Rating:  - Perfectly practical, and will become indispensible to me...
I've mentioned in the past that books on web standards and markup tend to irritate me due to their "I'm an expert and my opinion is always right" attitude. But never one to give up, I had the chance to review Web Standards Solutions - The Markup and Style Handbook by Dan Cederhold (Apress). Much like the book Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman, this is a refreshing change and extremely practical. I really like it!
The chapter breakdown: Lists; Headings; Tables Are Evil?; Quotations; Forms; , , and Other Phrase Elements; Anchors; More Lists; Minimizing Markup; Applying CSS; Print Styles; CSS Layouts; Styling Text; Image Replacement; Styling ; Next Steps; Index
The chapters follow a common format... A topic is introduced, and three or four different methods are shown on how to accomplish the task (like lists). Each method is explored for pros and cons, with the goal of finding a solution that puts emphasis on semantic meaning and clean markup. This is followed by an "extra credit" section that pushes past the basic topic and starts to show some more unique ways to use CSS for appealing page images.
For one, the tone is conversational in nature. You're not being lectured to or scolded for not adhering to perfect and exact standards (or opinions). The book is also not a reference manual as such. It's a practical guide on how to use CSS to get the job done and give yourself a solid design that will work for multiple types of browsers. Throw in a little humor along the way, and this book becomes one which you find yourself picking up repeatedly.
The sign of a good book for me is one where I'm using the book either before or during my review. Based on a project I'm currently coding, I've already started to memorize certain page numbers I keep going back to. This book will definitely secure a spot on the bookshelf at work, and will be closely guarded to make sure it doesn't disappear.
Rating: - Relevant, Consistent, Lucid & Enormously Important
Just finished reading Dan's book. It was a breath of fresh air to read a book that is clear, consistent and to the point. No BS, ever! It was impressive how Dan takes the reader logically through CSS hurdles, step by step, and with economy of words. If you know XHTML markup and basic CSS, then you can expect to learn the following:
1. The right choice of tag for a particular situation
2. Different ways of styling the tags
= Standards compliance and Accessibility being the central theme
3. CSS Layout Techniques (ex: 3-col to 2-col switching using a single stylesheet)
= Box Model problem with IE/Win fully explained
4. Why using tables DOES make sense in some cases
5. Text to Image Replacement techniques
=Some advances CSS techniques
6. A List of extremely useful websites to watch for
While this is not a book for a begineer starting out on CSS/XHTML, this is a MUST READ for every web-designer with a desire to get CSS right from get go. This is a book well worth every cent. Thanks to Dan for writing such a useful book and I am already looking forward to his next one. Dan's website is at www.simplebits.com
Rating: - Making my markup sleeker than Lisa Kudrow rolled in yoghurt
I have to say it's excellent. A colleague read a chapter and pronounced it "the best and most lucid explanation I've ever seen of when to use and when to use " and I agree; in the next few weeks I shall be putting into practice loads of his tips. I've already fancy-Dandified my header styles, removed presentational
tags, and made them sleeker than Lisa Kudrow rolled in yoghurt. I will be marking up more semantically from now on. I understand the benefits and need; I always wanted to - just didn't know how to do all that CSS wizardry.
His tip on using the same css and specifying whether it's a 2 or 3 column page via an id on the body tag is likely to lead to a 40 foot statue of him being erected in the centre of several metropolises. I have to carry the book in a briefcase to protect myself from attractive women trying to seduce me because of it.
Hyperbole aside; my boss has already ordered a few copies for the team, as the book is written with a simple, sensible style. is lucid and doesn't assume that you are a CSS guru, yet doesn't talk down.
(from brucelawson.co.uk/accessiblity)
Rating: - Intermediate Level
Dan Cederholm's book Web Standards Solutions is definitely not for beginners. He hits the ground running, right from the first chapter, jumping into full CSS syntax with tips and tricks for styling lists and headers; there's not much in the way of "getting started" or "style basics," though there are supplemental sidenotes and some XHTML/CSS elucidation later on.
For advanced users, it's an excellent reference to extend existing markup knowledge in different creative and technical directions. This book recommends standards-based markup practices to achieve various results within different contexts, from simple padding and floating to Fahrner Image Replacement. Much of the content is rehashed and rearranged from the Simplequiz feature of his website, which is a great way to contrast current presentational "tag soup" conventions with proper structural markup. So far it's all been stuff that I already know and use in my day-to-day design, but I'm seeing a few things in later chapters which should pose both unique solutions to as-yet-unmet CSS design challenges.
Don't start with this if you want a starter's XHTML/CSS manual or a comprehensive syntax guide. If CSS isn't like a second language to you yet, you'll probably want to read Web Standards Solutions with a couple of cheat sheets close by. And of course, the easiest way to learn is to do: fire up a text editor and a [real] browser and hammer out that code as you read about it. The sooner you're out of the tag soup, the better.
Rating: - Simple, but elegant solutions
Dan Cederholm runs a company called SimpleBits, and that's the philosophy that runs through this book: keep things simple. Don't let that deceive you, though. Simple doesn't mean plain or boring. In fact, Dan offers some very elegant solutions to common problems - styling navigation lists, pull quotes, and table-free layout. He also shows you how to style tables with CSS, as well as exploring uses for some of the lesser-known semantic tags for text layout.
The book is targeted mainly at web designers who haven't yet taken the plunge with CSS, or who are finding it hard to get to grips with. By taking things in small bites, he shows that CSS doesn't have to be complicated; and he warns against the disease that seems to affect many new converts to CSS - becoming "class happy", where classes are liberally spread through web pages with greater abandon than old-style font tags. Jeffrey Zeldman's Designing with Web Standards argues the case with passion. Dan Cederholm just quietly gets on with the job - and very effectively, too. Each chapter is short, and to the point. I enjoyed it thorougly.
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