, superfluousbanter.org (you might even find a podcast or two if you poke around enough), and his professional work can be found at his agency's site, webgraph.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (May 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159059732X
• ISBN-13: 978-1590597323
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #74,156 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars CSS covered exhaustively, January 9, 2007

By	Nate Klaiber (nkbookreviews.com) - See all my reviews

Pro CSS Techniques by Jeff Croft, Dan Rubin, and Ian Lloyd is a very thorough book on practical CSS. Having just read Simon Collison's Beginning CSS Web Development I found this to be a great continuation of the learning process. This book picks up where Simon's book ended, and even briefly covers some of the same topics. This book is full of great information and author's each had a fun personality (and sense of humor) with their chapters.

The book jumps right in and walks you through specificity and the cascade and how this will help you keep your markup neat and tidy (without any superfluous markup). This topic can cause confusion for many beginning CSS and even those who are advanced. Having a strong understanding of the cascade and specificity will greatly help you write cleaner code and solve any debugging issues that may arise. This chapter was full of examples, charts, and interactive walkthroughs to help you understand the process.

The next few chapters were spent discussing the browsers, managing your CSS files, and many of the hacks used to fix problems. These were similar to some of what was seen in Beginning CSS Web Development - but they require special emphasis. I didn't feel that any of the authors ever advocated using hacks to solve problems. They challenged you as a developer to dig deeper and find workarounds that didn't require hacks. However, when it is necessary - they explain the process of using conditional comments versus mixing any hacks into their own sheet/section of your other files.

Chapter 7 was by far my favorite chapter of the entire book. I have read many other CSS books that show you advanced layouts and techniques, even full of the code and images, but don't fully prepare you for the frustration that may arise. This chapter walked you through creating different layouts. Absolute positioning, floats, liquid layouts, fixed with layouts, and elastic layouts were all discussed. The best part about the chapter is that the author walks you through your failures. In seeing these failures and being aware of them, it will ultimately help you avoid them in the future (or at least be prepared when something goes awry). Failure is a part of learning CSS, and the author comforts (and humors) the reader as he shows the failures, explains why/what failed, and how to fix and continue with the layout. In the end you are working towards a very simple, yet flexible, layout.

Another topic that is not often discussed is that of typography. This chapter was an exhaustive covering of typography and the web. It included information about upcoming typefaces available in vista, as well as some current typefaces that you might not know about. It also covered things like leading (line height), kerning (letter spacing), and how to make sure your liquid layouts (or high contrast layouts) don't ruin the legibility.

The last few chapters walk you through styling everyday elements like tables, forms, and lists. The last two chapters were focused on stylesheets for other media (print, screen, projection, etc). I found this chapter very interesting as we are moving toward supporting mobile devices. I think initially it would be easy to think you can serve up the `handheld' stylesheet and all is well - however we are finding that this is not true (Which is why I can't want for Cameron Moll's book on Mobile Web Design). With so many different devices and services out there, what will be the best way to target them? I used to think the handheld stylesheet would solve many problems - but I am re-thinking that as a solution.

Finally, the book wraps up with an exhaustive list of CSS References including: allowed values, element type, and initial/inherited values. Also covered is the CSS specificity chart and the browser grading chart. The appendix of this book makes a nice desk reference to help solve an issue.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. If you are still dipping your feet into CSS, then this book will help you understand the inner workings of CSS and help you avoid many frustrating hours of debugging. Yes, there were some advanced topics that weren't discussed that could have been (hasLayout), but overall the book covered everything exhaustively. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this book.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book for readers going from intermediate to advanced css!, February 17, 2007

By	J. Warren "ngcomputing.com" (Vernon, FL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The most confusing thing about learning a new subject, or figuring out what you need to advance, is figuring out exactly the right tools for the job...

This review couldn't be complete without making the assertion that I look at this book as a sequel to another book that I have reviewed. In general, Pro Css Techniques picks up where another apress title left off. With that in mind, please read on...


