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Web Design in a Nutshell (Paperback)

~ Jennifer Niederst (Author) "Most web authors agree that the biggest challenge (and headache!) in web design is dealing with the variety of browsers and platforms..." (more)
Key Phrases: true color space, weh palette, first alignment character, Internet Explorer, Windows Media, Netscape Navigator (more...)

4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (130 customer reviews)

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Hardcover Available from these sellers. Published August 31, 2001	Hardcover	--	--	$25.00
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Paperback Available from these sellers. Published October 15, 2001	Paperback, October 15, 2001	--	$4.97	$0.01
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Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)) 4.6 out of 5 stars (130)
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 1998, Jennifer Niederst wrote the first edition of this very successful book after she found herself spending way too much time chasing down the solutions to HTML problems. From hexadecimal color specs to mouseover scripts, the answers are all out there, but finding the exact one you need can soak up a whole day. "I wrote Web Design in a Nutshell because it was the book I needed--one place to find quick answers to my questions."

With all that's changed in the meantime, an overhaul is welcome. This is the rare book for designers that is almost completely nonvisual. It doesn't show what's hip in navigational bars or what the coolest colors are. Rather, it gives readers the kind of know-how that can make a difference between someone who just whips up pretty pages with WYSIWYG applications like Dreamweaver and someone who can make those pages cross-platform, cross-browser, fast loading, and accessible to all.

The clear organization makes it easy to locate any specific topic. There are six sections. "The Web Environment" discusses the realities of browser compatibility, display-resolution problems, a useful bit of Unix, and tips for print designers looking to move into Web design. "Authoring" shows how to write accurate and up-to-date HTML, cascading style sheets, and Server Side Includes (like putting the current date and time on your homepage).

"Graphics" brings together all you need to know to make effective use of images (GIFs, JPEGS, PNGs, and animated GIFs). "Multimedia and Interactivity" helps with adding audio, video, or Flash to your site (including some succinct tips on optimization and publish settings). And "Advanced Technologies" covers JavaScript, DHTML, XML, XHTML, and WAP and WML. And there are six useful look-up tables in the appendix, which include HTML 4.0 tags, deprecated tags, attributes, and CSS support across browsers. Web Design in a Nutshell could easily have been titled The Web Designer's Companion--it's mighty handy to have around. --Angelynn Grant

From Library Journal

Niederst discusses everything a web designer needs, from basic principles and HTML to designing for multiple browsers, cascading style sheets, and XML. For a working web designer this book will be an invaluable quick reference, and it is written well enough that someone just starting out on the web could also use it. Highly recommended for all libraries.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

Paperback: 640 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 2nd edition (October 15, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0596001967
ISBN-13: 978-0596001964
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds

Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (130 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #532,914 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Jennifer Niederst Robbins

Niederst

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Most web authors agree that the biggest challenge (and headache!) in web design is dealing with the variety of browsers and platforms. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
true color space, weh palette, first alignment character, inline style tags, requires style sheets, web palette, style sheet controls, more thorough listing, document being parsed, color blenders, inline elements, shorthand property, deprecated tags, indexed color images, global palette, weighted optimization, browsing devices, placement tags, adaptive palette, deprecated elements, users with disabilities, enclosed text, proprietary tags, tag reflect, dynamic fonts

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Internet Explorer, Windows Media, Netscape Navigator, Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Macromedia Fireworks, Liquid Audio, Jennifer Niederst, Publish Settings, Choosing the Best Foods, Document Object Model, Shopping List, Acrobat Reader, Delivery Streaming, Eric Meyer, Inline Type Styles, Nesting Lists, Object Placement Tags, Portable Document Format, Web Dither, Adding Flash, Adobe Illustrator, Apple Computer, Calories Carb, Export Preview

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 6 books:

Designing Web Audio by Josh Beggs on page 401, page 421, and page 458
Coloring Web Graphics by Lynda Weinman on page 388
Photoshop for Windows (Classroom in a Book) by Adobe Systems in Back Matter
Inside Windows Media by Corp Microsoft on page 433
Sun Microsystems by Vault Reports on page 493

See all 6 books this book cites

29 books cite this book:

Introduction to Journalism: Essential techniques and background knowledge by Richard Rudin on page 107
Opportunities in Commercial Art and Graphic Design Careers by Barbara Gordon in Back Matter
You Can Do It!: The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls by Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas on page 131
Digital Creativity: Techniques for Digital Media and the Internet by Bruce Wands on page 152
Careers for Nonconformists: A Practical Guide to Finding and Developing a Career Outside the Mainstream by Sandra Gurvis on page 104

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Customer Reviews

130 Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

107 of 112 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Return of the Least Weasel, September 25, 2001

By	John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Silver Lake, OH) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

When a book is as good as this one, later editions can't improve it; they can only update it.

