Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference

Front Cover
"O'Reilly Media, Inc.", Feb 21, 2006 - Computers - 830 pages

Are you still designing web sites like it's 1999? If so, you're in for a surprise. Since the last edition of this book appeared five years ago, there has been a major climate change with regard to web standards. Designers are no longer using (X)HTML as a design tool, but as a means of defining the meaning and structure of content. Cascading Style Sheets are no longer just something interesting to tinker with, but rather a reliable method for handling all matters of presentation, from fonts and colors to the layout of the entire page. In fact, following the standards is now a mandate of professional web design.

Our popular reference, Web Design in a Nutshell, is one of the first books to capture this new web landscape with an edition that's been completely rewritten and expanded to reflect the state of the art. In addition to being an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, this book also provides an overview of the unique requirements of designing for the Web and gets to the nitty-gritty of JavaScript and DOM Scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. It is an indispensable tool for web designers and developers of all levels.

The third edition covers these contemporary web design topics:

  • Structural layer: HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 (9 chapters), including an alphabetical reference of all elements, attributes and character entities
  • Presentation layer: Ten all-new chapters on Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2.1, including an alphabetical reference of all properties and values.
  • Behavior layer: JavaScript and scripting with the Document Object Model (DOM)
  • Web environment: New web standards, browsers, display devices, accessibility, and internationalization
  • Web graphics optimization: Producing lean and mean GIF, JPEG, PNG, and animated GIFs
  • Multimedia: Web audio, video, Flash, and PDF

Organized so that readers can find answers quickly, Web Design in a Nutshell, Third Edition helps experienced designers come up to speed quickly on standards-based web design, and serves as a quick reference for those already familiar with the new standards and technology.

There are many books for web designers, but none that address such a wide variety of topics. Find out why nearly half a million buyers have made this the most popular web design book available.

 

Contents

Web Standards
3
Designing for a Variety of Browsers
12
Designing for a Variety of Displays
27
A Beginners Guide to the Server
42
Accessibility
56
Internationalization
72
II
87
Introduction to XML
89
CSS Techniques
419
Workarounds Hacks and Filters
448
IV
463
Introduction to JavaScript
465
DOM Scripting
488
V
513
Web Graphics Overview
515
GIF Format
529

HTML and XHTML Overview
113
Document Structure
130
Text Elements
144
Creating Links
169
Images and Objects
178
Tables
205
Frames
232
Forms
247
III
271
Cascading Style Sheets Fundamentals
273
Selectors
297
Font and Text Properties
307
Basic Box Properties
337
Color and Backgrounds
355
Floating and Positioning
368
CSS for Tables
392
Lists and Generated Content
406
JPEG Format
544
PNG Format
552
Animated GIFs
564
VI
573
Audio on the Web
575
Video on the Web
595
The Flash Platform
609
Printing from the Web
626
VII
639
HTML Elements and Attributes
641
CSS 21 Properties
684
Character Entities
722
Specifying Color
733
Extending XHTML
742
Glossary
747
Index
757

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