First, if you know just a little css, such as changing font colors, this book is not for you. If you are serious about learning CSS, I recommend that you buy "Beginning CSS Web Development: From Novice to Professional (Paperback)" to get you on the fast track to learning css ... THEN read Pro CS Techniques. Actually, the books are from the same publisher and should have been combined into a single book.

Second, the Pro CSS Techniques book picks up where the fore mentioned "Beginng CSS Web Development" book left off, with a very easy transition for the reader. This book assumes that you know the basics and want to move into the intermediate to advanced phase of learning and applying CSS techniques...and lastly, is not a reference manual.

However, once you complete this book and apply what you know along the way, you will be at the point that all that is needed is a good CSS reference manual (or online documentation) to explore the vast functionality that CSS offers / the point where you start coming up with clever ideas and can "walk the walk and talk the talk aka start stepping into the dark side of the force."

Again, I can't stress enough that if you are new to CSS get the "Beginning CSS Web Development" book first, then go through this one - they flow together very well and work better than getting a "generic" beginning css book, then moving to CSS Mastery.

PROS :

1) If you read the "Beginning CSS Web Development" book, then read this one, you will know CSS in depth. The point being, this is a very effective to learning CSS from beginning to Pro.

2) The book is very clear, well written and provides detailed examples.

3) When the author discusses a topic, included is a code snippet, discussion, code snippet and a final discuss with all the code put together. I don't like those other books that write a snippet or two then tell you to go download the other 500 lines of code that explains nothing.

4) This book gives the reader a very good understanding of dealing with layout issues -- rather than giving you a reference chapter on hacks, the reader will actually understand (throughout the book) the common CSS problems that arise with various browsers and will be prepared to deal with them with understanding, rather than copying and pasting "J. Walsh IE Hack-57x" to "just make things work."

5) I await the next title from the publisher regarding CSS design patterns. If the upcoming book flows into design patterns as well as the Beginning book flowed into this one, it is going to be smooth sailing.

6) Once you buy the book, you can buy the full electronic (searchable) version online for $10 until mid Mar 07 (I believe).

7) As an avid DW Template user, I found the section on selectively hiding CSS to be an eye opener. I love DW templates, but, this seems to be a viable alternative and can save my company at least $1K+ a year in DW upgrades (and DW is getting as bloated as Photoshop now).

8) I built a live site while learning CSS using the Beginning and the Pro CSS Techniques book. Yes, it took about 2 weeks vs doing the site with HTML in about 6 days -- but, when I hit my second site, and had finished up this book, I did another live site and it took me about 3 days, was far easier, is far easier to manage, is WAI / 508 compliant, and tops the search engines --

9)Many reviewers like the "CSS Mastery" Book. Pro CSS Techniques covers the same issues, but, for one it doesn't nag the reader EVERY other paragraph about problems with IE.

10) If your a MAC or PC developer, using Firefox, you will find that once you learn CSS the "right way" it will only take a very small amount of time to address a few IE issues. The point is understanding what causes the problems, as taught in the book, rather than "copy paste" some hack code just to make it work, will shave a lot of time off IE debugging sessions -- and did I mention fewer stomach ulcers from all the aspirin?


CONS :

1) This book should have been the second half of the "Beginning" book (I mentioned several times), even though the authors are different, the two work in perfect harmony.

2) The book would have been much better illustrated in color. I'm a programmer, and can live without color with programming books, but when it comes to graphical design issues, well color does help.

3) Like the CSS Mastery book, it covers the two column, three column basic layout -- some more complex examples would be helpful (this is something I see lacking in other CSS books as well).


CONCLUSION :

This book is excellent if you have the basics down pat, such as id's classes, and general layout concepts under your belt and you want to start going from intermediate to a pro level (by the time you are done). CSS is a pain even at the pro level, but, in the long run this book pays for itself over and over.

