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Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook Paperback – 10 Oct. 2008

by Dan Cederholm (Author), Jeffrey Zeldman (Foreword)

4.5 39 ratings

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Web standards are the standard technology specifications enforced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make sure that web designers and browser manufacturers are using the same technology syntax. It is important that these implementations are the same throughout the Web, otherwise it becomes a messy proprietary place, and lacks consistency. These standards also allow content to be more compatible with multiple different viewing devices, such as screen readers for people with vision impairments, cell phones, PDFs, etc. HTML, XML, and CSS are all such technologies. This book is your essential guide to understanding the advantages you can bring to your web pages by implementing web standards and precisely how to apply them. Web standards such as XHTML and CSS are now fairly well-known technologies, and they will likely be familiar to you, the web designer-indeed, they are all around you on the Web. However, within web standards still lies a challenge-while the browser's support for web standards is steadily increasing, many web developers and designers have yet to discover the real benefits of web standards and respect the need to adhere to them.The real art is in truly understanding the benefits and implementing the standards efficiently. As a simple example of its power, you can use CSS to lay out your pages instead of nesting tables-this can make file sizes smaller, allowing pages to load faster, ultimately increasing accessibility for all browsers, devices, and web users. Use XHTML elements correctly so that your markup is compact and more easily understood. Use CSS to style different elements of a web page. Lay out pages easily and effectively. Compare multiple methods of achieving the same results to make better design choices. Learn about advanced web design techniques and their important caveats. Web Standards Solutions is broken down into 16 short chapters, each covering the theory and practice of different web standards concept and showing multiple solutions to given problems for easy learning. You'll learn about multi-column layouts, using image replacement techniques to your best advantage, making the best use of tables and lists, and many more.This highly modular approach allows you to rapidly digest, understand, and utilize the essentials of web standards.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Apress; 1st edition (10 Oct. 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1590593812
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1590593813
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 18.42 x 1.91 x 21.59 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,761,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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4.5 39 ratings

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M. Wilcox

Excellent book!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 November 2004

Verified Purchase

So you've figured out Web Standards are a Good Thing(TM), either by reading Zeldman's 'Designing With Web Standards' or because you're naturally smart. Now you need to know how to code with standards, and that's where this book comes in.
I've had the book since it was published, and since then it's not left my desk. It's taken up residence right next to 'More Eric Meyer on CSS', which ought to give you an indication of how good Dan's book is.
Rather than concentrating on a technology and just showing you all it's bells and whistles, this book uses a better approach. It states a common design problem and then presents multiple standards compliant solutions. Dan then takes you through each one of those solutions and shows you the good and bad points of each. You not only learn -how- to code well, you learn -why- it's good code in the first place, and that's important.
Dan's writing style is friendly, clear and does an excellent job of making you understand what's being said, so you feel confident about transferring the books examples into your own website. It's written in a way which should be easy enough for a beginner to understand, but isn't patronising. I would expect most web professionals will learn a lot from this book too (I should know, I'm one of them).
This is a great book and highly recommended.

38 people found this helpful

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richardb

Another 5 star review

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 April 2008

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Not being a Web Designer but a Web Developer doing ASP.Net, I can produce working web sites but they would never be described as "cool" and I thought I just didn't have the ability to create great looking sites - Until now.

After doing an Open university course which peaked my interest in client side web design and CSS, this book shows you how to style and layout your web pages and make them accessible to everyone. You can work through the bite size chapters and by the end of the book you are putting together all the pieces to create a 2 and 3 column flexible layout.

This is great for a beginner and for those who already know CSS.

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Ms. A. B. Boyd

was good for university course

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 April 2010

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got this book for my university course.. it shows the information really well and is easy to read!
book is not really for a novice who does not know HTML n CSS coding.. more likely for someone who has abit of knowledge

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bmcream

What i required at the time.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 October 2014

Very useful...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 December 2004

Only recently I started coding HTML again after a long break (several years, actually) focusing on backend related stuff. I found out that there had been a strong move towards coding by 'web standards'. I learned to code HTML back in 1998-99 and therefore I had to upgrade my skills, which was one of my reasons for picking up this book.
Jeffrey Zeldman's book "Designing with Web Standards" put me on the right track, but I must say that "Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook" pushed even further down the track.
First of all I must say I like this book. I like it a lot! It is truly an impressive book! I was amazed by the speed of which I was able to consume the contents. It gives you a practical insight how to do some common tasks, e.g. a menu, a form etc. All the things that you used to do with tables, spacer gifs etc. are turned upside down. The book is well written, with no-nonsense (although a bit corny here and there) how to do common tasks according to standards. It's exactly to the point and no space is wasted anywhere. It's in no way an academic overview on 'web standards' but a down to earth how-to book.
This book really gives you a different perspective on how to do webdesign. If you have coded a little bit of HTML, with or without knowledge of web standards, this is the book for you. Unlike other books, this one doesn't hit you in the head with the dreadful web-standards-hammer. I cannot recommend this book enough. Excellent work!

