CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions (Black & White)

What a bargain this book was, used at $2! That's what I thought, anyway, as I clicked and ordered. But, buyer beware, it was NOT the 2nd edition. So, everything I have to say applies to the first edition, which is the one I bought.That having been said, what another reviewer said was true, this actually IS the best reference book in print on CSS. Well, at least it was until the 2nd edition came out. Ok, whine whine whine. But seriously, the explanation of the CSS box model is blessedly short and equally blessedly clear. I have tried and used tons of examples from this short book in production, and learned a lot about CSS. I would heartily recommend even the first edition (writing now in 2010). Especially if you only have $2 to spend! (Boo hoo hoo).There was just one thing missing from a book entitled CSS Mastery, that I think should have been included. I got my website pages I was doing all ready for review, and then asked my reviewer to review them. Well, practically the first thing he did was try to print, and it came out all wacky. That's right, I hadn't even given the wisp of a thought to including a print stylesheet. Don't you think a book with a title like "CSS Mastery" really ought to have a chapter on printing? There isn't even a "printing" entry in the index, although that's a good thing, 'cause if there were it would be incorrect. This book doesn't cover formatting for print using CSS, AT ALL!Not even the line that tells how to include your print stylesheet, like this: <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/960_p.css" type="text/css" media="Print"/>But now that you DO know how to put in that line, the book pretty much gives you the expertise to change your stylesheet to use points instead of pixels, and make hidden the things that you don't want to print. But it would have been good to have these guys cover the ground, because there ARE cross-browser differences in printing too, and one of them caused me to waste almost a whole afternoon.Hey, one of you other reviewers out there! Does the second edition of this book cover CSS printing?

I have been writing HTML and CSS for a number of years and was hoping this book would improve my skills and bring me up to date in the latest CSS techniques. For the most part this was achieved.My main gripe with this book is the errors and typos. In a technical book a typo is a big deal, in one example the author writes in the text to use negative margins but then in the code below a normal magin is used! There are a number of similar examples throughout the book. To compound the problem the only available errata I could find was for the first edition.Despite this it is well written and full of great explanations of advanced concepts and techniques. I would try and find the errata for the 2nd edition before buying it however.Just be aware this isn't a beginners book, I would not recommend this book to someone starting out with HTML and CSS. A lot of fundamental knowledge is assumed. Which is fine for a book with advanced in the title.

This is an excellent book for those learning CSS who want to get up to speed quickly without having to hunt down answers all over the interwebs, and is useful for experienced developers as well. The majority of the book can serve as an introduction and reference, while the last two chapters (each a case study) reinforce the introduced concepts and serve up some inspiration.However, as another reviewer pointed out, the book is full of errors in the code snippets that are quite glaring and could be confusing. Hopefully it will go to a second printing, and the examples will be corrected.For a more in-depth review, read [...]

While the book I ordered was new. It wasn’t until several weeks later that noticed someone else had written in my book. This is not a textbook and was noted as “new”. Nonetheless, the book is excellent to understand for looking up what I need to do for client projects. However due to the misconception of this NOT being a new book, and writing was found on a few pages. My review is 3/5.

I am a Sr. S/W Engineer with a primary focus on Windows/ASP.NET solutions. What I've lacked up until I bought this book is a good foundation on CSS. I got this book just before one of my web projects started and this book has helped me tremendously. The book starts out with a quick history of WWW then jumps into classes, IDs and selectors. It also covers positioning, background effects, link/list/form styling and bug fixing. It's written in such a way that you can read it end-to-end or use it as a reference. Did I mention that all the illustrations are in color? I highly recommend this book.

To use the vernacular, <3 CSS 3!This book taught me way more about CSS than any class I have taken. It also reads well with a casual, down-to-earth tone that makes it's ability to teach on par with learning from the author in person.I use CSS 3 in all my Web projects, at least the parts that this book mentions are supported already. (Also check out an element called -moz-border-image, this book doesn't bring that up.)The Friends of Ed series are all similar in reading quality and I would recommend all of their titles for those who are book learners.

One of the best CSS books I've read so far. Andy managed to explain everything in a very clearly manner. I think this book will benefit both newbies and advanced web developers. I'd say this is a must for a newbie, it will broaden your imagination of what CSS is capable of doing, and will show you very simple ways of achieving it. For advanced users - you probably won't find a lot that you haven't seen, but still definitely worth skimming through. 5 stars! Andy waiting for the new edition, would love more from CSS3, and it's combination with HTML5. Follow me on Twitter @mmamedov

I am a visual learner, so when I saw that this book was printed in colour I was very excited! However, upon arrival I discovered that the book is completely printed in gray scale... but not in an intended way more like a "printer ran out of ink" way. The cover (which is in colour) ironically boasts that it's the (and I quote) "New Edition: with FULL COLOR and revised content throughout".

Awesome

I bought this book as I am a web designer/developer. When I first read this book I thought that it was good but felt at first that it was lacking useful content. Since then I have referred to this book several times and realised that I missed judge it as it really does have lots of useful ideas with advanced features, now it is always on my desk.If you are looking for a good CSS book, buy it. This is not a book for beginners in CSS, I recommend that you buy other CSS guides to understand how CSS really works then buy this book to advance your skills.

I really like the book, I use it mainly to dip in and out of and it is one of those funny books where you want to learn one thing but you end up learning 5, because it is so nicely written and easy to follow.It says (top pink on front cover "with full color and revised content throughout" but the only thing in colour is the cover, which annoyed me somewhat, especially since its not cheap but the quality of info and ease of access and user friendliness within it I cant fault.Jay

A collection of more complicated CSS techniques presented in no particular order. Quite interesting if you already know a bit about css and gets you thinking about unusual ways of using standard css features to achieve special effects. Some of the techniques shown were developed some time back to get over shortcomings of the css versions of that era which have since been eradicated in more recent developments.