Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review:
This book helped me learn CSS the professional way. This is the only book I've been able to use for a considerable period of time in comparison to other CSS books in market, for developing web pages. The only cons was that it took time for me to know the author's style of explanation!. Once that was cleared, it helped me to a great extent.

Rating:
Summary: Meyer on CSS: my way or the highway? but what is my way?
Review: I have a few issues with this book, and I have to admit from the start that I only worked through part of the first chapter, then gave up.

1. You are forced through the learning path of working through the examples whether you want to or not.

A reference book this is not, and good luck trying to find an answer to a particular question by searching the index or the TOC. You run across some good stuff just browsing, but that's not how I work best.

2.If you want to learn this way, then fine, but I found his instructions for working through the examples inadquate and often confusing. For example: I read the paragraph at the bottom of the page on page 5 about 10 times and still didn't understand his recomendation for dropping cellpadding and retaining cellspacing when restyling a table layout [excepts]: "...CSS2 states...that margins are not applied to table cells...support for padding on table cells...is pretty good, so we can drop cellpadding. If this approach strikes you as a bad idea, yo could leave in cellpadding to go with cellspacing." OK, so what should I do????

3. He indicates that the book is aimed at intermediate web designers, but presents some really basic info in sidebars, such as defining "declaration" on page 6 and "rule" on page 7. [In fact, why weren't these defined in the same visual area, in relation to each other? That's when you really get it.]

4. He doesn't give the adequate overviews or context for the restyles, and doesn't explain his syntax. I mean, if you don't know what a "rule" is, why would you understand why he uses an id that looks like this: td#advert and then one that looks like this: #content-top td. I knashed my teeth over this one for a while. Still don't get it. Or why use ems or percentages for fonts? He uses both, with no explanation of why, or the pitfalls.

I may get more out of this book when I know more...but then I will know more, and may not need it.

I do recommend the Visual Quickstart Guide by Teague: DHTML and CSS for the World Wide Web, 3rd edition. Easy to read, information is grouped and presented logically. Easy to find answers. This book is not comprehensive, but a good basic reference.



Rating:
Summary: An asset in my library
Review: Santa left this gift for me after watching me struggle with CSS. I've got a few CSS books and they've been helpful, but going through this book, using the accompanying website and working through the projects, "I got it!" And since it helped me so much, I've just odered the author's follow-up, More Eric Meyer on CSS. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: It's a Keeper
Review: I read the reviews before buying this book and "More Eric..", but like a fool I didn't take the time to read the books when they showed up because I was so hopping busy learning html and putting sites together that I just didn't have the time....

But you gotta get these books! Because when you finally sit down to read the first 3 pages of the first book you start seeing repetitive html code disappearing by the TRUCKLOAD. Font tags: your days are numbered. Tables, < br >
, -- whooosh, see ya.

And the power of CSS is so totally awesome that you just want to stay up late at night re-doing all the 30 plus sites you finished without CSS and now you want to write Eric and ask him to include caffeine addiction tips in his next dispatch because you can't believe you've got so much power in CSS and, well, thanks, Eric, for making life grand again.

Rating:
Summary: Good for those who want to learn "hands on"
Review: Anyone who knows the name Eric Meyer knows that he is a diety in the CSS world. This book takes a look at a few step-by-step projects that will help newbies understand how, when, and why to use CSS.
That said, I do not recommend this book to those who are already well versed in CSS. I really didn't get a lot out of it, but I would consider myself a more advanced reader. I can definitely see the benefit for people just getting their feet wet.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is a very good cook book style introduction to best practices in CSS web authoring. It is a great pity that many browsers - not only legacy browsers - are not sufficiently CSS compliant to render correct use of CSS useful at present. Nevertheless, much of the material presented by Eric Meyer can be used, and this book remains an excellent introduction to the way things should be done. Look at http://www.benjaminrossen.com to see a site made using largly Eric Meyer insights and ideas.

