Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML by Elisabeth Freeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The best introductory book on HTML and CSS I’ve read so far. It focuses on (X)HTML and CSS, with a short chapter on graphics and barely a mention of scripting or other web topics. So it’s not as broad as Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML CSS Graphics and Beyond, but it covers things in much more depth, and I understood and retained more from this book. I credit the informal writing, cheesy pictures, “handwritten” explanatory notes, reader question sections, repetition, and visuals.
The book is from late 2005 and somewhat dated, but the basics of HTML and CSS presented here are essentially the same as today. The explanations of floating and positioning, which can be confusing, are very clear and understandable.
I flipped through several chapters before I encountered unknown material and had to slow down, so apparently I’ve actually learned something from my recent self-training in HTML and CSS!
Specify the body font size with a keyword (such as small or medium), then specify all other font sizes as ems or percentages.
The HTML for floated elements must be directly below the element you want them to float below. With absolute positioning, the order of the HTML doesn’t matter.
The top and bottom adjacent margins of block elements collapse to the size of the larger margin.
Floated elements are removed from normal flow and placed to the left or right.
Block elements ignore floated elements, but the inline elements flow around them.
Absolutely positioned elements are positioned relative to their containing element (the sides of the page, if not nested). They can be layered using a z-index.
Fixed position elements are positioned relative to the browser window and don’t move when the page is scrolled.
Relatively positioned elements are flowed into the page, then offset to leave the space they would have occupied empty.
