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Web Standards Solutions
With the title Web Standard Solutions (which we will refer to as WSS from here on), you might expect this to be a book that is going to solve your problems, and without disappointment that is exactly what is does.
WSS takes a problem based approach instead of the commonly used project based approach to teaching you the value of designing to strict standards. I found this approach very refreshing, WSS kept my attention by presenting a problem, and then presenting 3-5 solutions on how to accomplish the task at hand. With each example Dan takes you through several ways to achieve the required result. Each of the methods shown are common patterns that different developers/designers would use, and the pros and cons of each are well articulated.
A lot of you may know Dan from his Simplebits. website. If you frequent Simplebits you will immediately recognize his style in the writing of WSS. Much like the mini quizzes that are used on his blog, this book is really a compilation of the hurdles that you are likely to face when trying to design to strict standards, and the solutions presented will get you over them.
WSS will also help the budding developer realize the business value of designing to standards. Once you start designing with standards, search engine rankings can jump, continued maintenance becomes a breeze, and the accessibility to screen readers (or other requirements) can be elegantly met.
One of my favorite parts of the book is the in-depth techniques used to style lists. WSS shows you how to take a regular non-formatted list and, using CSS, style it in several ways: as a vertical shopping list; without bullets and indenting; with custom bullets; and eventually as a horizontal navigation bar with changing bullets.
This book really stands out when covering the most basic foundations of layout such as paragraphs, lists, headers, titles and the like. The first half of the book really gets into the proper use of the most basic CSS techniques and proper selection of tags for headings, quotations, etc. While the second half of the book requires you to use what you have learned along the way to start building CSS based layouts.
If you are a regular at some of the advanced sites like CSS ZenGarden or A List Apart this book may be a little basic for you. Even still you will probably be able to take some techniques from it that you can use, this book is really more for the designer that is capable but not quite deadly with their CSS knowledge.
Overall I would give Web Standards Solutions the Markup and Style Handbook an 8.5 out of 10. I really think it does a fantastic job at keeping the reader interested in the subject (something that is often very hard to do in technical books) and will definitely be a great business tool for you. A quick read it is, but a valuable reference that has earned a spot next to my keyboard, my 3 bars of caffeinated soap, and the trusty case of bawls.
You can purchase Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Every time an article about web standards gets published on Slashdot, someone always comes along and says something like this. Look, just because Slashdot doesn't follow web standards, doesn't mean that the it can't publish articles about how others do. It's not ironic, or funny.
FYI,
;)
Neither S in CSS stands for "Standard". What i mean but that is that do NOT expect CSS to give you a right once play on any browser with the same results.
CSS is great to reduce download speed of pages. To keep all the style in one place. To separate logic from data. But do not think writing a web site in CSS will solve all your browser compatibility problems.And don't fall under the influence of some elitist CSS religion.
The amount of hacks, even by the experts, required to even get close to modern browser compatibility is really hilarious. (ooops i mean painful.)
So get into CSS. Use all the great features in offers, but remember that its not magic bullet.
Yes, i'm sure there are some simple sites that can be pulled off with CSS and look pretty much the same but honestly, when you reduce your site to this level, they ALLL look alike:
-header graphic
-2 or 3 columns
-a sort of anasepctic feel to it.
In the mean time, stick with a combination of CSS AND minimal tables.
Don't believe it? FIne, its not my hair that you will pulling out
Becuase many times the standards do not tell you elegant solutions which people have used in the past.
Kinda like the difference between English class and Creative Writing classes
Ted Tschopp
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
wow i had no idea a changeover would save /. so much on bandwidth costs. the fact that they patently refuse to update the sitecode is mindboggling.
Moo.
i'll hazard a guess and say "not a project that employs school kids"...*sigh*
requirement for standards-compliant code is more and more common on projects large and small, as the benefits are slowly sinking in even to the managerial level. but i guess you didn't get the memo yet?
Wait -- and you think it is foolish to exclude the average schoolkid from coding large web projects?
Whenever people say that "anyone can learn HTML," I laugh. That's like saying that "anyone can use Photoshop" because anyone can hit ctrl-i to invert an image. Sure, anyone can learn what means, but can anyone create clean, efficient, browser-compatible code that is easy to maintain and intuitive for multiple developers to use? And create it quickly? That is where web standards come in.
So a web designer would get an error (Error: no closing tag) and would give up and go home? Amazon.com wouldn't be able to find programmers who knew how to write lowercase markup?
Wouldn't you rather have a human being decide how a page should look, rather than having a web browser GUESS what to do with invalid code? That is basically what web browsers have been doing for years. Hmmm, thought Mozilla, no closing </a> tag. Should I end the link at the paragraph break, or let it extend across four table cells to the next link?
5. This is a design problem and can be fixed with an increase in skill from the developer.
4. Ummm, CSS files are downloaded once on the first time to the site and then kept locally for the rest of your visit to the site. This reduces bandwidth, and reduces loadtime. So yes, this happens the first time you hit the page, but not any other times.
3. No they want to depreciate broken HTML. There is nothing wrong with HTML which follows the standards. And CSS is simple, very simple.
2. Hardly anyone uses personal stylesheets. There are two reasons for that. No standards on class and ID namespace. Browser implementation of this is buried behind a ton of menus. No one knows about this as a feature.
1. Your problem is with the validation buttons, not the fact that the page is validated.
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
Because I'm interested (not trying to pick a fight), what is more complicated when creating valid XHTML? Here is all I can think of:
1. Doctype. There are three acceptable doctypes that can be cut-and-pasted, and the difference between these is pretty straightforward.
2. Valid code. You have to close tags, and you can't place tags out of context (e.g. a <li> tag outside of a list).
What am I missing?
The reason I ask is that I find XHTML/CSS to be simpler than the "old way" of coding. Nested tables? rowspan=3 colspan=2? <br><br><br><br> to move text down? Spacer gifs?
Reading the specs is just painful compared with reading a book that is constructed to take you gradually through a series of lessons/chapters.
I personnaly like to read books and read about other people's experiences. Specs from the W3C will NOT teach you about the various quirks and problem you will encounter while trying to code with standards in mind. Any experience web designer will tell you that coding standard HTML and CSS is easy. Making it work in IE/Firefox/Netscape/Safari/Opera at the same time is the challenge.
W3C specs are extremely useful when you feel confident about your basic understanding of the technology. It becomes easier to refer to the specs and rapidly find what you are looking for.
A good book will give you the basics. The specs will let you expand your knowledge or push the limits of a technology's capabilities.
CKC
lol - boy, you missed the boat on that one. Not surprising since this is
The point of CSSZenGarden is to show what is possible using CSS and spawn creativity through inspiration. Too often people equate CSS with only font, color changes and non-javascript rollovers and miss the boat that there's a WHOLE lot more that it can do to help separate code from content.
Any modern browser? Opera, Safari, the Gecko based browsers, and yes! even Konqueror can all handle XHTML just fine. Internet Explorer is not a modern browser: it hasn't been updated in years. You know how you chuckle when people say "But what about the Netscape 4 users?" Yeah. IE users are those users now.
I hardly think so. There is nothing more difficult about XHTML than HTML.
If you had wanted to build the whole web around XML and CSS, all it would take is for one person to create a Schema and for one person to create a stylesheet, which could then be used by anybody else. This is, in fact, exactly what happened, except that the stylesheet was hardcoded in the browser, and the Schema defined in some standard document.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
If someone from the W3C cares enough, they can write the email address that they get on the resulting page and tell us that their script is smarter now.