Customer Reviews

Eric Meyer on CSS (Voices (New Riders))

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

All of the other reviews on this page are spot on - Eric Meyer has a fantastic knowledge of what you can do with CSS (see meyerweb.com for up to date stuff) and as a pure reference guide of examples and case studies, there probably isn't a better tome on the market as of 2004.

Just ONE caveat however - the abundance of detail isn't always backed up by a clear, concise approach, such as planning the page in advance, grouping elements in a logical manner and so on. This means that unless you live your life in code, it can take a while to find out what's making the changes and causing the pretty effects he describes throughout!

If you're like me, then you'll absolutely hate (and be sick of) all the CSS books that teach you how to style a webpage that looks like it has leapt right off of a browser from 1995! You know the thing... a page title with a background image, followed by a horizontal rule and then a coloured rectangle including some bold italic text! Not to mention the tiled page background image. Nice!

Well, this book blows away the myth that you can't style modern, design orientated sites using CSS. Each project is a real world example, and you get a great feel of how to implement the teachings on other projects.

The joy of the writing style is that you can either "play along" on the PC, or just read the book first. I have found that reading the sections and then programming is best.

If you are a complete CSS newbie, then this book is probably not ALL you will need. There is no real explanation of some of the terms and principles used, but where I've been in doubt, a simple web search has given me the answers needed. I'm sure even if you are a CSS expert then you will learn new techniques from the book.

This book definitely get's 5 stars from me, and if I had a hat on I'd tip it in Eric Meyers' general direction!

I read this book after gobbling up Jeffrey Zeldman's Designing with Web Standards. That book had truly converted me to Web Standards and I was keen to expand my knowledge of CSS to fully embrace standards. Since Eric Meyer is regarded as THE CSS guru his book was the first I went for.

The book is certainly a good introduction to unlocking the power of CSS. Meyer takes you through various short projects, explaining step by step how he styles each document. His writing is easy to follow and although the example pages aren't jaw droppingly beautiful, they don't have to be to illustrate just what you can do with CSS. One thing to be aware of is that you'll need a decent grounding in CSS before picking up this book. This isn't a reference, more a hands on tutorial in how to use CSS. Try Eric's "Cascading Style Sheets the Definitive Guide" published by O'Reilly if you're a complete CSS newbie.

From a personal point of view, I found the book a little too basic. CSS isn't hard to pick up and much of the book was going over things I already knew. But nearly every chapter featured a little nugget of information that made me say "ahhhh, that's interesting...." so for that alone it was worth reading.

It wasn't until the final few chapters on mutli-column layouts, absolute positioning and fixed backgrounds that I started to learn something brand new. But that just shows there's something in this book for everyone and if your new to CSS then I highly recommend it.

I would class this book as a must have for all web designers who use/are planning to use cascading style sheets in their creations. Eric Meyer clearly knows his CSS and this book covers a wide range of extremely useful subjects; including converting your existing pages, designing pages for different media types and some advanced topics which should mean that this book can help people from the knowlegde ranges from beginner to intermediate.

This book is a pleasure to read and is printed in full colour which means that you can see every example in full colour. Many pages contain useful tips and points to aide the learning process. The Examples and Projects covered in this book are of a highly practical nature and all examples are availiable for download from the accompanying website. This means that you can follow every project through the book step by step with your own local version.

I found this book to be extremely informative and very useful, If you are just beginning CSS then this would be a valuable addition to your collection. The only problem that I noticed with this book was that I felt it probably would be quite complicated for an absolute beginner, a basic understanding of the concepts involved would be a big help. The other problem was that I felt it could have been longer.

Eric Meyer, when it comes to CSS this man knows it all. There is no denying he is the authoritive figure in this field, he explains things well and will entertain you throughout. If you know little about CSS and what can be achieved with it, buy this book. You will learn how to approach CSS driven design and the possibilities with its use. It won’t teach you the basics (for that ‘Cascading Style Sheets the Definitive Guide’ would be my choice) and if you have been working with CSS for a year or more, you will learn little new within its pages.

There were a handful of new and interesting ideas that I picked out but not much else. This is an enjoyable book and certainly an insight into how one of the leading brains in the field works.

Brilliant. I've know for ages that I ought to be using CSS instead of non-standard HTML kludges, but it seemed a chore. This book made it all simple and obvious. Now I'm a convert to CSS and can't think how I ever managed without it.

The book is not only well written but well presented. The layout and typography are excellent, and it is printed in full colour throughout, so you can see the effect of every little change in the CSS. (I thought some of his designs are ghastly ... but he is teaching the use of the tool, not the design aspect itself).

You will probably need a reference book as well though.

Eric Meyer is a genius. Not only is he an expert in the field of CSS, but he is also graced with the ability to explain the subject so that anyone can understand it.

The book seems a bit pricey, and I was reluctant to part with my money, but having read it I can say it was worth every penny. Topics that used to have me banging my head on the keyboard now seem simple.

Unlike many CSS authors, Meyer doesn't take the "get rid of table layouts for good" approach. He obviously lives in the real world of web design and fully appreciates the constraints sometimes imposed by clients.

This book serves as an excellent practical introduction to CSS.

You are thrust straight into projects that make you appreciate how you could go about a real world solution. It does not explain the exact syntax of every element etc - get a CSS reference book for that.

Although IE6 is by and large covered naturally, there were a couple of projects that did not look exactly as designed. There is a good website by the author mentioned in the book that seems to cover all errata so far discovered (as well as loads of other CSS bits and bobs) and I expect the IE6 problems will be addressed soon as I had a quick and constructive response from the publishers after reporting them.

You will find important points repeated throughout the book - I found this only helps to make you remember fundamental CSS syntax or rules that would otherwise be forgotten. I found that the best way to use this book was to work through the projects one by one - you would otherwise miss out on solutions to problems that you would undoubtably come across sometime or the other in the future. I wish all IT subjects were available in this sort of format.

Unfortunately this book doesn't seem to work on any level. . . It's not an introductory text because it doesn't cover the basic usages thoroughly enough. It's not an advanced or reference text because it doesn't give enough detail. It doesn't work as an overview text because it contains to much implementation detail.

It's a somewhat odd book and essentially just leads you through a few projects but if you know enough to follow without needing to look things up externally, then you probably don't need this sort of handholding.

I did enjoy the book and came away with a better understanding but it's not a book I can recommend.

You don't just read about CSS you actually apply it with the exercises. Yeah, you might not learn about the technical ins and outs (covered in the O'Reily book) but you get to learn about the real world applications. Highly recommend this book with the downloadable working files for anyone wanting to learn CSS. Unleash you creativity!