CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
If you’ve been following what Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll have been writing on their blogs for the past couple of years, you’ll probably have high expectations for this book. Let me assure you that you will not be disappointed.
CSS Mastery is an excellent book, from the first page to the last. Most of it is written by Andy, with Simon and Cameron contributing one chapter each. Their case studies occupy the last two chapters in the book, and make good use of many of the tricks, tips, and techniques described by Andy in the first nine chapters. On a side note, Simon’s case study is of particular interest to me since it uses my Transparent custom corners and borders technique quite a bit.
The book covers everything from the basics of marking up documents properly by using clean, semantic, and valid (X)HTML to really advanced CSS trickery. It explains the foundations of CSS as well as how to squash some of the most annoying browser bugs a web designer can run into. Reading the book will also teach you how to style forms and data tables, how to use lists to create visually appealing navigation bars, and much more.
As with any book there are some proofing errors and typos, but a PDF file with errata is available for download from the book’s accompanying website. On the site you will also find a sample chapter, the table of contents, and all code examples listed in the book.
I’m no novice when it comes to CSS, but reading this book had me going “A-ha! So that’s how it works!” a couple of times. Whether you’re relatively new to CSS or an experienced CSS author, you’re very likely to find this book very useful.
- CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
- Authors: Andy Budd, Cameron Moll, Simon Collison
- ISBN: 1590596145
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Information, sponsorship, and externals
About the author
Roger Johansson is a Swedish web professional specialising in web standards, accessibility, and usability. More about me and this site.
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Comments
After reading your post I just couldn't do anything else but to surf to adlibris.com and buy the book right away. (Somehow "The Zen of CSS Design" by Dave Shea also managed to slip down my shopping cart...)
Even though I am a "poor student" I know that I won't regret it. The books will be shipped to my house in 2-5 days, can't wait!
Excellent... it goes right unto my wishlist. the demo i downloaded with the explaination of the "liquid and ice layouts" and sollutions for them are very neat.
I can also attest that this is a great book. If you only buy one CSS book this year, CSS Mastery should be it. I won't spam the comments here, but anyone cares I wrote a book review on it over at Godbit.com
This looks like a must-buy, but 10 pages of errata and counting? I think I'll hold off until a corrected printing is available.
I actually picked up a copy as soon as it was released. At first, couldn't convince myself to purchase a book filled with content readily available online. Fortunately, I smartened up. I purchased CSS Mastery and Bulletproof Web Design [Dan Cederholm]. It's convenient to have paper copies of books at hand especially when you're trying to give your eyes a rest from staring at the screen.
I learned a number of "basics" that were fresh to me.
Got to agree with you Roger, I have not finished reading it yet, but there a couple of “So that’s how it works!” and “So that is why that happens!” moments
Roger,
You should possibly get in touch with Gareth Rushgrove who I know is currently soliciting book reviews for his clever new project... (that is, if he's not read this post already and got in touch himself!)
Nice review :)
It's always nice to have a printed book without any typo or correction. But that's in a perfect world. I can live with a Java/Ruby book with typo/correction. CSS books have a higher obligation. Because of browser bugs and what not, I just accept the way things are laid out in the book especially given that I am not a web designer primarily. I am a Java/Ruby developer and wants to keep touch with CSS. With an errata of 10 pages (225 items) and counting I will wait for the second edition. I'm wondering why they are not selling the corrected PDF.
Maybe this would be the book which will guide me to start writing proper CSS.
Got 'em!
Anywhere to buy this book as pdf?
i reviewed this book on amazon. some things i liked, some things i didn't like. i got an abusive email from andy budd via amazon's "invite a friend" feature, which allowed him to route a message to me. apparently having one 3/5 rating was enough to make him go off of the reservation. not very professional.
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