The CSS3 Anthology Take Your Sites to New Heightsby Sitepoint
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Preface
When SitePoint asked me to write the fourth edition of this book, I initially thought it would take the same format of other editions—adding new techniques, removing content that had become outdated, and updating solutions to a more modern ap- proach. As I started to work through the table of contents, however, I realized that the world of CSS had changed so much that a complete rewrite was needed.
Rather than being about cutting-edge or experimental CSS, this book demonstrates the tips, tricks, and solutions that I use every day. We’ll thoroughly investigate the world of CSS3, many of the features of which are supported by the major browsers, and look at how to make these new techniques work in older browsers.
We’ll also walk through the use of CSS for layout purposes. While the tools that we have for layout haven’t changed much in the last two years, the types of devices that we need to design websites for have changed. Our sites are being viewed on hardware ranging from smartphones to desktop screens. Responsive design aims to tackle the challenge of designing a single site that provides a great experience for all.
This anthology contains minimal theory; instead, I’ve concentrated on providing solutions that will enable you to quickly get started with a technique or solve a problem. The sections in each chapter can also act as starting points for your own experimentation and creativity. Each one is framed as a specific issue or question, accompanied by a detailed explanation to help you understand the solution and point out any related challenges or alternate approaches.
This is a really exciting time for front-end development, and I hope that this book helps you start to explore some of the features of CSS3, and find answers to CSS problems that you might have.
Who Should Read This Book
This book is aimed at people who need to work with CSS: web designers and de- velopers who’ve seen the cool CSS designs out there, but are short on the time to wade through masses of theory and debate in order to create a site. Each problem
When SitePoint asked me to write the fourth edition of this book, I initially thought it would take the same format of other editions—adding new techniques, removing content that had become outdated, and updating solutions to a more modern ap- proach. As I started to work through the table of contents, however, I realized that the world of CSS had changed so much that a complete rewrite was needed.
Rather than being about cutting-edge or experimental CSS, this book demonstrates the tips, tricks, and solutions that I use every day. We’ll thoroughly investigate the world of CSS3, many of the features of which are supported by the major browsers, and look at how to make these new techniques work in older browsers.
We’ll also walk through the use of CSS for layout purposes. While the tools that we have for layout haven’t changed much in the last two years, the types of devices that we need to design websites for have changed. Our sites are being viewed on hardware ranging from smartphones to desktop screens. Responsive design aims to tackle the challenge of designing a single site that provides a great experience for all.
This anthology contains minimal theory; instead, I’ve concentrated on providing solutions that will enable you to quickly get started with a technique or solve a problem. The sections in each chapter can also act as starting points for your own experimentation and creativity. Each one is framed as a specific issue or question, accompanied by a detailed explanation to help you understand the solution and point out any related challenges or alternate approaches.
This is a really exciting time for front-end development, and I hope that this book helps you start to explore some of the features of CSS3, and find answers to CSS problems that you might have.
Who Should Read This Book
This book is aimed at people who need to work with CSS: web designers and de- velopers who’ve seen the cool CSS designs out there, but are short on the time to wade through masses of theory and debate in order to create a site. Each problem
xvi
is solved with a working solution that can be implemented as it is or used as a
springboard to creativity.
As a whole, this book isn’t a tutorial. While Chapter 1 covers the very basics of CSS, and the early chapters cover simpler techniques than those that follow, you’ll find the examples easier to grasp if you have a basic grounding in CSS.
What’s in This Book
Chapter 1: Making a Start with CSS
This chapter is simply a quick CSS tutorial for anyone who needs to brush up on the basics of CSS. If you’ve been using CSS in your own projects, you might want to skip this chapter and refer to it on a needs basis, when you want to look into basic concepts in more detail.
Chapter 2: Text Styling and Other Basics
This chapter covers techniques for styling and formatting text in your documents; font sizing, colors, highlighting text, and the removal of extra whitespace around page elements are explained as the chapter progresses. Even if you’re already using CSS for text styling, you’ll find some useful tips here.
Chapter 3: Images and Other Design Elements
This chapter looks at the ways in which you can combine CSS and images to create powerful visual effects, such as placing background images on elements, applying gradients, making elements transparent, and positioning text with images, among other topics.
Chapter 4: Navigation
Every site requires usable navigation, and this chapter explains how to achieve it, CSS-style. We’ll investigate image-based navigation, tabbed navigation, combining background images with CSS text to create attractive and accessible menus, and using lists to structure navigation in an accessible way.
