PACS Web Design Book ReviewsBeginning CSS Web Development

As those who have attended the CSS Workshop recently know, I have been using a book from Apress entitled Beginning CSS Web Development: From Novice to Professional. It is by Simon Collison.

My review of this book is now posted at PACS Web Design Book Reviews.

February 24 Meeting Report:Page Template

At the February session of the CSS Workshop, we worked on some more issues involving page layouts. Some of the items were odds and ends about topics from previous meetings. We pointed out that while the HTML tags that create page elements, like headings and paragraphs, also create boxes, and that it is possible to position those boxes to lay out pages, the better approach is to use DIV tags to make the basic structure of the page.

We then went through some exercises in collapsing wrappers and showed that the problem does not arise often. Most likely, you will have a footer at the bottom of the page that will keeep the wrapper open in spite of the floating paragraphs that make up the page columns. Just be sure the footer has the clear:both declaration.

We then worked on a basic format of a page with a header, two columns, and a footer. That template is posted in our samples section. It was based on an example from a new book by Simon Collison called Beginning CSS Web Development.

A List Apart: Articles: In Search of the Holy Grail

We mentioned the so-called Holy Grail at the end of the February session. The name refers to a challenging task in CSS layout -- a three-column page with two fixed-width side columns and a liquid-width center column. For more on this layout, see A List Apart: In Search of the Holy Grail.

February 24 Meeting Announcement

The next meeting of the PACS CSS Workshop will be this Saturday, February 24, at 9-10 am.

We will continue working on using CSS for page layouts. I want to cover a couple of templates that can be reused easily, then touch on some other layout issues if we have time before going on to background images. Putting all these skills together will let you create attractive pages that are within the current HTML and CSS specifications. We will also have some great new books to raffle off at CSS and at Web Design in the afternoon.

There is a full lineup of excellent workshops on tap for Saturday, as usual. Check the PACS website for full details. And while there, take a look at the new "PACS Online Store" where you can buy all kinds of PACS-related items. The link is right on the front page of the site.

If you are interested in Internet Explorer 7's CSS support, there is a new PDF book from O'Reilly called Releasing CSS that covers the topic. Reed just posted my review -- see the Web Design reviews section.