Getting StartED with CSS

Knowledge of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is essential for developing modern, attractive websites, but many beginners are put off by the need to learn about unfamiliar concepts, such as selectors, properties, and classes, before they can achieve anything. Getting StartED with CSS takes a practical approach by showing you how to use CSS in simple stages, starting by changing the default appearance of HTML tags to improve the look of text and links. It assumes no prior knowledge of CSS and avoids bombarding you with unnecessary technical details. At the same time, it explains all the main points and acts as a reference that you can come back to when you need to refresh your memory. More advanced concepts are introduced gradually, so that by the end of the book you'll have a solid understanding of all the main aspects of CSS. Particular attention is paid to avoiding the common pitfalls of beginners, enabling you to create websites that not only look good, but also are easy to maintain.

• Requires no previous knowledge of CSS
• Instant results—starts off by showing how improve the look of a website stage by stage
• Doesn't bombard you with endless rules and jargon

• How to immediately improve the look of your entire website by controlling fonts and colors with just a few lines of code.
• How to control the layout of elements on the page without resorting to complex tables.
• How to add background images that appear exactly where you want them.
• How to create effective style sheets that are easy to maintain by avoiding common mistakes such as over-reliance on classes ("classitis").
• How browsers display page elements and master CSS positioning.
• How to experiment with advanced CSS selectors.

This book is aimed at anybody who wants to learn how to style websites using CSS. The primary readership is likely to be independent web developers and serious hobbyists, but knowledge of CSS is essential to anyone planning a career in web development, so it should also find a place in the curriculum of academic courses in media studies.

Table of Contents

1. What Is CSS, and Why Should I Learn It?
2. How Do I Improve the Look of Text and Links?
3. How Can I Improve the Layout of My Text?
4. How Can I Flow Text Around Images?
5. How Do I Add Backgrounds and Borders to Improve the Look of My Page?
6. How Do I Solve the Mysteries of Width and Height?
7. How Do I Create Differently Styled Sections?
8. How Do I Style Lists and Navigation Menus?
9. How Do I Style Tables?
10. How Do I Position Elements Precisely on the Page?
11. Are There Any Guidelines for Basic Page Layout?
12. How Do I Create Styles for Printing?

The current market for CSS books seems to fall into two categories: technical treatises that cover CSS in a structured fashion, and cookbooks aimed at designers who have already mastered the basic principles of CSS. What’s missing is a book that enables beginners to start improving the look of their websites without first needing to wade through dense explanations of technical details. This book aims to fill that gap by using hands-on tutorials, building up knowledge of CSS gradually. A similar approach is taken by "Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML" (competing title #2, on which I was the main technical reviewer). However, "Getting StartED with CSS" will distinguish itself by providing reference sections in each chapter, so the reader will be able to go back later to find important details without needing to scour through the tutorial steps.

"Getting StartED with CSS" will help readers avoid the common beginner’s mistake of over-reliance on classes by teaching them first how to redefine the look of HTML tags. Classes and other selectors will be introduced only at a later stage, after the basic concepts of defining properties and understanding the cascade have been thoroughly covered. Emphasis will also be placed on avoiding unnecessary duplication of properties (e.g., using the font-family in every style rule). Readers will be taught not only the rules of CSS, but how to use CSS efficiently.

David Powers is an Adobe Community Expert for Dreamweaver and author of a series of highly successful books on PHP, including PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web Design Made Easy (friends of ED, ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-731-6) and Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8 (friends of ED, ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-569-5). As a professional writer, he has been involved in electronic media for more than 30 years, first with BBC radio and television and more recently with the Internet. His clear writing style is valued not only in the English-speaking world; several of his books have been translated into Spanish and Polish.

What started as a mild interest in computing was transformed almost overnight into a passion, when David was posted to Japan in 1987 as BBC correspondent in Tokyo. With no corporate IT department just down the hallway, he was forced to learn how to fix everything himself. When not tinkering with the innards of his computer, he was reporting for BBC TV and radio on the rise and collapse of the Japanese bubble economy. Since leaving the BBC to work independently, he has built up an online bilingual database of economic and political analysis for Japanese clients of an international consultancy.

When not pounding the keyboard writing books or dreaming of new ways of using PHP and other programming languages, David enjoys nothing better than visiting his favorite sushi restaurant. He has also translated several plays from Japanese.