Somewhat Longer Review

Contents

• The Cover
• About the Reviewer
• What You Get
• Relation to Definitive Guide
• What I Especially Like
• Gripes
• Who's the Book for?
• Final Thoughts

Note:

• Published by O'Reilly.

The Cover

CSS: CSS is an abbreviation for cascading style sheets. Cascading Style Sheets:

• make it easy to change the style of many pages at once.
• allow for a high degree of separation between content and presentation.
• are style sheets that can be from multiple sources (the designer, the browser, the user) and are applied in sequence according to a set of rules that resolve conflicts.

Pocket Reference: O'Reilly Pocket References are

• small abbreviated guides
• intended for quick reference
• intended for experienced users

Other Things on the Cover: On my cover it also says

• Visual Presentation for the Web
• 2nd Edition
• Covers CSS2 & CSS2.1

The words "Visual Presentation for the Web" indicate that the focus is on those aspects of CSS that have to do with the visual layout and styling of web pages.

The words "2nd Edition" indicate there was an earlier edition. One might reasonably expect that there have been enough improvements to warrant a second edition.

CSS 2 and CSS 2.1 are versions of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendations. The words "Covers CSS2 & CSS2.1" indicate that these specifications are covered. I understand most "modern" browsers do a good job of implementing CSS 2.1.

Can you judge this book by its cover?: Well, this book certainly is a Pocket Reference in the O'Reilly sense, and it's focused on the features of CSS designed for controlling the layout and styling of web pages. And, yes it does include the relevant features from CSS 2 and CSS 2.1.

There was a first edition in 2001, but I've not used it; so I won't comment on the advances in the second edition.

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About the Reviewer

Webmaster: I'm webmaster of a number of small non-profit sites. I'm not a professional webmaster.

CSS: I've been using CSS for a number of years. I use CSS simply but extensively. It really makes my life easier.

I've reviewed three other CSS books

• "CSS Cookbook" (O'Reilly)
• "HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables using CSS" (Sitepoint)
• "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide" (O'Reilly)

Of these, the only one I currently own is "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide" (2nd Edition).

O'Reilly: I'm a big fan of O'Reilly. I own a number of O'Reilly books and they've served me well. I've reviewed many O'Reilly books.

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What You Get

The main parts of the book are

• a summary of key CSS concepts.
• a short reference to selectors.
• a short reference to pseudo classes and elements.
• a reference to properties.

The focus in all of this is CSS 2.1.

Summary of Key Concepts: Some of the key concepts covered are

• inline styles, embedded style sheet, external style sheet.
• selector, declaration block, declaration, property, value.
• the cascade, specificity, inheritance.
• elements: replaced elements, non-replaced elements, block-level elements, inline elements.
• visual layout, element box.
• static positioning, relative positioning, absolute positioning, fixed positioning.
• fixed table layout, automatic table layout, collapsing borders.
• values: color values, number values, percentage values, length values, urls.

Selector Reference: The entry for a selector includes

• its name.
• its pattern (or syntax, if you prefer).
• description (mostly what its effect is).
• examples.

Pseudo Class and Pseudo Element Reference: The entry for a pseudo class or pseudo element includes

• its name.
• its type (pseudo class or pseudo element).
• what it generates (for pseudo elements only).
• what it applies to (for pseudo classes only) .
• examples.

Property Reference: The entry for a property includes

• its name.
• what values it can take.
• what elements it can be applied to.
• whether it is inherited or not.
• what percentages refer to (if allowed).
• how values are computed.
• what effect it has.
• examples.

There are also short separate references for properties that are specifically related to tables and paged media.

What Else?: The book also includes

• short references for some properties not in CSS 2.1 including aural properties.
• an index.

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Relation to Definitive Guide

This book is accurately advertised as a condensation of "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide".

Key Concepts: I've found the summary of key concepts in the "Pocket Reference" to be useful in a couple of ways

• as a review of CSS concepts
• as a reference for CSS concepts.

Sometimes when I read about a concept in the "Pocket Reference", that is not sufficient and I go to the "Definitive Guide" for more detail. Other times, my memory is jogged and that's enough. Occasionally, the shorter explanations in the "Pocket Reference" are especially illuminating for me because I can more easily see a bigger picture (when there's less detail).

The "Definitive Guide", not surprisingly, goes into much more detail on concepts than the "Pocket Reference" does. The two books complement each other; and I like having both books.

Property Reference: If you have questions about a specific property, you may be surprised to discover that the Property Reference in the "Pocket Reference" contains more details than the one in the "Definitive Guide". To be more specific

• The descriptions in the "Pocket Reference" are deeper in a number of cases.
• The entries in the "Pocket Reference" include examples.

I prefer using the Property Reference in the "Pocket Reference" because of the above and also because I just find the smaller format easier to deal with.

References: This "Pocket Reference" has a small number of explicit references to the "Definitive Guide".

So far when I've wanted more detail when using this "Pocket Reference", I've always been able to find it in the "Definitive Guide". This is not surprising since this "Pocket Reference" is a condensation of the "Definitive Guide" and has the same author and publisher.

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What I Especially Like

I especially like

• the format of the book, i.e. short sections on key concepts followed by easily referenced formatted material.
• that the book is concise and small .
• that the book is surprisingly complete.
• the price of the book, i.e. about $10 (US).

I find the book

• very easy to carry around with me when I think I might need it.
• very easy to quickly find things in when I need to look up a CSS property or whatever.

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Gripes

I have three gripes, which follow.

Selectors: The first paragraph of the book says the section on Selectors is in alphabetic order. It's not in alphabetic order by entry heading, which is what I was expecting.

Perhaps the entries are in order by something else. It doesn't matter much as there are only 11 entries for selectors.

Dropped from CSS 2.1: Based on heading sizes and on the table of contents, it would appear that this section has no subsections. However, the content implies otherwise.

This is confusing, and I'd like to see this confusion removed from both the table of contents and the text.

No Excellent Companion: This book is most useful in combination with a guide to CSS that is much more complete. To some extent its worth is limited by the best such companion guide for it.

As far as I can tell the best such companion guide is the O'Reilly "Definitive Guide" I've referred to several times. But in my review of that guide I rated it as very good (i.e. more than just good but less than excellent).

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Who's the Book for?

Who it's ideal for: This book would be ideal for someone who

• has a grasp of CSS basics
• and owns "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide" or some rough equivalent
• and needs to look up things as a reminder.

Who it would be good for: In my view, the heart of this book is the references. You don't have to have mastered CSS concepts to benefit from these.

If you are successfully using CSS, you'll likely be able to find your way.

Who it's not for: The book is not for CSS beginners, not even tech savvy ones. And it's certainly not a tutorial.

If you are determined to not spend any $ and can't otherwise acquire this book, then (sigh) this book is not for you. But there are property references on the web, so all is not lost.

Using the book for review: One of the ways I've been using this book is to review what I know of CSS concepts. Typically when I read a passage:

• either I was already clear on the subject.
• or I'm reminded of what I'd forgotten.
• or I need clarification in which case I look up the topic in "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide".

So if you want to use this book for assessing and reviewing your knowledge of CSS concepts, I recommend it for that use as well as for use as a quick reference.

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Final Thoughts

If you already have a more complete CSS guide and you grasp the basic ideas of CSS, this book could make your life easier.

It's a short, concise, small, cheap well laid-out reference that you can carry around with you.

It has worked very well for me as a quick reference.

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