Chances are if you’re a web developer, you’re going to have to write some CSS from time to time. When you first looked at CSS, it probably seemed like a breeze. You added a border here, changed some colors there. JavaScript was the hard part of frontend development. Somewhere during your progression as a frontend developer, this changed, even as many developers in the frontend community simply dismiss CSS as a toy language. The truth is that many of us don’t actually understand what our CSS is doing under the hood.
We all like to make jokes about it, but how many of us have actually taken the time to try and understand the CSS we’re writing. How many of us have actually reasonably debugged an issue to the next lowest abstraction layer when we hit a wall? All too often, we settle for the first Stack Overflow answer or hack or just let the issue go entirely.
Take a step back and stop mindlessly throwing darts at the dartboard. Join Aimee Knight for a deep dive into browser internals to learn how your styles are parsed and rendered and explore the most common issues developers face, such as z-index, the cascade, and positioning. Sure, you may still not have an eye for design, but you might just walk away a CSS guru.
TextWrangler - Free text-editing software for Mac www.barebones.com/learn/products/textwrangler
Notepad++ - Text-editing software for Windows http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net
EditPlus - Text editor for Windows www.editplus.com
skEdit - Web page editor for Mac www.skedit.com
Coda2 - Web development toolkit for Mac www.panic.com/coda
Sublime Text - Text editor for Mac www.sublimetext.com
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Dreamweaver - Visual web page editor www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver
Expression Web 2 - Visual web page editor for Windows www.microsoft.com/expression
CSS3 Transforms - Technical reference for CSS3 transforms www.w3.org/TR/css3-transforms
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Living Examples - Download all example files used in this book www.sawmac.com/css3
Feedback Page - Submit your comments or questions www.missingmanuals.com/feedback
Registration - Register your book www.oreilly.com/register
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Errata Page - View and report errata http://tinyurl.com/css3-mm
Chapter 1 – HTML for CSS
page 20
HTML Tutorial - HTML tutorial from World Wide Web Consortium www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp
SitePoint - List of all available HTML tags http://reference.sitepoint.com/html
page 22
Google Support - Google’s suggestions for search-friendly websites http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769
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HTML5 Doctor - Learn about new HTML tags http://html5doctor.com
HTML5 Intro - Introduction to HTML5 from WWW Consortium www.w3schools.com/html5/html5_intro.asp
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HTML5 Intro - Flowchart of HTML5 sectioning elements http://html5doctor.com/downloads/h5d-sectioning-flowchart.pdf
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CSS Validator - CSS Validator on W3C http://validator.w3.org
Chris Pederick - CSS validator for Firefox http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer
HTML Validator - HTML validator for Firefox http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/Mozilla
HTML Tidy - HTML validator for Chrome https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gljdonhfjnfdklljmfaabfpjlonflfnm
Safari Tidy - HTML validation tool (plug-in) for Safari www.zappatic.com/safaritidy
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Tryit Editor - Example of definition list tags in use www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_list_definition
page 31
Quirks Mode - Technical information on Quirks Mode www.quirksmode.org/css/quirksmode.html
Quirks Mode - Technical information on Quirks Mode https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla%2527s_Quirks_Mode
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Stat Counter - Usage statistics by browser http://gs.statcounter.com
Internet Explorer 6 Countdown - Breakdown of IE 6 usage around the world www.ie6countdown.com
Google Analytics - Find out about your website's traffic www.google.com/analytics
Stat Counter - IE 7 and IE 8 usage statistics by browser http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-wwmonthly-201108-201208
Net Market Share - IE 8 usage statistics http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0
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Virtual Machines - Test your website in multiple versions of IE www.howtogeek.com/102261/how-to-run-internet-explorer-7-8-and-9-at-the-same-time-using-virtual-machines
Boot Camp - Use Apple’s Boot Camp software to run Windows on a Macintosh computer www.apple.com/macosx/features/bootcamp.html
Cross Browser Testing - See what your website looks like in various operating systems and browsers www.crossbrowsertesting.com
Browser Stack - See what your website looks like in various operating systems and browsers www.browserstack.com
Browsershots - See what your website looks like in various browsers (Windows and Linux) www.browsershots.com
NetRenderer - See what your website looks like in various versions of Internet Explorer http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer
BrowserLab - See what your website looks like in various operating systems and browsers https://browserlab.adobe.com
Chapter 2 – Creating Styles and Style Sheets
page 41
W3C HTML Validator - See what your website looks like in various operating systems and browsers http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator
page 44
