Beginning CSS Web Development: From Novice to Professional

Book description

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are one of the most important technologies on the web today. They give web developers the power to style their web sites so those sites are usable, compact, good looking, consistently displayable, and quick and efficient to change if so desired.

There are many books out there on CSS, but Beginning CSS Web Development is different—it doesn't waste time discussing theory, and it delves straight into the practical matter. It provides you with what you need to know, faster. It is also completely up to date, covering the most modern CSS standards and design techniques.

In addition to the essential CSS basics, this book covers advanced techniques like accessibility, hacks, and filters. The book concludes with a case study, and features a CSS reference section that allows you to look up required syntax as quickly as possible.

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Contents at a Glance
  4. Contents
  5. Foreword
  6. About the Author
  7. About the Technical Reviewers
  8. About the Foreword Writer
  9. Acknowledgments
  10. Introduction
    1. Web Standards and Accessibility
    2. About This Book
    3. Conventions Used in This Book
  11. PART 1: Get to Know CSS
    1. CHAPTER 1: Getting Started
      1. Applying CSS to (X)HTML
      2. Importing and Combining Styles
      3. Maintaining and Organizing Style Sheets
      4. Effective CSS Syntax
      5. You're Ready to Proceed
    2. CHAPTER 2: Core Concepts of CSS
      1. ID vs. Class
      2. Using the Cascade
      3. Grouping
      4. Inheritance
      5. Contextual Selectors
      6. CSS Measurements
      7. To Conclude...
    3. CHAPTER 3: CSS Building Blocks
      1. Divisions (Divs)
      2. Dimensions: Width and Height
      3. Margin
      4. Padding
      5. Margin, Padding, and the Body
      6. Border
      7. To Conclude...
    4. CHAPTER 4: Text
      1. Why Is Text So Important?
      2. Primary Font Properties
      3. Available Fonts
      4. Default Browser Display
      5. Apply Some Style
      6. Please, Please Use line-height!
      7. letter-spacing (Kerning)
      8. Other Key Font Properties
      9. Getting Clever with Text
      10. May the Font Be with You
    5. CHAPTER 5: Color, Backgrounds, and Images
      1. A Brief History of Color
      2. Color for Text
      3. Background Color
      4. Image Formats for Backgrounds
      5. Background Image
      6. To Conclude...
    6. CHAPTER 6: Lists
      1. Why Use Lists?
      2. The Unordered List
      3. Lists for Navigation
      4. The Ordered List
      5. To Conclude...
    7. CHAPTER 7: Links
      1. Link Markup
      2. Default Link Styling
      3. Simple CSS Rules
      4. Other Useful Link Properties
      5. Targeting Links with Descendant Selectors
      6. Transforming a Navigation Bar with Links
      7. To Conclude...
    8. CHAPTER 8: Tables and Definition Lists
      1. Tables
      2. Definition Lists
      3. To Conclude...
    9. CHAPTER 9: Forms
      1. Markup Refresher
      2. Browser Rendering of Form Elements
      3. Basics of Form Styling
      4. Three Approaches
      5. To Conclude...
  12. PART 2: Logical Layouts
    1. CHAPTER 10: Layout Basics
      1. Floats and Clearing
      2. Positioning
      3. To Conclude...
    2. CHAPTER 11: Classic Layouts
      1. Types of Layout
      2. Before You Build
      3. Liquid Floated Two-Column Layout
      4. Liquid Floated Three-Column Layout
      5. Liquid Positioned Two-Column Layout
      6. Liquid Positioned Three-Column Layout
      7. Fixed-Width Layout
      8. To Conclude...
    3. CHAPTER 12: Layout Manipulation
      1. Switching Layout with Contextual Selectors
      2. Faux Columns
      3. To Conclude...
    4. CHAPTER 13: The Journey from Layout to Template
      1. Masthead
      2. Headings
      3. Navigation
      4. Cool Footers
      5. To Conclude...
    5. CHAPTER 14: Usability and Accessibility Enhancements
      1. Guidelines and Legalities
      2. User Style Sheets
      3. Being Helpful
      4. Specialized Style Sheets
      5. To Conclude...
    6. CHAPTER 15: Tips, Tricks, and Troubles
      1. Rollover Images
      2. The Overflow Property
      3. Combining Classes
      4. Hacks and Filters
      5. Troubleshooting
      6. To Conclude...
    7. CHAPTER 16: Case Study: The Dead Goods
      1. The Case Study
      2. The Process
      3. Setting Up
      4. Wireframing the Layout
      5. Background Work
      6. Text Treatment
      7. The Final Touches
      8. Finished!
      9. It's the End of the Book!
  13. APPENDIX: CSS Reference
    1. Background
    2. Border
    3. Margin
    4. Padding
    5. Dimension
    6. Text
    7. Font
    8. List and Marker
    9. Positioning
    10. Classification
    11. Table
    12. Pseudo Classes
    13. Pseudo Elements
    14. Outline
    15. Shorthand
  14. Index

Product information

  • Title: Beginning CSS Web Development: From Novice to Professional
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: August 2006
  • Publisher(s): Apress
  • ISBN: 9781590596890