- ISBN13: 9781590598047
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
If you are looking for a complete site design solutions book, this is not it—but if you are seeking a book to help you solve many common problems—then this book will serve as a useful tool for you. — Nate Klaiber Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns is a reference book and a cookbook on how to style web pages using CSS and XHTML. It contains 350 ready–to–use patterns (CSS and XHTML code snippets) you can copy and paste into your co… More >>
Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns
Tags: Design, HTML, Patterns
#1 by Sergey Fradkov on May 3, 2010 - 7:16 am
This book improved my understanding of CSS despite the fact I though I had known CSS quite well.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Mike Bowers on May 3, 2010 - 9:05 am
This book is a reference book and a cookbook on how to style web pages using CSS and XHTML. It contains 350 ready-to-use patterns (CSS and XHTML code snippets) you can copy and paste into your code. Each pattern can be combined with other patterns to create an unlimited number of solutions. Each pattern works reliably in all major browsers without the need for browser hacks.
The book shows how to:
- Code CSS and XHTML
- Turn HTML into XHTML
- Use CSS Selectors
- Use six CSS Box Models
- Create rounded corners, shadows, gradients, sprites, and transparency
- Replace text with images without affecting accessibility
- Style text with fonts, highlights, decorations, and shadows
- Create flexible, fluid layouts
- Position elements with absolute pixel precision
- Stack elements in layers
- Size, stretch, shrinkwrap, indent, align, and offset elements
- Style tables with borders and alternating striped rows
- Size table columns automatically
- Integrate CSS and JavaScript without embedding JavaScript in XHTML
- Create drop caps, callouts, quotes, and alerts
The book is laid out in facing pages with a pattern’s example on the left page and its explanation on the right. This makes it easy to find a pattern and to study a pattern’s example and its explanation without having to flip between pages. The book is also readable from cover to cover with topics building carefully upon previous topics.
A software developer can use this book to learn CSS for the first time. A designer familiar with CSS can use this book to master CSS and XHTML. If you are completely new to coding or completely new to CSS and XHTML, you may want to read an introductory book on CSS and XHTML first.
You can interact with all the examples in the book at http://www.cssDesignPatterns.com.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by SandyK on May 3, 2010 - 11:39 am
This book is a nuts and bolts CSS/HTML reference book, that you’ll be pulling off the shelf frequently, when editing stylesheets and web pages.
Each entry is presented in this clear, practical and timely format, that allows skimming straight down to the section you want (borderless table format, not inline paragraphs):
Problem
Solution
Pattern
Location
Limitations
Advantages – (Some entries)
Disadvantages – (Some entries)
Example – (Some entries)
Tips
Related to – (Some entries)
See also
It doesn’t waste your time with 1001 details of each tag, yet does give you the essentials you need to know about each tag (some entries have screenshots of the examples, mostly in Firefox, but some in IE7), so you can get to work quickly — and not get bogged down by the hyped cheerleading, that fills many of these CSS/XHTML books these days.
Would’ve given this book 5 stars if the author spent more time with cross-browser support other than a few tip suggestions, especially with IE 7, as it uses conditionals instead of hacks to get around the box model SNAFUs. Cross-browser troubleshooting is essential, and not an after thought to be addressed with about 20 words — more time is spent debugging than actually writing code, and it needs to be addressed accordingly.
Overall, this is the best CSS/(X)HTML reference book I’ve found to date. It’s due to the presentation format above, that doesn’t have you trying to find some remote reference in microprint, in a sea of 500+ pages!
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by Clayton B. Thomas III on May 3, 2010 - 2:26 pm
I’ll admit, this book has great potential. I like texts that try to tackle specific programming concepts individually, without bogging the reader down with excess concepts that haven’t been discussed yet. There are far too many CSS books out there which either a.) don’t include adequate examples, or b.) have multilayered, 10- to 20-page examples which are excessively complex (and yet many of these books claim to be written for beginners!).
But while the conceptual organization of this book is great, I think it falls flat on its face in practice.
My biggest gripe is simple: For a cookbook-style text to work effectively, you must have recipes which are complete and usable. And the vast majority of the examples in this book are not. Most are akin to a cake recipe which states, “Add 2 eggs, 2 cups of flour. You know the rest.”
But I found that, all too often, I didn’t know the rest. The author consistently omits code that he describes as “non-essential rules.” In some cases, these rules are CSS declarations that are repeated in many examples – e.g., background and border rules.
But in other instances, there is more critical information that is omitted, both from the CSS and HTML sample code… and the only way to figure out how the code is *supposed* to look is to download the sample code off the author’s site. These source code files might reveal parent
In some cases, there is no HTML included at all – so it is up to the user to either fill in the gaps, or else to download the source code off the site – code which, once again, does not come close to matching the code that’s printed in the book.
Again I say, if this text aims to provide reusable design patterns, then these designs should be complete, or at least very close to complete. There are far too many code samples in this book (the vast majority, in fact) which don’t render to look anything like the accompanying images.
I’m pretty certain that these omissions are largely intentional on the part of the author. After all, he admits in many cases that he does this to limit the sample code to a single page. But what good is brevity if it comes at the expense of usability? What good is a short code sample if it doesn’t even work?
This book has a lot of potential, but it needs to be re-written so as to be more accessible to, and directly usable by, its readers. Hopefully the next edition will be better.
Rating: 1 / 5
#5 by Andrew Peter on May 3, 2010 - 2:44 pm
I often rely on readers reviews before making a purchase so I thought it appropriate to give feedback on this book.
I am a self-taught programmer who needed to take my CSS knowledge to the next level. This book clearly sets the bar high and helps me get over it almost daily. The models depicted are extremely accurate and on point, and foster a wealth of ideas that extend to some really nice models. Mr. Bowers research and implementation on cross-compatability between browsers is nothing short of excellent (a big learn for me). The style in which the book is written makes it easy to follow and learn from, as well as reference. As a new programmer, I am extremely pleased with this book as it has taken me to the next level of CSS.
I would recommend this book to anyone who, like me, has a general knowledge of CSS and wants to fine tune and hone their skills in CSS.
Rating: 5 / 5