39 people found this helpful

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Sean Johnson

This book will definately NOT gather dust on your shelf!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 September 2007

This is a popular book in our studio providing a sound foundation of best practices for CSS & XHTML web design. In a similar way to The CSS Anthology, this book asks a question, such as, "What is the best way to mark up a numbered list of items?" or "How can I use CSS to replace text with an image?" However, this book really becomes it's own, by proceeding to suggest 3 or 4 methods with clear and concise examples, before summarising with the pro's and con's of each method.

It's sectioned into chapters including lists, headings, forms, tables and layouts with the familiar Friends of Ed thumb-indexing for quick and easy access. This is one of those books that you'll keep on your desk for regular reference rather than gather dust on your shelf.

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TDH

It'll never leave your desk

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 November 2004

It's all too easy to forget, or perhaps ignore, even the simplest of practises in all walks of life. This book acts as a constant reminder to do things - concerning web design, at least - properly.
I read this book from cover to cover before getting my hands dirty with any code. In retrospect I think this was a very productive way to use this book, rather than treating it as a series of tutorials.
By reading non-stop I simply learnt the format of the book, the conepts, the considerations and most importantly, memorised where to find certain pieces of information when I needed them.
I have since designed two sites and I find myself dipping into this book not for code reference, but for a reminder on the best (correct) way to go about certain aspects. For instance, what is the best way to markup a styled list? (chaper 1, by the way) - You probably think you know, or DO know the answer, but it's seemingly obvious things like this than the author gives clarity and instils in the reader the confidence that they have marked up their content using the best possible method.
I find myself dipping in for reminders on various concepts constantly, which due to the neat structure takes seconds. Much quicker than trying to find what you're looking for on the web.
In summary, this book isn't so much a beginning-to-end voyage of discovery of designing with CSS, it's more a tool that reminds you - "oh yeah, silly me, of course!" - of the correct way to go about marking up your webpages and writing your CSS - And although that doesn't sound particularly useful, it is. Very.

8 people found this helpful

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Andre Coimbra-villela

Great Book

Reviewed in Canada on 5 June 2013

Verified Purchase

I was a total beginner on css before i read this book.
With him it was easier to be brought up to speed.

hoosac

Why use CSS? Read this book and find out

Reviewed in the United States on 11 November 2005

Verified Purchase

I read this book from cover to cover, and was sorry to see it come to an end. I don't say that about too many books, let alone computer manuals, but this is one is exceptional. Prior to reading Web Standards Solutions, I had never found a good rationale for using CSS. Oh sure, it's the new web standard, and everyone will say it's the right thing to do, just like eating your spinach. But no one had ever shown me what CSS is good for until Dan Cederholm came along.

Here's the reason, in four words: It makes things easy.

If you have been struggling with tables nested in tables nested in more tables, with pieces of images here and bits of images there, and font declarations everywhere, all so that you can make things line up nicely and make your pages look attractive, be aware that there is a way out of the wilderness. Dan Cederholm can show you how. In the process, he has created a fine example of the way a computer manual ought to be written.

The first section of the book deals with using CSS to mark up various elements of a page, including lists, headings, forms, anchors, and, yes, even tables. The second section broadens the scope to consider how CSS can be used to structure larger things, like an entire page. For example, there's a very good (and simple!) section on how to set up a page with a header, footer, and two columns. By adding a few lines of CSS, the two-column layout can be turned into three columns. And with no tables at all. Hallelujah.

Each section of the book starts with an explanation of what he would like to accomplish -- create a menu, for instance, or apply a font style to just one page on a site, or one element on a page. He then shows you several ways that you can use CSS to do this, and goes over the pros and cons of each. The code is always simple, even though the results are impressive, because CSS allows you to do these things easily. But to keep you from going astray, Mr. Cederholm first shows the basic code, then adds one feature at a time, and shows the result of that. All of this is presented so clearly that it's trivial to understand, yet highly effective when you see what he's accomplished.

