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).

Overview

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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