By: Erik Vlietinck
Sat, March 20, 2004 - 8:09:00
Pros: 0

Score: ">

Core CSS, 2nd edition is a comprehensive guide to CSS1 through CSS3. It not only offers a complete overview of all the tags and code and the results, but also a look into the future with CSS3 and what’s more important, an overview of code validity for each common browser in use. It is especially the latter which makes the book quite unique in its domain.

Except for Stylemaster's CSS Guide that you can buy on the web and download as a PDF document, there aren't many CSS books (none other than this to my knowledge) which not only show you the code and the result but also the evaluation whether that code is safe to use in each browser. It must have cost the author a lot of time and effort to rate each code snippet with each common browser.

The book is conceived as a reference guide, but it does teach you how to write a Cascading Stylesheet from start to end. When it becomes somewhat difficult or abstract (for example, the box property is one of the least understood properties because of browser incompatibilities), Schengili-Roberts shows a diagram or a graphic to explain the concept.

This by itself doesn't merit the highest score for a review, of course, but the author makes things simple, and that's a reference by itself, judging from some other books on the matter. Until now, I would have said to buy the O'Reilly CSS reference, and I still think that reference is a standard that should be in any web designer's library. But next to the O'Reilly book, the new standard is written by Schengili-Roberts. An absolute must-have for anyone interested in writing web sites for today and the future!