Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Web Standards, CSS and Dreamweaver but were afraid to ask

Learn CSS design and development if you are Dreamweaver fluent.

That's the title of the first DMXzone ebook. It's a collection of the most popular articles by Molly Holzschlag and Rachel Andrew, re-edited into the first book in the Universe that teaches CSS design and development to people who are Dreamweaver fluent.

The best thing is that the book assumes no prior knowledge of CSS and doesn't baffle or bore you with theory, and throughout Rachel and Molly use Dreamweaver MX or MX 2004 to make the sites and teach you in the most natural way for a DMXzone member.

Throughout it, you'll learn how to remove presentational HTML and make a "hybrid layout", remove your presentational tables, create common layouts like two- and three- column sites, deal with old browsers, make print style-sheets, make a style-switcher so that your audience can choose their favourites from a range of styles. Your websites will be future compliant, easier to maintain, smaller to download and people will (probably) stop you on the street and ask to kiss you!

Sample Code: Each chapter in this PDF e-Book is a self-contained project, logically structured so that each builds on a previous project. The source code is attached to the ebook PDF, and can be viewed in Acrobat 6 from the Documents > File - Attachments menu. (This menu is unavailable in Acrobat 5).

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Overview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

  • CSS is news and becoming mainstream
  • What this book does, and who it’s for

Authors

  • Rachel Andrew
  • Molly E. Holzschlag

1. Tables to CSS: A hybrid layout.

  • The layout
  • Cleaner table-based layouts with CSS
  • Navigation
  • Taking it further

2. Tables to CSS: Cleaning nested tables and using styled lists for Navigation.

  • The layout
  • Cleaning up the tables
  • Using a list for navigation
  • Two tables to one
  • Final touches

3. Page layout with CSS: Layers and CSS Positioning

  • CSS Layouts in Dreamweaver
  • CSS Positioning in an External Style sheet
  • CSS Positioning Techniques

4. Borders, Backgrounds, Blocks & Boxes

  • Working with CSS in Dreamweaver MX
  • Setting a Background
  • Setting A Border
  • Block Properties
  • Box Properties

5. CSS Design with Dreamweaver MX: Working with Type, Lists, Positioning and CSS Extensions

  • CSS Text Styling with Dreamweaver MX
  • Setting List Properties
  • Positioning
  • Setting Extensions

6. Creating a Two-Column Layout, the Box Model Hack and Using @import to hide styles from Netscape 4

  • Setting up the Markup
  • Linking the Default Styles Sheet
  • Importing the Layout Styles
  • Add Divisions
  • Go Forth and Modify

7. Creating A Three-Column Layout

  • Defining the Site
  • Linking and Importing the Site Style
  • Defining Your Divisions
  • Adding Content
  • Adding the Logo
  • Adding Navigation
  • Adding Content to the Right Column
  • Adding the Footer
  • Cleaning Up and Testing Your Documents
  • Modify Away

8. Creating a Weblog Layout, and using a horizontal navigation list

  • About the Design
  • Creating the Markup
  • Styling the Page
  • Horizontal Lists for Navigation
  • Creating Alternative Designs

9. Switching Styles: Users-selected style sheets.

  • About Style Switching
  • Setting Up
  • Using the Style Switcher for Alternative Designs
  • Linking to the JavaScript
  • Adding Hooks to the HTML Document

10. Using the Float Property: an all-CSS Photo Album layout

  • Old-style layout using tables
  • Photo Album layout using CSS
  • Creating the document
  • Creating space
  • Adding a border to the image
  • Setting the width of the layout
  • Centering the layout

11. Centering Designs with CSS

  • The Issue in Detail
  • Centering the Right Way
  • Centering the Wrong Way
  • One Right and One Wrong Equals Compatibility
  • The Good News

12. Styling forms with CSS

  • Styling form elements – what can we change?
  • The form tag
  • The input tag
  • Select menus
  • Textarea
  • What about old browsers?

13. Using Design-Time Stylesheets to Create a Print Stylesheet

  • Getting Started
  • Using Design-time Stylesheets while creating a stylesheet
  • Printing only relevant areas of the page
  • Using a different font style for print
  • Converting to grayscale
  • Display page information on printed versions
  • Attach the stylesheet to the document
  • Summary

Appendix A: CSS and Old Browsers

  • Hiding styles from Netscape 4
  • The 'Netscape Resize Fix'

Appendix B: DOCTYPE switching in

  • About DTDs and DOCTYPEs
  • Days of DOCTYPEs Past
  • The Box Model Nightmare
  • The Hopeful Solution
  • Not So Fast
  • Modifying DOCTYPEs in Dreamweaver MX
  • Making the Switch

Where Now?

 

Reviews

Sample files

April 2, 2004 by Mike Clark

I've only looked through the first several chapters and regret that there aren't sample HTML files available for this e-book. I find myself creating CSS rules for a page layout that I only have a photo of, and I don't have the time (or desire) to recreate the starting page for real hands-on learning.

A better offering can be had with Project Seven's "Foundations" e-book; at $45, it's pricier, yet includes the e-book, source files, style sheets, extensions and editable images.

 

 

RE: Sample files

April 2, 2004 by Bruce Lawson
Apologies, Mike; I've amended the instructions above because it seems as if Acrobat 5 doesn't allow the option to extract the non-PDF stylesheets, HTML etc that is actually bundled inside the ebook. Acrobat 6 has the option in the Documents > File Attachments menu which allows you to extract and use the source. My bad; I'm sorry.

Awesome Book!

April 7, 2004 by Gordon Currie

I bought this book and was very pleased with the content and examples provided. The best feature was the fact it was easy to read (I have glasses and struggle with some layouts) and found the writing style very clear. It was well worth the money and really convinced me to move ahead and focus more on CSS and a standards approach.

Great Work

Gordon Currie

 

Not for Dreamweaver MX 2004

April 20, 2004 by Mike Clark

I'm a fan of DMX Premium Content, but this collection of CSS-related articles simply falls short of the mark for Dreamweaver MX 2004 users.

The procedures and illustrations seem to focus solely on Dreamweaver MX, with no alternate descriptions for MX 2004. The authors may have used MX 2004 to create the work, but that is not documented in this material and is a serious shortcoming for this group. The screenshots are incorrect and the way MX 2004 handles CSS and codes the page are substantially different.

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