HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition
by Elizabeth Castro
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Book Summary Information
Author: Elizabeth CastroEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2006-08-26
ISBN: 0321430840
Number of pages: 456
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780321430847
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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- Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS (2nd Edition)
Book Reviews of HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition
Book Review: IDWIMIE
Summary: 3 Stars
It Doesn't Work In Microsoft Internet Explorer (IDWIMIE)
A quick note to all beginning website developers/designers is to keep in mind that acronym. My experience with website development, and I know I'm not alone, is that you tend to tweak your code so that it actually works, or even looks decent, in Internet Explorer. All other browsers typically do not have problems with standards-compliant code. Internet Explorer is the exception. Reading through this book, you will see that the author points these problems out and usually offers a tweak to get the code working in Internet Explorer. If you are serious about web design, test your code in multiple browsers (i.e. Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer). A good web developer can create a website that looks consistent across the major browsers.
I recently read this book. I consider myself fairly versed in (X)HTML and CSS, so I didn't read it as a beginner. However, I can certainly see that this book might be a bit confusing to follow for beginners. Don't get me wrong. It's a good book, but you will most certainly want a second book on hand to reference or get a different view on the subject. (I recommend the HTML & XHTML Pocket Reference, 3rd Ed. or later, by Jennifer Niederst Robbins.)
My first quarrel with this book is that it tends to get repetitive. I noticed this by the end of the third chapter. It really got to me by the time I got to the seventeenth chapter. Perhaps this is because I didn't read this book as a beginner, and maybe it would cater to the absolute beginner.
My second quarrel with this book is the formatting. This book is set up as a step-by-step approach with the parts you actually type being bolded. I personally do not like this format. This works most of the time, but the author uses standard English punctuation in the list of steps and at times it interferes with the code being typed in the steps. For instance, each step ends with a period, and sometimes the period is bolded with the code to type and it would appear as if the reader is supposed to type the period as well. Also, there are parts of the code the author is trying to get the reader to type and it's not bolded. In my opinion, the code should be presented in its entirety and *then* explained one step at a time. That way the reader can see the code in its entirety and have it in mind as it's being explained. The author does give examples of code, but they are offered in very small snippets in the margins. Sometimes the code is in the middle of a bunch of other code, with the part pertaining to the example being highlighted in blue. Like I said before, this works most of the time, but it may lead to some confusion for beginners.
One thing I did enjoy about the book (6th edition) was that it is in full color. This is tremendously helpful for web design. It's hard to explain color in a black-and-white printed book. Props to the publisher for offering full color.
Another thing I like about this book is the "tips" portion at the end of each section. These tips provide a lot of good information about the code which was just explained. Reading these tips, you'll quickly begin to see why I put that acronym at the top of this review. The tips will offer advice for using the code, tweaks for standards compliance, suggestions for making your code accessible to disabled users, and tweaks for making your code work with Internet Explorer. For me, the tips offered a lot of good information.
This book also does a good job of explaining the use of different style sheets for different media. There is a chapter which covers style sheets for handheld devices, which is important with mobile phones increasingly utilizing the Internet. There is also a chapter that covers style sheets for printing on paper, which is very useful if your site provides print-worthy information. Both of those chapters provide for a good learning experience.
Overall, this book is a good book. I would recommend it for anyone wanting to learn website development. However, be prepared to have a second book on hand to offer an alternate view for clarity.
Summary of HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition
Need to learn HTML fast? This best-selling reference's visual format and step-by-step, task-based instructions will have you up and running with HTML in no time. In this completely updated edition of our best-selling guide to HTML, Web expert and best-selling author Elizabeth Castro uses crystal-clear instructions and friendly prose to introduce you to all of today's HTML and XHTML essentials. You'll learn how to design, structure, and format your Web site. You'll create and use images, links, styles, lists, tables, frames, and forms, and you'll add sound and movies to your site. Finally, you will test and debug your site, and publish it to the Web. Along the way, you'll find extensive coverage of CSS techniques, current browsers (Opera, Safari, Firefox), creating pages for the mobile Web, and more.Visual QuickStart Guide--the quick and easy way to learn!
- Easy visual approach uses pictures to guide you through HTML and show you what to do.
- Concise steps and explanations get you up and running in no time.
- Page for page, the best content and value around.
- Companion Web site at www.cookwood.com/html offers examples, a lively question-and-answer area, updates, and more.
It's important for anyone who creates Web sites--even those who rely on powerful editors like Dreamweaver or GoLive--to know HTML. The World Wide Web Consortium rewrote HTML as a subset of XML (dubbing it "XHTML 1.0") and the allowable code will eventually be stricter. Tags that are being phased out are labeled "deprecated"--current browsers can still handle them, but if you want your site to keep up with future browsers, not to mention conform to accessibility requirements, you will want to get on top of XHTML.
Of course, Elizabeth Castro manages to write books that not only speak to those who are already fluent in HTML, but are good for newbies too. She makes it a breeze to create sites that are visually stylish and technically sophisticated without the expense of buying an editor.
Among the topics covered in her new book, HTML for the World Wide Web with XHTML and CSS: using the (relatively newer) structural tags (like doctype and div); correctly using older tags (like p and img) that have been modified in XHTML; writing XHTML so that formatting is done by the style sheets; writing those style sheets (cascading style sheets, a.k.a. "CSS"); creating a variety of layouts; and dealing with tables, frames, forms, multimedia, a bit of JavaScript (including mouseovers), WML (for mobile device displays), debugging, publishing, and publicizing your site.
As with all Visual QuickStart Guides, this one features clear and concise instructions side by side with well-captioned illustrations and screen shots that show both the source code and the resulting effect on the Web page. The index is extremely detailed, making this a great reference.
Also great for reference are the outstanding appendices. The first is an extensive list of tags and attributes, indicating which are deprecated and/or proprietary and on which page they are discussed. A similar appendix shows CSS properties and values; given the future of Web coding, this chart alone is worth the price of the book. Other handy charts cover intrinsic events, symbols and character Unicodes, and an expanded color chart that goes way beyond the virtually archaic Web-safe palette. All of which makes this a definite must-have for every Web designer's bookshelf. --Angelynn Grant
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