As for caveats, there are only a couple. It should be emphasized that the book is an introduction to CSS; if you're looking for a comprehensive guide to every feature of the language, you won't find it here. The book will definitely whet your appetite, and make you want to learn more, but you'll need other manuals to take you further.

I was also going to say that CSS veterans probably won't find much that is new here, but on second thought I'm not entirely sure of that. There are a lot of nifty ideas in this book. Mr. Cederholm was the designer for the Fast Company web site, and he shows some of the problems he encountered when architecting that site, and the solutions he came up with. They are clever and simple, but not necessarily obvious.

If you're debating whether to buy the book, take a look at a sample chapter on the author's web site. I did, and was so impressed that I went ahead and bought the book. I suspect you will, too.

11 people found this helpful

Adam Helweh

Much needed book with superb approach

Reviewed in the United States on 13 March 2005

Verified Purchase

For just under a year now I have been dipping into the online community of advocates for the many uses of CSS. As someone who is a graphic designer and part time web designer it can sometimes be a pain to find that mix of visual, structural, and functional design needed to take your portfolio and skills to the next level.

This book takes a very clear approach to laying out many paths to a single, or similiar, solutions. I think a big problem with all of us "non gurus" who are trying to get into CSS is knowing whether a tag or style is compatible with the "popular browsers" and if we are going to hand off the project to our clients full of holes and subsequently full of complaints. You can trust Dan as a professional who lays down a number of approaches that can be used, none of which are totally obselete and are going to leave you with an unhappy client.

Another great element of this book is the value it adds to your work. When you put these skills to work on your sites, your not only creating visually great work, but your also making your work compatible on all levels (hand helds, multiple browsers, screen readers, non CSS compatible browsers)and the book even shows why using specific techniques will optimize your code for search engines (and anyone worth thier weight in gold knows how important search engine optimization is for clients).

There are alot of great reasons to fork over your money on this book. As I believe I heard someone mention before, if you have basic CSS knowledge and this book you will be ready to rock. Just dont pick it up expecting to learn CSS from the ground up. For those who have that basic working knowledge, this is the next step in your CSS revolution!

30 people found this helpful

Scott Park

Breif Review of Web Standards Solutions

Reviewed in the United States on 14 May 2006

Verified Purchase

I picked up "Web Standards Solutions" and Dan Cederholm's other book "Bulletproof Web Design" as a package from Amazon. While I prefer the latter because of it's smooth read and less academic feel, "Web Standards Solutions" provides a nice foundation for getting a handle of CSS essentials and limited markup. I only found it lacking in the area of advanced CSS layout, which can be a tad frustrating if you're looking to this book to answer all of CSS mysteries. Even those who are experienced with CSS may find some new insight in the area of limited markup, which is key in developing sites that are optimized for search engines and markup that is truly independent of it's layout. In short, it's a quick read and well worth the cost at any skill level.

3 people found this helpful

brownpau

Intermediate Level

Reviewed in the United States on 30 June 2004

Verified Purchase

Dan Cederholm's book Web Standards Solutions is definitely not for beginners. He hits the ground running, right from the first chapter, jumping into full CSS syntax with tips and tricks for styling lists and headers; there's not much in the way of "getting started" or "style basics," though there are supplemental sidenotes and some XHTML/CSS elucidation later on.
For advanced users, it's an excellent reference to extend existing markup knowledge in different creative and technical directions. This book recommends standards-based markup practices to achieve various results within different contexts, from simple padding and floating to Fahrner Image Replacement. Much of the content is rehashed and rearranged from the Simplequiz feature of his website, which is a great way to contrast current presentational "tag soup" conventions with proper structural markup. So far it's all been stuff that I already know and use in my day-to-day design, but I'm seeing a few things in later chapters which should pose both unique solutions to as-yet-unmet CSS design challenges.
Don't start with this if you want a starter's XHTML/CSS manual or a comprehensive syntax guide. If CSS isn't like a second language to you yet, you'll probably want to read Web Standards Solutions with a couple of cheat sheets close by. And of course, the easiest way to learn is to do: fire up a text editor and a [real] browser and hammer out that code as you read about it. The sooner you're out of the tag soup, the better.

13 people found this helpful

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Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook Paperback – 10 Oct. 2008

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Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook Paperback – 10 Oct. 2008

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