Rating:
Summary: Tsk Tsk Tsk
Review: To those reading the below reviews with less than 5 stars...DON"T BUY THEIR REVIEWS. They obviously are very uninformed when it comes to designing with web standards. I have to reply to the above (  
Eric J. Tischler) who referred to hand coding pages as "the web stone age". This is, in every sense of the word, BACKWARDS.

Although WYSIWIG editors are great time savers, they can never replace your BRAIN! Stop falling victim to the mindless "click and serve me" mentality and seperate yourself from the herd.

Learn what Mr. Meyer painstakingly offers in this book.

The power it will give you over layouts is immeasurable and CSS will be a vital part of the futre of web design as HTML4.0 will be relegated back down to where it belongs as structural markup only. HTML was not meant to be used for presentation, which CSS1 and CSS2 perform beautifully at.

thank you and good night! (try the fish!)

Rating:
Summary: Expand your universe
Review: So far I am just dabbling with CSS. This book is great for taking you from ground zero to something svelte. The lessen format is like having your personal tutor. I will eventually get around to something practical. In the mean time I am expanding my universe.

Every language has it strengths and purpose they just do not invent more complexity for the fun of it. I hope to have the mechanics down before I find out what it is.

For me this is the right book at the right time. What time is it for you?


Rating:
Summary: For code-heads, not designers
Review: I can't understand why people are so attached to designing pages using code directly, rather than using the tools that have been created to automate much of that. You don't format a letter in your word processor using code, you click a button. You don't edit photos with code, you click a button. Publishers don't layout magazine pages or books using code, but Eric Meyer seems to think that web pages need to be done from scratch, meaning code. Its a colossal waste of time. This sort of thinking would have us all operating our computers from the command line for everything we do. That went out years ago. While this book may be great if you still live in the web stone age of code addicts, don't buy it if you want to design anything worth looking at. Do buy it if you want to spend five times as long creating your pages than you can in a wysiwyg editor that is capable with CSS, such as DW 2004 in design mode. I'm just glad I was able to sell my copy on Amazon.com for most of what I paid for it. Wake up to the modern age and forget books like this.

Rating:
Summary: Frustrating Fun, and You Learn A Lot, Too.
Review: I have been working my way through On CSS, and when I picked it up I thought I was very wise in the way of cascading style sheets. Mr. Meyers disabused me of that notion. He is an expert and by working through the examples you can really learn to make this system of styling sit up and bark. A note on the back cover says the book is for intermediate to advanced people, the note is correct. Don't buy this book if you are just trying to learn CSS at first. I think some of the disappointed buyers were too new at style sheets to get the expected benefit out of this book. Newbies would do well to investigate Elizabeth Castro's HTML For The World Wide Web by Peachpit Press and all the W3C.org tutorials out there before tackling a man like Meyers. But if you're ready for Eric, Eric is ready for you.

One thing you have to remember, play with the examples after you do them. Try to break them, and don't just follow along without understanding what you are doing. If you try to follow Meyers like a cookbook you will really let yourself down. This is a great learning tool, worth the time and money investments.

Another great feature of On CSS is something which you might think was a miserable drawback at first, but it turns out to be where you can get the most out of the book. The designs you end up with at the end of each chapter are C (Average) grade. Each one screams for a good designer to make them better. So when you finish each exercise, take the style sheet and turn a lackluster presentation into a Grade 1 design. Meyers invites you to play with the finished product at the end of each chapter, please do that---you earned it.

So, I would also say that if you are going to get Meyers' books, open up your wallet a little wider and get Robin Williams' book The Non-Designer's Design Book. I think of her as Meyer's big sister and the two go together like XHTML and CSS (or peaches and cream for you more lyrical folk). Robin Williams is an expert on teaching good design for layout and text (and images as well). Her book is ostensibly for text, but you will have all of the best design lessons you need to style up a remarkably svelte webpage if you do what Williams says with Meyers.

On CSS is a great addition to your understanding (as I am sure the second one is)--As Long As You Put In The Work And Go The Extra Mile.

P.S. Both the Williams and Castro books I recommended are under $20 each and will turn into reference books to keep and go back to often.