[FONT=“Verdana”]The Ian Lloyd book “Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS” has been an invaluable book to use so far. I decided to read it because of all the recommendations I read on here. Currently, I’m around Page 100. I want to plan for future books. Based on my research on this forum, a lot of users recommend these two books as a follow up: “The Principles of Beautiful Web Design” and “Sexy Web Design”. Should I next read these two SitePoint books in that order?
When you answer, please keep in mind that I’m creating a web site where I will offer my dog walking services to my local area. However, I also want to learn this stuff really well. Maybe a few years from now I’ll be a professional web designer. I have some web background and even read a book on HTML & CSS by Elizabeth Castro about ten years ago. But I should relearn the languages since it’s been so long. I only learned very lite CSS anyway. My main goal right now is to get this dog walking site up within the next few months. Any help would be appreciated. Hope to hear from you all soon. [/FONT]
The SitePoint Book Matrix shows all the books and approx what level they are Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced. Possible "HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS. Have a look at the table of contents for the book you’ll be able to get an idea if the book is what your looking for.
Thank you for that very useful Sitepoint book guide, SpacePhoenix! It’s amazing what this website has lurking in the shadows. I hadn’t come across that yet. It will be useful indeed. Cheers.
The two books you mentioned are mainly aimed at the more graphical centric regions of website design (making your site look pretty), if you are looking to improve the stylistic value of your code their a good choice, however if you want something more code related there may be something better out there for you. If you tell us what you would like to get out of the next book you read, we could give you more explicit titles (both SitePoint and outside publishers)
[FONT=“Verdana”]Hi Alex. Thanks for chipping in here. What I Want next… Good question. What is it that I really want? Hmm. Well, perfecting my design skills can come later. So maybe those two books aren’t the logical next step. Before you wrote that, I had decided on ‘HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables.’ Ian Lloyd recommends this book as a follow up to his book. It is also next on that matrix that SpacePhoenix provided.
However, maybe there is still a more in between book I need for now. I want to make this dog walking business website easy to use. I want to know exactly how to get the customer to contact me. For instance, where exactly should my phone number go? Probably in a header to top right. I’m wondering if there is a particular book that explains how a small business web site should be set up. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to gloss it up too much.
I think for now I might keep the design similar to how it’s in the book. I will just change the colors, images and content. One problem is getting the right images. I did visit the stock image sites recommended in the book. Some of the prices for these photos are a little absurd. I saw many on one site going for over $200! I was expecting to pay no more than a few bucks. So I need to learn how to get an image (a dog on leash) and make it look pretty like the BubbeUnder site.
I have browsed some dog walking sites on the internet. Almost all of them used a template. If they didn’t, they used Dreamweaver. I tried to find a dog walking web site I really liked, and I honestly could not find one. I think that’s because it’s such a small business that not many are going to want to pay money for a good design. From what I read, most dog walking businesses fail within a month. Some make it to six months. This is because most give up too easily. They don’t advertise enough and don’t get a good website up like I am trying to do now. Competing with the national FetchPetCare chain can be difficult, too. Only the strongest survive. I will try to keep looking and see if I can find something I really like to show you. But for now… that’s all the info I have. I hope that is enough for you to help me.[/FONT]
Firstly, do you use tables currently to build your website? If not then the follow up book probably isn’t of much use to you, it’s more aimed at the transition from table based design to using CSS. The general thing I suspect you are looking for is something which talks about CSS and design (in the sense of taking the HTML you have written and positioning and making everything appear as you want it to). That falls into two categories, the coding aspects (learning to write the code) and the design aspects (making things look pretty). If you want something code-respective then perhaps the CSS Anthology (by SitePoint) would be more to your tastes (at understanding all CSS can do), if you want something which has more along with HTML (structuring your content) you perhaps may well do better with another book like your first. If you want something with design and how to make everything as usable as possible, one of the theory books on usability would be better. Sorry if this sounds rather vague but it depends where you want to advance further to what the recommendation would be…
HTML (the stuff round the content), CSS (the visual tweaks), HTML & CSS (progressively), Design (the glitzy stuff) or Usability (making your website love everyone)
PS: Sorry for the late response (and to your PM), I recently had the flu and I’ve been in bed for 5 days straight!
[FONT=“Verdana”]Hi Alex. Sorry to hear you were out with the flu. Hopefully you are feeling better now and making sure to take your Vitamin C each day. I had a bad cold in December that lasted nine days.
Thanks for your reply. LoL. Yes, I guess I need all those things to be honest. You are right, I don’t need the ‘Tableless Design’ book. I think the CSS Anthology book would be the right way to go. However, I am having trouble positioning stuff. So maybe Lloyd’s HTML reference would be good?
For instance, I just created a thread asking how to alight text to the right side of the page in a <h1>. I have no idea how to do that. It doesn’t explain it in the book. Not that the book should explain every last detail, that is not what it was for. I’m having trouble sketching how I want my website layed out also. Right now, I’m just building upon Lloyd’s design… and it’s starting to take shape. I wonder if I should have started from scratch, though. [/FONT]
Before you wrote that, I had decided on ‘HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables.’ Ian Lloyd recommends this book as a follow up to his book
I didn’t know he had recommended that one, but that one definitely ended up being my second paper book when I was green with this stuff.
I’ll recommend it to you for this reason:
while the first half looks like a repeat introduction to CSS (the same intro that’s in Lloyd’s book, not that that’s bad really), the second half is gold.
Here’s why:
They start out with (x)HTML, some graphic dude’s PSD, and they show you from beginning to end how to make that plain code look like that image. That’s jawsome and gets you started with positioning with CSS (even though, it is truthfully still a beginning book and deliberately doesn’t mention a lot of stuff). It introduces floats and what “clearing” a float is.
They add a sidebar. Then they switch it to the other side. Then they add a footer and show you how absolutely positioning the sidebar made the footer a problem… and how to fix it.
When you’re done, you still only have a basis, but for me it was enough to learn loads from teh innerwebz.
And, I kept the book around on my desk for months afterwards because of the Appendix C(I think, I forget?) where you can look up CSS properties. It was invaluable for me at the time.
Thank you very much, Stomme. I think I’ll go with that one then. Strangely, I was just replying to an older post in another thread. I was looking up this one before I posted it. And then I find that you replied to me! I’ll go ahead and reply in the other thread anyway. I still need one more… maybe a good article on how to create the “look” of a website. Right now, I’ve got some paper and drawing it out. But it would be nice to see a good tutorial on it.
I want to make this dog walking business website easy to use. I want to know exactly how to get the customer to contact me. For instance, where exactly should my phone number go? Probably in a header to top right.
I was planning on adding it but I forgot… before I got Lloyd’s book, a colleague of mine had this wonderful book:
Don’t Make Me Think! by Steve Krug. It’s not about code. It’s about building for human beings. Don’t make them think. It’s an awesome book and could be available in your local library perhaps.
I just recently got his follow-up called Rocket Surgery Made Easy, about dirty-cheap usability testing.
I agree with that to the large extent, there are books like Eric Meyer on CSS and it’s sequal, More Eric Meyer on CSS, and the Bulletproof Web Design / HandCrafted CSS duo which explicitly cover example based solutions (and they are very good at this), however what I would say is if you want the best possible all round solution, perhaps you might consider both an example lead book and something more general (such as a book which covers what all the CSS goodies can do), this may help you match examples to future needs better. I could certainly recommend other titles if you need them.