That's what this one does. The second edition of Jennifer Niederst's comprehensive reference on web design now takes account of HTML 4.01; the stuff on browsers takes account of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and Netscape 6.

And what else is there to say? Just like the first edition (but with a handful of additional topics and updates to the existing ones), this volume provides a thorough "desktop quick reference" on the entire spectrum of web design -- a general introduction to and overview of the Web itself; authoring using HTML, cascading style sheets, and server side includes; graphics (GIF, JPEG, and PNG formats, colors, and animation); multimedia (audio, video, Flash, Shockwave, and introductory Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language); and advanced topics like JavaScript, DHTML, XML, XHTML, WAP, and WML. The appendices still provide easily-thumbable tables of HTML elements, attributes, tags nobody officially likes anymore, proprietary (i.e., browser-specific) tags, a chart showing which browsers support which CSS features, and all the special characters you can use in HTML (you know, &#these; &#things;).

And you probably also already know who Jen Niederst is; if not, go read my review of her book _Learning Web Design_, which you should buy first anyway if you're new to the subject. Anyway, she's a terrific writer with intimate knowledge of all the little details you need to know in order to do web design effectively; guides just don't come any better.

You know all of this already if you have the first edition. If not, then all you need to know is that this is an updated version of -- no contest -- the best available single-volume reference on web design, written by -- no contest -- the person best qualified to write it. It's complete; it's accessible; it's well-designed; it's O'Reilly.

Oh -- and the "least weasel" is the species of weasel pictured on the cover.

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51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for the "not quite a beginner" to Web design, August 29, 2004

By	Meryl K. Evans "Content Maven behind meryl.net" (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This book takes novice to intermediate designers to the next level and is also useful as a desktop quick reference. Many buy such books and end up never opening them or maybe a few times before it's outdated. I admit I'm one of those people, but not when it comes to the weasel (picture on the cover) book. This is the book the professor assigned for one of my first Web design classes and it is responsible for my learning tables, CSS, and knowing when to make a graphics file .gif or .jpg.

It's the most well worn Web design book I have in my collection and the only HTML book I ever bought. Thankfully, there is little that's changed in the format of the book because it wasn't broken. Robbins takes the appropriate steps to update it and expand the sections that are more relevant today.

Expect an entire orchestra of instruments relevant to Web design, along with the specific details and tricks you should know. It may seem a bit much that Niederst covers HTML, CSS, SSI, graphics, multimedia, JavaScript, DHTML, XML, XHTML, WAP, and WML. However, she appropriately magnifies essential things while the advanced or "you may want to explore" topics are touched upon to give an idea of how it works with suggestions for further reading

The book starts off by addressing the biggest challenge of designing a site that looks good in every browser and version. "Designing for a Variety of Browsers" has a two-page chart of various browsers and versions for the Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX environments, showing what each supports and doesn't support.

The next chapter covers another source of frustration for designers, "Designing for a Variety of Displays." If you monitor your Web visitor stats, then you'll probably notice that no size leads the majority especially with WebTV, handheld, and cellular devices accessing the Internet. There are screen shots of browser and system measurements and tips for designing for various displays.

Chapter 26, "Flash and Shockwave" explains what it is, advantages and disadvantages, introduces you to the Flash interface, adding a Flash file to a Web page, and integrating it with other technologies. Flash is a whole different animal and the book gives you the big picture of how it fits with designing Web pages. The following chapter on SMIL covers the same basics.

Part V addresses the advanced technologies including JavaScript, DHTML, XML, XHTML, and WAP and WML. It's useful to have these all close together at the end of the book to help you figure out which you may want to use for a Web project.

As useful as special characters can be, I never remember what to type to make the symbol appear, though I know these now. Finding the special character chart is the only complaint I had from the original edition and not even the index helped me find it, so I had to tab the page. This has now been remedied with one of the best improvements of moving the special character reference chart to the appendix for speedy access. Other appendices in the book are listings of HTML tags, attributes, deprecated tags, proprietary tags, and CSS compatibility and support.

