Pro CSS Techniques: Book Review

Alice Toth, Tuesday, February 20, 2007 @ 10:40 pm

In Pro CSS Techniques, Jeff Croft, Ian Lloyd and Dan Rubin decided to take a real-world approach to CSS and write a collection of techniques that can be incorporated into actual projects.  They discuss CSS maintainability, browser compatibility, using CSS' inheritance and specificity all with an eye to practicality. They provide enough background with example to explain why CSS works, how it works, when it should be used and when workarounds needs to be employed.

What is isn't
This is not an introduction to CSS and it's expected that you can read XHTML code snippets. And if you're looking for clever, experimental CSS to wow your instructor, this is the wrong book for you. Pro CSS Techniques takes a practical approach to incorporating CSS into real-world projects (and yes, they do discuss recalcitrant browsers and workarounds).

What it is
This is a very handy book to have in your library. It’s a collection of techniques, thoughts and ideas that can be put to use immediately. The initial chapters give a good background on CSS and the language of style sheets, getting into such details as universal star selector, sibling selector types and how the rules and selectors interact (it’s all about the cascade). One chapter is devoted to hacks and workarounds with specific examples on adjusting for IE6 and IE7's "fixes". Yes, coding to standards is what we aim for, but when the browsers fall short of standards, workarounds are used. And that's where the practicality of this book comes in handy.

Should I get it
If you've learned CSS on your own or by viewing others' source code or picking up tidbits and hints from articles and blogs, this book will round out your knowledge nicely. It gives a good explanation of the aspects of CSS and how you can use it for layouts, typography, and form elements. The appendices are a handy reference for CSS properties, selectors and browser compatibility (including IE7). And the chapter on troubleshooting, "Everything Falls Apart", is a good guide to solving conflicting CSS problems.

Summary
Pro CSS Techniques is a valuable resource that offers helpful techniques applied to real-world projects. In addition, the authors give enough detail on the background and explanation of CSS to fill in any knowledge gaps you may have.

user experience design

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