Web Standards Solutions is , as the name already indicates a solution oriented webdesign book. I’m currently around page 80 and noticed no webstandards-zealoting ;-) Not that I’d mind though.
The part is divided into two parts:
- Markup
- CSS
In the first part the author explains basic and advanced things about markup elements in (x)HTML and how they should and can be used in a semantically correct and efficiant way to keep the amount of presentational elements at a minimum.
In every chapter Dan Cederholm introduces at least one problem I’m sure every webdesigned faced in his life and then offers multiple solutions for this problem. The first solution is most of the time ugly to say it friendly. Then the solutions improve until he introduces a way to solve this problem in a nice and efficient (and not to forget valid) way.
Update #1 (2004.12.09)
In the first chapters of the 2nd part the author describes how to include CSS into HTML pages efficiently so that only browsers that really support it get the stylesheets. Right after that Dan Cederholm also introduces the media-types to give specific platforms (screen, pda, print,…) specific stylesheets and CSS definitions. He also presents ways how to allow the user stylesheets on their own.
The examples are as good as previous examples and really introduce these techniques well.
Update #2 (2004.12.09)
In the later part the author gives great practical adivce on things like image-replacement, tabbed navigation and various other very handy things.
For me personally esp. the 2nd part of the book was just great, simply because I already knew most of the things Dan Cederholm describes in the first part. As I’ve already written: The 2nd part of the book goes into CSS not forgetting the problems some not-so-current browsers like the IE 5.x/Windows have with standard CSS. He also explains the box model problem/hack which is IMO something you can’t mention too often.
About “Currently reading”
On a side note: This is the first post in this category so I should perhaps write what this is all about. In “Currently reading” I write about books I’m … guess what … currently reading ;-) These posts are writting in a continuous way so that I don’t forget details. As a short addition there is also a small icon on right of the weblog which holds a link to the book I’m currently reading or at least to the last article of this category ;-)
Over the years I've written quite a few reviews 🙂 You can find them at /reviews/.
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