As your design skills and knowledge grow, there is always a question that prompts you to open the book and get your answer. It holds true today as I retire the worn out book with a loose page thanks to a certain child and happily replace it with its new younger sibling.

***3rd edition update***
The third edition took a bigger leap from the second than the second took from the first. Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd ed., comes with a greater focus on Web standards and cascading style sheets (CSS). In fact, the book opens with a chapter on Web standards, whereas it was merely a footnote in the previous edition.

Rather than a sole chapter on HTML, the markup chapter blends HTML and XHTML. The chapter comes with notes explaining the major differences between HTML and XHTML. The greater emphasis on XHTML ensures newer designers dive right into XHTML and improve their chances of designing standards compliant Web pages. Furthermore, the appendix includes HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 and 1.1, and CSS 2.1 references.

Ajax and WCAG 2.0 have barely been around in terms of publishing time. While the Ajax process isn't new, but its terminology and popularity are recent. Both items are covered, albeit briefly. Had Robbins wrote the book now, Ajax would not likely get huge coverage as it's a little advanced for the book's purposes and target market.

Accessible forms, mobile devices, internationalization, JavaScript with document object model (DOM), and document structure also gain more attention in the third edition. On the same token, the book reduces coverage of concepts that have gotten less attention such as the Web palette (Web safe colors), SMIL (synchronized multimedia integration language), frames, and DHTML.

Part III is devoted to CSS, which contains 10 new chapters -- a must as CSS becomes a design standard not something to play with. The third edition superbly reflects today's Web development environment and still sticks to its main purpose -- helping new and intermediate designers get up to speed on Web design. The book continues its role as a valuable reference.

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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and complete Coverage, January 12, 2000

By	David Salter (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (Paperback)

This was my first purchase from the Nutshell series and I was particularly pleased with the content. The layout is very tidy and easy to navigate.

I would consider my knowledge of the internet and web design at an intermediate level, and I would recommend this book to anyone other than a complete novice. Each section is concise and to the point and does not assume too much.

The section on CGI scripting and Server Side Includes, I found invaluable. It was easily explained in basic terms and provided plenty of examples to get these working. In addition there are lots of references in the book to resources available on the web.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable read, if you want only one web reference book on your desk this year, this should be it.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Web Design in a Nutshell
This is a great desk reference book! While it is a challenging book to read, I know it will come in super handy when I need to find the answer to a specific technical question!

Published 1 month ago by Tari Fullerton

2.0 out of 5 stars Late Shipping
I had ordered this book within my state (Michigan) so that I might get it faster. It was not mailed until a week after I had placed my order. Read more

Published 1 month ago by C. Brann

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the best books around
the author knows the subject well, and she writes well. i found myself reading the book for hours, and learning new things in a nice and organized way. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Epsilon Delta

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Textbook
Reached me in time (Amazon Prime) in excellent condition. This book is perfect for all those who are beginners in Web Designing. Five stars. No Fault!

Published 8 months ago by Az

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful and a pleasure to read.
I've read this book like 6 times now. The writing style is plain and straightforward, and that is a pleasure to read. Read more

Published 8 months ago by G. C. Alvaro

1.0 out of 5 stars Wrong edition, years out of date
One star only because it was required. I searched for the 3rd edition of this book, was shown a list of new and used titles that didn't indicate the edition, selected one, and... Read more

Published 9 months ago by A2girl

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Reference Book
I'm not sure I'd want to learn from scratch with this book but there is a HUGE amount of information here. It is very dense but well written.

Published 10 months ago by J. C. Luce

4.0 out of 5 stars A Generally Good Reference Book
Worthy of the O'Reilly name, this was a good book that covered many interesting topics. It's contains some good information about web concepts that are of valuable use to... Read more

Published 12 months ago by Brian R. Jewell

5.0 out of 5 stars Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
This comprehensive reference book covers every topic a web designer could need in 36 chapters. Numerous code examples and figures showing the end result make it easy to find and... Read more

Published 21 months ago by L. H. Zotis

5.0 out of 5 stars Great overview / refresher for me
I got this from the library to see how I liked it, and then ordered it. If you do websites and are overwhelmed by all the myriad details, and needing a quick clarification or... Read more

Published on October 17, 2007 by woodsnwind

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