Description  

Rachel Andrew and Dan Shafer’s book is a comprehensive guide to learning and applying the principles of CSS to your Website.

This book will teach you how to…

• Appreciate why maintaining tables is a nightmare and how CSS can help
• Understand when to use CSS and when not to use CSS
• Build robust, flexible two- and three-column layouts using CSS positioning.
• Easily build both fixed-width and liquid page layouts
• Reap the benefits of inheritance in CSS
• Style text and other content using CSS
• Make the most of other non-obvious uses of CSS
• Use CSS to achieve maximum Web Accessibility
• Design sites that are standards compliant
• Accommodate older Browsers
• And much more...

Plus, it also comes with a sophisticated sample website styled and layed out completely with CSS and a FREE download of the site and all of its code.

And on top of this ‘HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS, 2nd Edition’ also includes the most complete CSS Property Reference of any book ever written about CSS - with over 150 CSS properties described.

0. Preface
   • Who Should Read this Book?
   • What’s in this Book?
   • The Book’s Web Site
     • The Code Archive
     • Updates and Errata
   • The SitePoint Forums
   • The SitePoint Newsletters
   • Your Feedback
   • Acknowledgements
1. Getting the Lay of the Land
   • CSS in Context
   • The Basic Purpose of CSS
   • Why Most—but Not All—Tables Are Bad
     • Tables Mean Long Load Times
     • Use of Transparent Images Slows us Down
     • Maintaining Tables is a Nightmare
     • Tables Cause Accessibility Issues
     • When it’s Okay to Use a Table
   • What is CSS, Really?
   • Parts of a CSS Rule
   • Types of CSS Rules
     • Which Properties can CSS Rules Affect?
     • Which Elements can CSS Affect?
     • Where can CSS Styles be Defined?
   • A Simple Example
   • Summary
2. Putting CSS into Perspective
   • What can CSS Do?
     • Color and CSS
     • Fonts and CSS
     • Dynamic Pseudo-classes and CSS
     • Images and CSS
     • Multiple Style Sheets, Users, and CSS
   • Advantages of CSS Design
     • Increased Stylistic Control
     • Centralized Design Information
     • Semantic Content Markup
     • Accessibility
     • Standards Compliance
   • Browser Support for CSS
   • Summary
3. Digging Below the Surface
   • Applying CSS to HTML Documents
   • Using Shorthand Properties
   • How Inheritance Works in CSS
   • Selectors and the Structure of CSS Rules
     • Universal Selector
     • Element Type Selector
     • Class Selector
     • ID Selector
     • Pseudo-element Selector
     • Pseudo-class Selector
     • Descendant Selector
     • Parent-child Selector
     • Adjacent Selector
     • Attribute Selectors
     • Selector Grouping
   • Expression Measurements
     • Absolute Values
     • Relative Values
   • CSS Comments
   • Summary
4. Validation and Backward Compatibility
   • Validating your CSS
   • Adjusting for Backward Compatibility
     • Browsers that Do Not Support CSS
     • Browsers with Poor or Badly Implemented CSS Support
     • Bugs in Modern Browsers
   • Keep the Quirks: DOCTYPE Switching
   • Summary
5. Splashing Around a Bit of Color
   • Who’s in Charge?
   • Color in CSS
     • How to Specify Colors
     • Selecting and Combining Colors
     • Setting body Color
     • Transparency, Color, and User Overrides
   • Interesting Uses of Color
     • Warnings and Cautions
     • Coloring Alternate Rows and Adding Cell Borders in Data Tables
   • Background Images
   • Summary
6. Working with Fonts
   • How CSS Deals with Fonts
   • The font-family Property
     • Generic Fonts
   • The font-size Property
     • HTML Sizes vs CSS Sizes
     • Variability across Browsers and Platforms
     • Relative to what?