The CSS: The Ultimate Reference [Hardcover]

'The Ultimate CSS Reference' is exactly as the title says. A comprehensive REFERENCE for CSS styling. This book is not (NOT) a learning book or an example full book, rather a reference to using CSS. If you use CSS on a daily basis and need such a tool this is a good resource to have. My only gripe is that I don't know why the publishers decided to put this out as a hardcover. The costs could have been kept down and likely more sales would have been made if this had been released as a softcover like most of the other sitepoint books.

sitepoint has long been my favorite web publisher of books and nothing has changed with this release. A solid release albeit a different one from what has been released in the past.

***** RECOMMENDED

The ultimate CSS reference by Tommy Olsson and Paul O'Brien is exactly what it says, a reference guide. As with all books however I've read this one cover to cover. The book covers every single CSS keyword, selector, pseudo-class and corresponding attribute known (including some that aren't even in the official ratified W3C standard but are supported by certain browsers and some that are currently in the standard but aren't supported by any of the major browsers) from CSS version 1 right through to the latest CSS 3.

The book is very well laid out and easy to look up as a reference with chapters on layout, list styles, box properties etc. Next to this is a quick reference stating whether or not the attribute is inherited, it's initial value, which version of the official W3C specification it comes from and a quick browser support reference stating whether it's fully supported by the browser, partially supported, not supported at all or whether the implementation is buggy for a particular browser. This is followed by a description of what the attribute does, any values that it takes followed by a more complete browser compatibility list. The list covers the major browsers that are currently out from IE5.5 through IE7, Firefox 1.0 through 2.0, Safari 1.3 through 3.0 and Opera 9.2. Following this is a brief description of any compatibility issues as listed .

As with any book of this nature, basically it is out of date virtually as it's printed. With Firefox 3.0 and Opera 9.5 just being released and Internet Explorer 8.0 just around the corner. However this and it's companion Ultimate HTML reference are definitely two books that I'd love to see updated once the new set of browsers are out.

Scattered throughout the book are numerous references to W3C RFCs, web sites showing compatibility issues and differences between the way various browsers handle the CSS etc. that are very useful.

This book is a must for any web developer no matter which programming language you use to build your web sites. Combine it's sister book with this one and you really do have the ultimate web reference sitting at your fingertips. No more looking through obscure RFC's. When you're designing a web site and come across a quirk in how you thought something should have been laid out, or a CSS selector then simply reach for this book and it will tell you if indeed it is a bug or whether you are just implementing incorrectly.
Tommy and Paul should be proud of what they have produced and this book should grace every web developers desk and be within fingertip reach.

I have found more answers to subtle, complex and tricky layout problems in the few days since getting this book than over the last 12 months of googling and hunting through tutorials, guides and cookbooks.

I was surprised at how concise it is. There is not a lot of waffle, and the authors jump straight to the most important facts/features/oddities for every single aspect of the full CSS spec.

A very good buy!

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 18 reviews  4.7 out of 5 stars