Chapter 5: Tabular Data
The use of tables for layout hasn’t been considered best practice for a long time. Tables should be used for their real purpose: the display of tabular data, such as that contained in a spreadsheet. This chapter will demonstrate techniques for the application of tables to create attractive and usable tabular data displays.
As a whole, this book isn’t a tutorial. While Chapter 1 covers the very basics of CSS, and the early chapters cover simpler techniques than those that follow, you’ll find the examples easier to grasp if you have a basic grounding in CSS.
What’s in This Book
Chapter 1: Making a Start with CSS
This chapter is simply a quick CSS tutorial for anyone who needs to brush up on the basics of CSS. If you’ve been using CSS in your own projects, you might want to skip this chapter and refer to it on a needs basis, when you want to look into basic concepts in more detail.
Chapter 2: Text Styling and Other Basics
This chapter covers techniques for styling and formatting text in your documents; font sizing, colors, highlighting text, and the removal of extra whitespace around page elements are explained as the chapter progresses. Even if you’re already using CSS for text styling, you’ll find some useful tips here.
Chapter 3: Images and Other Design Elements
This chapter looks at the ways in which you can combine CSS and images to create powerful visual effects, such as placing background images on elements, applying gradients, making elements transparent, and positioning text with images, among other topics.
Chapter 4: Navigation
Every site requires usable navigation, and this chapter explains how to achieve it, CSS-style. We’ll investigate image-based navigation, tabbed navigation, combining background images with CSS text to create attractive and accessible menus, and using lists to structure navigation in an accessible way.
Chapter 5: Tabular Data
The use of tables for layout hasn’t been considered best practice for a long time. Tables should be used for their real purpose: the display of tabular data, such as that contained in a spreadsheet. This chapter will demonstrate techniques for the application of tables to create attractive and usable tabular data displays.
Chapter 6: Forms and User Interfaces
Whether you’re a designer or a developer, it’s likely that you’ll spend a fair amount of time creating forms for data entry. CSS provides incredible support in this area; this chapter shows how we can build accessible, usable forms with that extra design oomph. We’ll also take a look at some of the diverse HTML5 tools that are simplifying form configuration.
Chapter 7: Cross-browser Techniques
How can we make our CSS techniques work in older browsers or on alternative devices such as smartphones? These questions form the main theme of this chapter. We’ll also see how to troubleshoot CSS bugs—and where to go for help—as well as looking at methods for integrating CSS3 selectors and HTML5 elements in older browsers.
Chapter 8: CSS Positioning Basics
Placing elements correctly on a web page can be tricky, but in this chapter we’ll learn to master the art of positioning. Using floats effectively, nifty ways of adding margins and padding, implementing text wrapping, and creating thumbnail galleries—these are all great strategies for your CSS arsenal.
Chapter 9: CSS for Layout
In this chapter, we’ll explore a range of CSS layout techniques that can be combined and extended upon to create numerous interesting page formations, including different column configurations and print-ready stylesheets. We’ll also delve into the emerging sphere of responsive design, looking at both text- and image-heavy layouts that will render effectively and smoothly on a range of devices or screen sizes.
Whether you’re a designer or a developer, it’s likely that you’ll spend a fair amount of time creating forms for data entry. CSS provides incredible support in this area; this chapter shows how we can build accessible, usable forms with that extra design oomph. We’ll also take a look at some of the diverse HTML5 tools that are simplifying form configuration.
Chapter 7: Cross-browser Techniques
How can we make our CSS techniques work in older browsers or on alternative devices such as smartphones? These questions form the main theme of this chapter. We’ll also see how to troubleshoot CSS bugs—and where to go for help—as well as looking at methods for integrating CSS3 selectors and HTML5 elements in older browsers.
Chapter 8: CSS Positioning Basics
Placing elements correctly on a web page can be tricky, but in this chapter we’ll learn to master the art of positioning. Using floats effectively, nifty ways of adding margins and padding, implementing text wrapping, and creating thumbnail galleries—these are all great strategies for your CSS arsenal.
Chapter 9: CSS for Layout
In this chapter, we’ll explore a range of CSS layout techniques that can be combined and extended upon to create numerous interesting page formations, including different column configurations and print-ready stylesheets. We’ll also delve into the emerging sphere of responsive design, looking at both text- and image-heavy layouts that will render effectively and smoothly on a range of devices or screen sizes.
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