I've been a programmer for 20 years, I'm a professional photographer & digital artist and the last 10 years owner of a web development firm. If you want to go from intermediate to pro in a straight forward manner, this book is a must have and worth every penny -- if you just starting CSS, get the Beginning book and this one together -- don't muddle around buying a half dozen books, wasting time and money.


LAST NOTE

Even though with the few cons, actually just personal peeves, taking into the fact that you can find an intermediate to pro learning book that supplements a beginning book makes going HTML to CSS pro a far more pleasurable experience.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great CSS book for developers, March 5, 2007

By	Frank Stepanski (PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are many CSS books on the market now, so distinguishing yourself from the many is getting harder and harder to do. Since there are less intermediate to advanced books compared to beginner CSS books this is a start. Another thing this book focuses on that is different than the majority of other CSS book is that is stresses creating semantic markup throughout the design and development process. Semantic markup means understanding the meaning of the XHTML that you write. What this means is that the code is free of presentational information using only <div> and <span> when absolutely necessary. These two tags can be very useful in creating intricate CSS designs but they have no semantic meaning. Many blog posts have called this "divitis" because their web page is just a whole bunch of <div> tags with identifiers (id or class) and that's it. While this visually helps the designer quickly create the site, to screen-readers, or PDAs or cell phones may not render the page exactly as you may think it should and using semantic markup helps the browser for that particular device render that page that makes the most sense. It is a hard concept to grasp or fully explain (as I probably am not), but it is used more and more in current web practices.

Now this book is written by a couple different authors which seems like the norm nowadays. [...] They all have contributed to various blogs (including their own) about web design techniques and many of them are here in this book.

Now the title of this book may be misleading. You do not have to be a professional web designer using XHTML and CSS in the workplace to buy this book. Nor do you have to have memorized every CSS property and value to understand what the authors are saying. All you need to be able to grasp the concepts talked about in the book is a basic understanding of Cascading Style Sheets. As long as you know the basics, this will be a very enjoyable read. The reason it is called "Pro" I am guessing is that many "pro" fessionals use the same techniques and practices that are talked about in the book. It doesn't mean that it is so complex and intricate that only the select few will understand.

So to start out the book goes into an excellent explanation (of what I started to in the beginning) of what semantic markup is, why it should be used and practical uses for it. The book then (chapter 2) goes into quick summary of CSS basics but from a perspective of why each element and style should be used (semantic meaning) and some of the least understood properties and selectors. The next chapter goes into a great explanation of how the "cascade" part of CSS works with using descendant, child and adjacent sibling selectors. This is a difficult concept to grasp and the author(s) explain it very simply and easily for almost any level of reader. Lots of code snippets and examples here with great uses for everyday stuff. The next chapter (chapter 4) is skipped in many other CSS books but is a very important issue: browser differences. This chapter explains each browser's (Firefox, IE, Opera and Safari) history and incompatibilities with CSS 2.1 and CSS 3.0 standards and discusses some of the big issues that started "hacks" back in the early years of CSS development. Hacks themselves are discussed in chapter 6 and are a very valuable skill in creating designs that are consistent across browsers. Though the author(s) explains that hacks are much a reason of non-semantic markup as they are with browser incompatibilities.

CSS layouts (chapter 7) and common page elements (chapter 8) are great chapters to get your website started with good design ideas or help you redesign your site without tables.
Some of the techniques shown are: rounded corners, image swapping and hover effects, creating tabbed navigation, and styling a logo image. Another concept explained in detail that gives most people headaches at first are floats which are used extensively in layout design and creating properly aligned forms without tables.

Another great chapter (chapter 10) focuses on layout designs for styling tables. Although there are a lot of examples on the web on how to do this it makes it easier to find it and apply it to your own site.

This is a great book for anybody wanting to further their CSS knowledge and experience by learning techniques that are used by some of the top designers out there. A must buy!