HGS Choice: CSS & XHTML
This website uses cascading style sheets for layout and presentation instead of HTML tables and style tags, and it employs only one small Javascript section to check our booking form submissions. Why? Because CSS reduces code, allows a flexible layout, and works across almost all current popular browsers, both Windows and Mac.
Why this site has chosen to use XHTML instead of HTML.
Books on CSS:
- "Teach Yourself CSS in 24 Hours" by Kynn Bartlett, ISBN 0-672-32409-1, from the SAMS Publishing series; for my money, the best step-by-step tutorial available.
- "HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS" by Dan Shafer, from Sitepoint; a different approach with an equally effective tutorial.
- "101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks" by Rachel Andrew, again from Sitepoint; full of practical explanations of myriad CSS techniques that can be applied instantly.
- "Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook" by Dan Cederholm, from Friends of Ed publishers; another excellent hands–on guide to CSS and its real–world applications authored by a frequent contributor to A List Apart.
- "Bulletproof Web Design" also by Cedarholm, published by New Riders, shows how to design a site for maximum flexibility, readability, and user control. Using step–by–step examples, Cedarholm explains just how to make your site useful for the widest audience.
- "CSS Mastery, Advanced Web Standards Solutions" by Andy Budd with Cameron Moll and Simon Collison, another guide from Friends of Ed publishers; a current, innovative collection of hands–on instructions for web design, plus case studies from two leading CSS masters, Moll and Collison.
Check out the following online:
- WestCiv (Western Civilization), the premier starting point
- Dzinelab's Tutorials, an excellent short-course
- HTML Dog's CSS Beginner's Guide
- Basic tutorial by Bert Bos, who, with Hakon Wium Lie, developed the original CSS
- DAVESITE CSS: Beginner's tutorial from Dave Kristula
- CSS/Edge, key site for all things CSS
- A List Apart, top–rated site for CSS discussion and techniques
- Zen Garden, a demonstration of how CSS can style stock HTML copy in many ways
- CSS Import, a gallery of CSS-driven site layouts
- CSS Drive, another gallery
- SitePoint's almost exhaustive listing of good design sites
Since CSS and HTML, the basic web design language, are so closely related, see "HTML" in the 'Read Less, Learn More' Visual series from IDG Books Worldwide (800-762-2974) or maranGraphics, Inc. New and used copies of this book are available at Amazon.com.
If you care about such things, ask browser developers to support the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards.
For more information about web standards, their importance in website development, and how to best use them, check out the Web Standards Project.
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