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billbenson
08-10-2008, 11:36 PM
For anybody interested in web design, the book listed below is a very good book. I bought it because I wanted to start designing in xhtml and it also has a very good css section. css layouts have always been difficult for me. It explains both very well. I know someone who teaches at a university and is using it as a textbook. Its the sort of book that most seasoned developers can learn from as well as someone just starting out. Its writing in code though, no wysiwyg editors like dreamweaver or frontpage.

Amazon.com: Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML: Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Freeman: Books (http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-HTML-CSS-XHTML/dp/059610197X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218426594&sr=1-1)

orion_joel
08-13-2008, 01:38 AM
Sounds like a good book. I have started working more with HTML and CSS since i have been working with existing scripts like joomla and such. Although even before this, i only ever used Dreamweaver to develop one of my sites and although it really did give me what i wanted at the time it was a bit heavy on the code side and also if i wanted to make any changes to the site i really had to do it through dreamweaver for fear of it not working properly across the whole site. Where i think this can be partially avoided by doing the coding yourself and knowing what has been done where.

billbenson
08-13-2008, 11:00 AM
I started out using dreamweaver, but I could see early on the power of databases so I also bought some php / mysql books. Because the php forced me to work in code as well, I slowly migrated from primarily using dreamweaver to primarily working in code. I still use dreamweaver for a few things like tables and forms, but I do final editing in a text editor. My version of Dreamweaver is 2003. I hear the current version is much better but I think you still will probably end up doing editing in code.

One other thing that is quite helpful is saving code snippets. I save them in an excel file with a sheet for css, another one for html, php, etc. Its not very well organized but the find function allows me to locate the snippet I'm looking for quickly.

cbscreative
08-13-2008, 12:04 PM
Does this book have reference tables in the back, bill? What I mean is a section each for things like XHTML, XSS, and ASCII. The XHTML for example should list all the tags and attributes, provide basic info (including whether the tag is depricated or not), and list page numbers where the specifics are covered in the book.

I have a great book that I keep right next to my computer for easy reference when I need it, and just like you have probably found out, that can be very handy.

On the subject of DW, bill already knows this, but I use CS3 and it's the first version that got me more away from the simple NoteTab Pro text editor that I used to use more than DW when I had older versions. If you don't want to spend hundreds on DW, Fookes Software (http://www.fookes.com) has a really nice text editor. Light is free with no nags, and Pro is only $20 (I think it's up to $25 now but well worth it). You can add snippets to it if you want too, I just use a different method.

billbenson
08-13-2008, 05:24 PM
No, this book was more of a tutorial book and runs you through building a site, not a reference book although there was certainly stuff in there I will use for reference. Here's a link to the book:
Head First Labs from O'Reilly Media, Inc. :: Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML (http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfhtml/)

I haven't seen this one but it from the same O'reilly book series and may be a good reference.

HTML and XHTML Pocket Reference | O'Reilly Media (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527273/index.html#top)

cbscreative
08-13-2008, 05:45 PM
I was just wondering because I have one called HTML for the World Wide Web by Elizabeth Castro. It's not only another great book to have because of the way it covers coding, but the reference section in the back is very useful. It's also in the same price range as the one you listed, which is intresting because I have books far more expensive that were not as useful.