Customer Reviews

CASCADING STYLE SHEETS: DESIGNING FOR THE WEB

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There are some issues with this book that are purely the publisher's fault. (I am sure the authors are just as annoyed as I am.) Let's get them out of the way first.

Inside the back and front covers are what appears to be a handy quick reference. Great idea - except almost all the page numbers are wrong! That makes it completely useless. I have scratched in corrections in my copy, but I am not about to do a complete revision. The first edition had this same flaw, and I had hoped that the second would fix the problem.

The index is iffy. That's probably a clue right there to the wishy-washy structure of the book. It seems to be all over the place, with crucial bits of information about a topic filed away under some other topic, often in an example. As a reference work, it's very, very poor. It's written as if the reader is going to read it from start to finish and remember its entire contents. Yeah right.

Finally, the complete lack of real-world information about just how badly the various browsers support CSS is rather annoying. Sure, I understand that that stuff gets out of date quickly, but for designers who are targeting NS 4.7, it's useful to know what works and what doesn't.

Its sole saving grace (those two stars) is that is does in fact cover most of CSS - by hook or by crook. The examples, though contrived (and again, unrelated to the real world) do illustrate the concepts to a greater or lesser degree.

This book is so so. It's got me through some tight spots while designing. The down side is that it has no real structure to it. It is all over the place when looking for specific topics and doesn't seem to have any coherent order to it. The index could be better. There are also not a lot of good examples. If you are an absolute beginner, you should pass this one by and get O'reily's CSS Definitive Guide instead.

That's what I did and I'm glad I did. This is not the only book you'll need but it is the one you must have. If you are new to CSS, you'll also be new to it's structure and syntax and this book explains this better than any others I've read. The classification of HTML elements into CSS element types (ie. block vs. inline) is hardly seen elsewhere.

I think the extensive discussion on fonts was interesting and required for understanding how to code CSS so the browsers will display what you want or as close as you can get. I also enjoyed the style and look of the book itself.

This book is absolutely indispensable. I don't have any other CSS books and I knew nothing of CSS before I started, but now I know it like the back of my hand. It's not only a great book to learn CSS, but it's also invaluable as a reference tool once you progress. Not one of those books you read then end up only to have to buy a more in-depth book for reference once you have progressed. It's good for everyone, beginner or advanced. Absolutely worth every penny.

Prior to purchasing this book, the only things I knew how to do were make links so that they weren't underlined and change the color of some text. The basic, commonplace implementations of Cascading Style Sheets. Well, after hearing more about this rising development in web deisgn, I took an interest in CSS and decided to buy this book. I was not disappointed. It covers every aspect of CSS in a simple yet thorough manner. The quick reference inside the covers is also extremely helpful when you need to find the right CSS tag.

In regard to previous reviewers who say most of this will not be supported in the near future or ever, my response is that yes, it is true true that many of CSS' features will never be fully developed and implemented but if you browse through the actual body of the book, you will find that the bulk of the material covered is either already supported by the major browsers or will be in their next release. Therefore, I feel that it will not be long before the vast majority of this book becomes incredibly useful.

I have borrowed the O'Reilly CSS book and it is also quite good but I feel that this book goes into better detail about each tag and parameter.

I wish I could give it 4 1/2 stars but the reason I have given this book 4 stars instead of 5 is because the author is also the main developer of CSS. Him being so closely involved has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is obvious: this guy knows more about CSS than probably anyone in the world. But, due to the same fact, I would say he has a less neutral, more idealistic approach of CSS. That is why several features covered are a few browser versions ahead of their time, which has been the main argument of most people who didn't like this book.

All in all, this book does a superb job at covering every nook and crannie of CSS, from the widely supported to the underdeveloped. One day, technology will catch up to this book and it will be indespensible but until then, it is still the most useful guide to Cascading Style Sheets.

The authors organized this book very well. A table of style attributes adorn the inside of the covers. This alone makes the book worth the price. I frequently refer to this table. Inside, the authors carefully explain stylesheets, from their basic composition and application, all the way to advanced features. This book does not spell out the browser-specific implementation, but rather the CSS standards. I look for books just like this one -- well-written (easy to read), straight-forward and well-designed.

If you can only afford one CSS book, this is the book. Lie developed CSS and works with the organization that controls it (W3C).

This is one book I tell people attending my web design class they need to get. Lie gives clear examples od CSS and the layout of the CSS classes is very clear.

I purchased the first edition a few years ago, and have now updated with this book. This will be one of those books in your library that will be dog-eared, smudged, and bent because you will refer to it frequently.

This book is an essential for anyone doing serious work designing and distributing web pages.

It covers all the techical issues that regard the CSS, teaching you how to optimize your Web site performance, build killer Web pages, understand the difference between semantic, logical, and stylistic markup (thus introducing you to XML!) and use the maximum of your Web browser capabilities.

If you use this book, you can rest assured that you develop pages with cross browser compatibility. Before this book was published, developers had to extensively test their pages in different browsers through an exhaustive trial-and-error procedure. Now that's all obsolete, as the book includes specific browser compatibility information for most versions of Explorer and Navigator, not to mention Opera!

I also have to mention that the book is practical, has a great style and it's hell easy to read. The "artistic" part of it is the best it can be, helping you unleash your creative imagination and realize the amazing capabilities of CSS.

Take my advice and buy this book.

I continue to find it amazing that reviewers mark down the quality of certain books because they aren't what _they_ expected (say 3 out of 5 starts, for instance). Although the "Designing for the Web" on the cover is somewhat misleading, the back of the text is not (and a quick look inside; if you're at a brick & mortar). This is *not* a book on how to "Design for the Web".

This book is definitely a reference of CSS (levels 1 & 2) as accurate as could be represented at the time of printing. Hakon Lie and Bert Bos do an excellent job of explaining how each CSS element is expected to work (or, as the browser should render it). As well it should, since Hakon basically created CSS. [Whether or not this is what occurs in IE, Netscape or Opera remains to (always) be seen.]

The book is laid out very nicely, the text is easy to read, the examples are very thorough and understandable. The two authors even attempt to let you know which browsers fully support, partially support or offer no support for each element.

The only knock I have against the book is that the quick reference index on the inside of the front and back covers are inaccurate as to what page each element is listed on (this quick reference lists the element name, possible values, initial value, what each applies to, and the page number it can be found on). This page number is what is inaccurate in most cases.

Even with that minor annoyance, I would highly recommend this book for those needing a reference for CSS. It's good stuff.

This book is an indispensible resource if you've already decided HOW to implement CSS on your site and are looking for the best explanations of CSS selectors and syntax. The sections on typography and block-level elements, in particular, are detailed and extremely helpful (all that typography was much more than I needed to know, but it's good that it's there).

However, do NOT use this book if you haven't decided yet which CSS methods to use and cross-browser compatibility matters to you (or your clients). Each chapter cheerfully explains CSS features the way the creators WISH they would work, without indicating serious bugs or pitfalls you may encounter in the real world when trying to implement them the way they tell you to. The browser support charts are buried in the back -- they barely scratch the surface, especially where Netscape 4.x is concerned.

Making design decisions based on the information in this book could lead to some very unexpected and ugly results. Instead, use O'Reilly's "Cascading Style Sheets: A Definitive Guide", which documents browser compliance much more thoroughly, and turn back to this book as a quick-reference while you code.