The Complete Idiot's Guide to HTML5 and CSS3 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I started out with HeadFirst HTML with CSS and XHTML by Freeman and Freeman. If you read the reviews of that book, you will see that it gets great reviews and among those reviews is the comment that people with no prior knowledge of coding are able to code both HTML and CSS after reading that book, which was true for me as well. But the book was published in 2006 and while the concepts remain quite valuable, HTML 5 and CSS 3 have new features and in some cases, different rules.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to HTML 5 and CSS3 has been an excellent follow-up to update what I learned from the Head First book. This new title is not impenetrable for a beginner, but I think it would be tremendously helpful to have some prior exposure to HTML (even a little) so that terms such as 'document type declaration' don't throw them. The pace might be a slight bit fast and one might lack a little bit of the 'why you do things' if it's the very first HTML book that one reads. If that were descriptive of me, I think I'd still be happy with purchasing this book, though.
I found the book to be pleasant reading, relatively quick reading, and surprisingly thorough--not to mention that it is quite within my budget, unlike some of the other choices that I might very much like to have but would pretty much take up my book budget with a single purchase. It was efficient in its presentation, not deviating to unrelated humor, personal stories, or other types of content that I prefer not to invest time in.
This book is ideal for a layperson or an interested person who has a bit of prior knowledge of HTML (such as understanding what 'head' and 'body' tags are; what an 'unordered list' is, etc, and who has some idea of how the items that one sees on a page relate to the code) and who wants to update their knowledge specifically to the new HTML5 and CSS3. There were a couple of things I had to read twice but as someone who works in a very different field, I still followed it quite easily--more readily than most books in this subject area. After devoting perhaps two thirds of a day to this book, I feel fairly ready to take advantage of the new features.
Those who spend their entire workdays designing web pages might find this book is not quite as technical or in depth as they would ultimately want although it still might work well for a quick and pretty good orientation to HTML5 and CSS3. For the price, you really can't go wrong. For an absolute beginner, supplementation with something that had more pictures (or even the 'Head First' book, which is still quite good) might be the best bet; for someone like me with a little experience and no desire to become a fulltime designer, this book is all I need and was a good match for the amount of money I was willing to spend; for someone who designs full time, there might be an interest in adding additional books that most of us wouldn't find intuitively easy to consume.
This was a great choice for me, though, and I am pleased at how much I learned and how painless it was to learn.

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Create dynamic, interactive websites with HTML5 and CSS3HTML5 and CSS3 are the newest revisions of the primary standards for structuring and styling web content - major updates that enable designers and developers to streamline source code and publish more dynamic, interactive content without having to learn complex scripting languages.The Complete Idiot's Guide® to HTML5 and CSS3 provides both new and existing web developers the tools they need to code and design the web content that people increasingly expect to experience when they surf the web. Even better, you learn HTML5 and CSS3 in the context of building a website with a content management system (CMS), such as WordPress. You can then apply your knowledge of HTML5 and CSS3 to customize your site, instead of starting from scratch. You discover how to:
Design and maintain a website using web-based tools instead of a complicated HTML editor.
Code pages properly using the new HTML5 structure tags, including , , , , , , and the simplified tag.
Embed audio and video using the new HTML5 and tags.
Apply a CSS theme to format pages, and customize the theme using CSS3 styles.
Use CSS3 to round box corners and make images and backgrounds more or less transparent.
Take full advantage of new CSS3 transformation and animation features to animate objects on a page, create image rollovers, and build your own drop-down menus.
Test and fine-tune your site to make it load faster and look just right.
Perform an SEO audit of your site and keyword-optimize your site's content.
The Complete Idiot's Guide® to HTML5 and CSS3 features:
16-page color insert
HTML5 Quick Reference
CSS3 Properties and Values Quick Reference
HTML Special Characters and Symbols Quick Reference
Speak Like a Geek Glossary

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