CSS: The Definitive Guide (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
This edition of the book covers version 2.1 of the CSS specification. The author routinely points out where the specification was unclear as well as how certain browsers violate the spec which really helps point out what style sheet authors need to watch out for when targeting certain browsers. This is information that is not in the specification and could take a lot of time to find out on your own.If you are wanting to learn all you can about how to enhance the visual presentation of your site, are wanting to learn more about the capabilities of CSS so you can see how to modify the look of sites you visit using reader style sheets, or just want to find out what all of the buzz surround cascading style sheets is about then I'd recommend this book.I do have to warn you though, the author leaves no corner unturned. He starts out slow with an introduction to cascading style sheets and what they bring to the table. The following chapters then delve head first into topic after topic. You can be sure that you will know the technology through and through by the time you are finished with the book, just be prepared to spend some time working through the material.The author has done a wonderful job bringing to life a subject that might otherwise be quite dry. The years of experience he shares in chapter after chapter has made me glad that I've added this book to my library.
“Definitive Guide” is a fairly accurate title for this 3rd edition of Eric Meyer's CSS textbook; it’s a deep dive of sometimes eye-glazing detail. It’s quite technical in its explanations of the math and calculations that CSS performs. There are CSS snippets and screenshots of the results, but it’d be better if they were in color. The book was published in 2006 so it’s missing CSS3, but given the widespread use of CSS 2.1, the book is still relevant. My favorite topics were floating and positioning, generated content, pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements.Types of positioning• Relative: element’s box is offset by some distance. Element retains its shape, and space it would have occupied is preserved.• Absolute: element’s box is removed from flow and positioned with respect to its containing block (nearest block-level ancestor box). The space it would have occupied is closed, as though the element didn’t exist. The positioned element generates a block-level box.• Fixed: element’s box behaves as though set to absolute, but its containing block is the viewport.Display: none vs. visibility: hiddendisplay: none renders the element invisible, and it doesn’t take up the space it would ordinarily. visibility: hidden renders the element invisible, but it takes up the space it would ordinarily.
What do You think about CSS: The Definitive Guide (2006)?
I picked up this book because I was so impressed with the JavaScript guide from O'Reilly. Unfortunately, my satisfaction did not carry through to this book. This book fails me both as a desk reference and as a tutorial. It is very difficult to succeed when attempting to find a particular tag or detail on CSS in this book (the index is sparse and skimming is difficult). Reading straight through as a tutorial is also frustrating, as the topics do not build upon each other. I had hoped the book would start out with some simple examples in structuring a page layout, and lead into more detail from there. Instead, each topic is covered first in exhaustive detail, and only in exhaustive detail. This makes using the samples very difficult.
—Adam
Like many people, when I want to learn new computer skills, I turn to an O'Reilly book as my starting reference. This book does not disappoint -- as usual, it does a good job helping the reader get started, presenting the material in a clear, logical fashion and giving you just enough background, but not so much that you get bogged down in academic details before getting to the nuts-and-bolts stuff you really want to know. I'd definitely recommend it as a starting point to anyone who wants to learn CSS.
—Martha