Document- and root-relative links - See what your website looks like in various browsers (Windows and Linux) www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=230AD
Chapter 3 – Selectors: Identifying What to Style
page 70
CSS Browser Compatibility - Find out which browsers support which CSS selectors www.quirksmode.org/css/contents.html
page 72
Selectoracle - Get definitions of CSS selectors http://gallery.theopalgroup.com/selectoracle
HTMLTitle Attribute - Get definitions of CSS selectors http://webdesign.about.com/od/htmltags/a/aa101005.htm
Chapter 4 – Saving Time with Style Inheritance
page 108
Calculating Specificity - Find out how browsers calculate which property applies www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#specificity
SpritePad - Online tool for creating CSS Sprites http://spritepad.wearekiss.com
page 315
Amazon Images - Example of multiple images in a single image file www.flickr.com/photos/mezzoblue/3217540317
Veerle’s Blog - Technique for navigation bar http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments/the_xhtml_css_template_phase_of_my_new_blog_part_2
Chapter 10 – CSS Transforms, Transitions, and Animations
page 340
Leonardo DaVinci tribute site - Leonardo DaVinci’s mirror writing www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/LeonardoRighttoLeft.html
page 343
CSS Transforms - Online tools for visualizing CSS transforms http://westciv.com/tools/transforms/index.html
CSS Matrixes - Learn how CSS matrixes work http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/understanding-the-css-transformsmatrix
page 345
Smashing Magazine - 3D Transforms - Introduction to 3D transforms http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/01/06/adventures-in-the-thirddimension-css-3-d-transforms
IE Blog - 3D Transforms - Introduction to 3D transforms http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/02/02/css3-3d-transforms-in-ie10.aspx
Apple Morphing Power Cubes - Demo using animations, transitions, and 3D transforms www.webkit.org/blog-files/3d-transforms/morphing-cubes.html
Apple Horizontal 3D Picture Gallery - Demo using animations, transitions, and 3D transforms https://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/showcase/gallery
Snow Stack - Use left and right arrow keys to navigate photo gallery www.satine.org/research/webkit/snowleopard/snowstack.html
2011 Beer Camp - A technique for navigating pages forward and backward http://2011.beercamp.com
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Animatable Properties - List of CSS properties to which transitions can be applied www.w3.org/TR/css3-transitions/#animatable-properties
page 349
Art of the Web - Comparison of CSS Timing Function methods www.the-art-of-the-web.com/css/timing-function
Matthew Lein - Matthew Lein’s Ceasar tool http://matthewlein.com/ceaser
page 351
Net Magazine – JavaScript Tutorial - Tutorial on CSS transitions triggered by JavaScript www.netmagazine.com/tutorials/get-more-out-of-your-css-transitions-jquery
Chapter 11 – Formatting Tables and Forms
page 378
456 Berea St. – HTML Tables - Details on creating various kinds of tables in HTML www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200410/bring_on_the_tables
page 379
Mozilla – Images, Tables, and Mysterious Gaps - Eliminating unwanted space in a table cell http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Images,_Tables,_and_Mysterious_Gaps
page 388
HTML Dog – Label Tag - Overview of the HTML
page 389
Form Pseudo-Classes - HTML5 pseudo-classes for forms http://html5doctor.com/css3-pseudo-classes-and-html5-forms
Chapter 12 – Introducing CSS Layout
page 406
A List Apart - Example of fixed-width design www.alistapart.com
ESPN - Example of fixed-width design http://espn.go.com
New York Times - Example of fixed-width design www.nytimes.com
Google Maps - Example of a liquid layout http://maps.google.com
page 407
Boston Globe - Example of responsive, multiple-column design www.bostonglobe.com
page 409
HTML5 Sectioning Elements - Article on HTML5 sectioning elements www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/understanding-html5-semantics.html
Oreilly Css For Designers (complete) Tutorials Pdf
page 413
A Book Apart - Mobile First - Article on Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski www.abookapart.com/products/mobile-first
IE Blog – CSS Grid - Article on CSS Grid in IE 10 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/04/14/ie10-platform-preview-and-css-features-for-adaptive-layouts.aspx
Yahoo Stencil Kit - Tool for creating web-page mock-ups http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/wireframes
Chapter 13 – Building Float-Based Layouts
page 422
Layout Gala - CSS designs that work in most browsers http://blog.html.it/layoutgala
Gridinator - Tool for creating multicolumn grid system http://gridinator.com
page 425
Foundation - Grid-based framework http://foundation.zurb.com/docs/grid.php
Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS - Style guide for creating reusable CSS components http://smacss.com
SMACSS Video on Adobe TV - Videos about Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adc-presents/smacss-introduction-to-a-scalable-and-modular-architecture-for-css
page 560
MSDN – Conditional Comments - Article on conditional comments in IE http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537512(VS.85).aspx
Appendix A – CSS Property Reference
page 563
Current CSS Specification - Latest CSS specifications from W3C www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work
page 564
O'reilly Css For Designers (complete) Tutorials 2017
RGBA Color in CSS - Latest CSS specifications from W3C www.w3.org/TR/css3-color
page 565
O'reilly Css For Designers (complete) Tutorials Step By Step
FicML - Free online color picker www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html
Adobe Kuler - Free online color picker http://kuler.adobe.com