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Summary: Everything about producing web pages
Review: Web Design in a Nutshell contains the nitty-gritty on everything you need to know to design Web pages. It's the good stuff, without the fluff, written and organized so that answers can be found quickly. Written by veteran Web designer Jennifer Niederst, this book provides quick access to the wide range of front-end technologies and techniques from which Web designers and authors must draw. It is an excellent reference for HTML 4.0 tags (including tables, frames, and Cascading Style Sheets) with special attention given to browser support and platform idiosyncrasies. The HTML section is more than a reference work, though. It details strange behavior in tables, for instance, and gives ideas and workarounds for using tables and frames on your site. Web Design in a Nutshell also covers multimedia and interactivity, audio and video, Cascading Style Sheets, and emerging technologies like Dynamic HTML, XML, embedded fonts, and internationalization. The book includes: * Discussions of the Web environment, monitors, and browsers * A complete reference to HTML and Server Side Includes, including browser support for every tag and attribute * Chapters on creating GIF, JPEG and PNG graphics, including designing with the Web Palette * Information on multimedia and interactivity, including audio, video, Flash, Shockwave, and JavaScript * Detailed tutorial and reference on Cascading Style Sheets, including an appendix of browser compatibility information * Appendices detailing HTML tags, attributes, deprecated tags, proprietary tags, and CSS compatibility
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Summary: Excellent book for the "not quite a beginner" to Web design
Review: This book takes novice to intermediate designers to the next level and is also useful as a desktop quick reference. Many buy such books and end up never opening them or maybe a few times before it's outdated. I admit I'm one of those people, but not when it comes to the weasel (picture on the cover) book. This is the book the professor assigned for one of my first Web design classes and it is responsible for my learning tables, CSS, and knowing when to make a graphics file .gif or .jpg.
It's the most well worn Web design book I have in my collection and the only HTML book I ever bought. Thankfully, there is little that's changed in the format of the book because it wasn't broken. Niederst takes the appropriate steps to update it and expand the sections that are more relevant today such as HTML 4.01 and new versions of browsers including Netscape 6 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.
Expect an entire orchestra of instruments relevant to Web design, along with the specific details and tricks you should know. It may seem a bit much that Niederst covers HTML, CSS, SSI, graphics, multimedia, JavaScript, DHTML, XML, XHTML, WAP, and WML. However, she appropriately magnifies essential things while the advanced or "you may want to explore" topics are touched upon to give an idea of how it works with suggestions for further reading
The book starts off by addressing the biggest challenge of designing a site that looks good in every browser and version. "Designing for a Variety of Browsers" has a two-page chart of various browsers and versions for the Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX environments, showing what each supports and doesn't support.
The next chapter covers another source of frustration for designers, "Designing for a Variety of Displays." If you monitor your Web visitor stats, then you'll probably notice that no size leads the majority especially with WebTV, handheld, and cellular devices accessing the Internet. There are screen shots of browser and system measurements and tips for designing for various displays.
Chapter 26, "Flash and Shockwave" explains what it is, advantages and disadvantages, introduces you to the Flash interface, adding a Flash file to a Web page, and integrating it with other technologies. Flash is a whole different animal and the book gives you the big picture of how it fits with designing Web pages. The following chapter on SMIL covers the same basics.
Part V addresses the advanced technologies including JavaScript, DHTML, XML, XHTML, and WAP and WML. It's useful to have these all close together at the end of the book to help you figure out which you may want to use for a Web project.
As useful as special characters can be, I never remember what to type to make the symbol appear, though I know these now. Finding the special character chart is the only complaint I had from the original edition and not even the index helped me find it, so I had to tab the page. This has now been remedied with one of the best improvements of moving the special character reference chart to the appendix for speedy access. Other appendices in the book are listings of HTML tags, attributes, deprecated tags, proprietary tags, and CSS compatibility and support.
As your design skills and knowledge grow, there is always a question that prompts you to open the book and get your answer. It holds true today as I retire the worn out book with a loose page thanks to a certain child and happily replace it with its new younger sibling.
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Summary: Beginner's Reference
Review: Whether First of Second edition, this book is definitely dated material, and in need of regular update. So, there a certainly parts that no longer apply to the current state of Web Design. However, there are still portions that are pertinent and valuable for web designers, especially those just getting into the art. The author offers guidance from broad design principles to specifics of forms, frames and graphics. The basics have not really changed, just the tools. The layout of the book by topic makes it very useful for reference and the samples provide a basis for the budding web developer and designer (WDaD) to build on. Couple this book with any of a number of good HTML and Scripting books and the new WDaD will be well on their way toward designing usable and appealing web sites. Bottom line - not worth list price at the time of this review; if you can get it at a steep discount it is still worth getting. P-)
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Summary: Must have html reference
Review: I purchase a lot of books. Most don't survive long on my bookshelf, and end up being placed in a box or stacked. This book is one of the few that has survived on my bookshelf because it is a worthwhile reference to have around. Even though I avoid taking web jobs, I sometimes need to generate some html on occasion. As a result, I often find myself wondering what the hex value of a particular color is, or need some obscure tag. That is when I reach for this reference book. The information is well organized, well written, and still useful long after I purchased it. Recommended.
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Summary: Good reviews are no fluke
Review: I bought this book based on its great reviews, and read it cover to cover. The information is very well organized, well written, and useful. I would give this book to anyone who does web work.
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