I was thinking of buying these books if you know any better ones or comments on thease ones people post. http://www.amazon.co.uk/CSS-Mastery-Advanced-Standards-Solutions/dp/1590596145 If i am a complete begginer to css could is till use this? http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0321410971 Edit: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beginning-CSS-Web-Development-Professional/dp/1590596897 This is an novie to pro but looks ok but i doubt i could start learning this as this might be abit to tough? http://www.amazon.co.uk/CSS-Anthology-Essential-Tricks-Hacks/dp/0957921888/
why? you know that you can just learn it online right for free right? those books are just like learning online. and you can learn more online too. try this - http://www.w3schools.com/css
well i am a designer been designign for pretty long time. I want to be able to code it in valid css and xhtml and aply scrips and jsut be able to do corect slicing and coding and so on
Honestly, I prefer some practical example, instead of reading those fat books (except Harry Potter ). I will recommend you to try this tool http://www.csscreator.com/tools/layout Make some layouts, go through the code, and you will master CSS 2 and XHTML. Thats how I learned it. Now most of my sites are Valid XHTML and CSS
I'd honestly look at Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way with HTML and CSS by Ian Lloyd and Designing with Web Standards, 2nd Edition by Jeffrey Zeldman. http://www.sitepoint.com/books/html1/
But again I'd like to say that try practical examples instead of reading fat theories, because for some it may be boring. While in code examples and case studies, everything is point to point so we grip many concepts rapidly.
ok if i were to do hand on coding where would i start and would i write xhtml or html combined with css?
Go to following website http://www.csscreator.com/tools/layout Its a really awesome website. Its has articles from beginner to advance level. I get know how of CSS 2 and XHTML from this website.
It's your choice really. CSS works just as well with both HTML and XHTML. Afterall, XHTML is just a reformulation (meaning re-write) of HTML into XML. The only really hard thing will be learning how to code (X)HTML properly. And by this I mean following a proper document structure using as little code as possible. Yes, you may have to use extra code from time to time (to float an entire column that contains related markup and content, for example; or to layer a <span></span> over text for some image replacement), but for the most part, it's about using the right tags for the job. I personally code in XHTML, since I find the syntax to be easier than regular HTML (if I open something, I know I have to close it, no ifs ands or buts about it). However, in the end, it's really up to you.
Ah, but here's the thing. Unless you omit the content type in the meta tag, and declare it in an XML namespace as application/xhtml+xml you're really sending it as HTML anyway. Internet Explorer doesn't understand real XHTML (it'll force a file download), and IE 6 will switch to quirks mode if you include anything (even an empty space) above the DOCTYPE.
I've read (and own) CSS Mastery. In fact, it's right here in front of me, and I would recommend it. Just flicking through it, it covers: Meaningful markup and structuring your code Specifity and organising your code Box model and positioning information Background images and image replacement Styling links Styling lists and creating navbars CSS imagemaps Styling forms and tables Layout Hacks and filters Bug fixing And two case studies It's a nice book and written in an easy to read manner, but if it is your first book you might want to try some other books. A couple of other books which I have, and would recomend are Bulletproof webdesign and Web standards solutions, or a least I think that's what they are called. All of them have been very helpful for me so far.
so if i coded it xhtml not every browser would work fine with it but would abel to see it or nothign at all?
If you send it as application/xhtml+xml every major modern browser (Netscape 7+, FireFox, Opera, Konqueror, Safari, Camino, iCab, etc...) save for Internet Explorer will be able handle it just fine. Internet Explorer will not know what to do with the file and will force you to download it instead. If you use XHTML, it's best to "fake it" by serving it as text/html instead of application/xhtml+xml Also, you're best off not to use the XML namespace above the DOCTYPE as well. Mainly for the benefit of Internet Explorer 6.