The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks is a compilation of best practice solutions to the most challenging CSS problems. The second edition of this best-selling book, now in full color, has been completely revised and updated to cover the latest techniques and newer browsers, including Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7. It's the most complete question-and-answer book on CSS, with over 100 tutorials that'll show you how to gain more control over the appearance of your web page, create sophisticated Web page navigation controls, design for today's alternative browsing devices including phones and screen readers, and much more. The CSS code used to create each of the components is available for download and guaranteed to be simple, efficient and cross-browser compatible. This book will show you how to:

• Construct robust CSS layouts that work every time.

• Create sleek drop-down menus using only CSS.

• Build a professional tabbed navigation system.

• Replace image-based navigation with low-fat CSS lists.

• Design smarter, more usable CSS-flavored web forms.

• Use rounded corners minus the bloated HTML.

• Allow your visitors to select their preferred look and feel.

• Let the W3C validator do your debugging.

• Reduce the burden of site maintenance and updates.

• ... along with 92 other solutions to common questions and problems.

The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks is ideal for Web designers who would like to add sparkle to their existing designs, as well as newcomers who want to become true CSS masters.

The book can be read cover to cover, or referred to like a cookbook with 101 different recipies for your Website. It's written in an easy-to-follow, consistent format that's well illustrated with plenty of full color screenshots and code examples, providing quick visual cues. What the Reviewers say:

"This is likely the best book we've seen for extending the power of cascading style sheets... The book is an outstanding example of how a code-based, technical manual should be designed and presented... Anyone who uses CSS can benefit from this impressive volume." - The Kleper Report

"If you are looking for a practical, hands-on question-and-answer book The CSS Antghology is highly recommended. It is well designed in every respect: visually pleasing, content is well organised, and it is very well written." - PC Update

"Rachel Andrew has done people like me a huge favor by writing this revision... This is another book that I will not only use to expand my personal web development skills, but will be one that I expect I will refer to frequently as I venture further into more complex web page creation." - TCM Reviews

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 57 Ratings

About The CSS Anthology - 2009-11-01
Reviewer Rating:
Great book for beginners and intermediates. I most liked the material on rounded corners and two and three column formats.

This book tries to be a tips book, a reference guide and a learning tutorial and doesn't quite pull it off - 2009-10-22
Reviewer Rating:
Like human beings, CSS is constantly evolving. The introduction of new browsers, people learning new techniques and tricks etc. The CSS Anthology is now in it's third edition and has been completely updated to include the latest browsers including Internet Explorer 8.

The book takes a slightly different approach than most. It's still split into different chapters like every other book but rather than teaching you in the normal fashion, this book takes the approach of you reader having asked a question then gives you an answer and an explanation of the answer.

For example, in the chapter on CSS positioning and layout, there is a question "Can I make an inline element display as if it were a block element and vice versa?". This then leads to an example of exactly what the question means, an answer and an explanation of how the answer works. If necessary, sidebars are presented to detail certain abnormalities for example, what happens in quirks mode in Internet Explorer, if there are differences in the final renderings between the various browsers or whether the browser actually accepts the specified CSS and if not what a workaround would be. All this information extra information is essential for web developers and is tied nicely in with the specific question.

There is a lot to learn in this book if you are fairly new to CSS and even things to learn if you are an old hand but this isn't really a book on learning CSS so if you are in the market for that I would suggest looking elsewhere and it's not exactly a reference book either (I would suggest The Ultimate CSS Reference - Book Review also by SitePoint although to my knowledge this book hasn't been completely updated with the new browsers yet, but is an excellent reference book on CSS).

The CSS Anthology is beautifully decked out in full color. For certain kinds of books, CSS, Silverlight etc. there is a definite advantage to having the book in color and this shines through here.

Although this book isn't really meant as a complete learning guide to CSS due to the way it's been written as a question and answer scenario the first few chapters are written as if the reader has no knowledge of CSS and therefore would be a newcomer to CSS. This gives the book a slight identity crisis and you're left not knowing exactly where CSS Anthology should be positioned. Is it a newcomer learning book? Is it a reference book or is it as the title suggests a tips book? It tries to cover all bases when it shouldn't. This is my main criticism of the book and why I find it hard to unequivocally recommend. I would say the people who are going to get the most out of this book are people who know the basics of CSS but aren't quite fully accomplished CSS gurus.

The CSS Anthology - Third Edition - 2009-09-23
Reviewer Rating:
Sitepoint always has good materials from my experience. This covers many of the basic and not-so-basic parts of CSS that are needed to complete a well-designed website using CSS for styling.

CSS Anthology: 101 Essental Tips, tricks and Hacks - 2009-06-09
Reviewer Rating:
As someone who is still learning to use CSS, this is a great book! It might be lee useful to someone who feels that they have mastered the use of style sheets, but it suited my skill level perfectly. Would recommend this as a solid primer on the vagaries of CSS.

Awesome book - 2009-03-22
Reviewer Rating:
This is beginner book but wow I read the book in one day and I understand the power of CSS. Very well written. Thanks.

Rachel don't worry about the bad reviews(foolish people) Please write more books. You are awesome.