By Joseph W. Lowery
Review by: Alex
CSS is a fantastic way of displaying your content; however unfortunately due to browsers displaying information differently there comes a time when what looks perfect in one browser, looks horrendous in another. What can you do? You can’t expect your visitors to change their browsing habits by swapping browser (people who make their sites open only to Firefox users should note this). What can be done is what this book is all about, CSS hacks and filters is a book which explains where things in website design go wrong and how they can be overcome by using little tricks which only certain browsers pick up on, therefore making the site work for them. Hacking CSS can be seen as bad practice but unfortunately using hacks and filters are sometimes the only (but frustrating) way to get your websites to work and render properly in every browser. The good thing about this book is it does not rely on a certain type of method for hacking CSS and it makes sure to explain as many of the different methods as possible while making sure that the hacks maintain accessibility whenever they can and unlike many books which describe CSS hacks, this book manages to use methods such as conditional comments (which work in Internet Explorer 7!) and hacks which work on a variety of browsers including IE, Opera, Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape and Safari. Before launching you into the world of hacks and filters it explains when you should use a hack, the debate between using hacks or sacrificing the design to avoid the use of hacks and explains why problems occur in the first place with a brief history of how CSS was implemented in browsers. This book is one of a kind in the fact that its dedicated to hacks and filters, is current and supports all modern browsers and the fact that it actually debates if there is a good time to use hacks and gives a wide variety of fixes for common problems makes this book a useful edition to the frustrated designers collection. And if you come across lots of problems, you may end up kissing this book for saving your sanity too!
The first chapter of this book describes why CSS hacking occurs and why (or if) you should hack your CSS to maintain fluidity in your designs, Chapter 2 explains how to filter code from old browsers, Chapter 3 details how to hide code from newer browsers to achieve backwards compatibility, Chapter 4 mentions the use of conditional comments for internet explorer and how to use them in CSS hacking, Chapter 5 mentions using hacks on JavaScript and the DOM to add compatibility for behaviour as well as style, Chapter 6 explains how coding server side solutions (using ASP, PHP and coldfusion) can help prevent CSS problems, Chapter 7 describes how to enhance multimedia and pictures using CSS, Chapter 9 explains how to implement integrated CSS hack layouts, Chapter 10 mentions building navigation menus with CSS and how to make them work effectively in all browsers, Chapter 11 is a chapter dedicated to troubleshooting CSS (many CSS users may find this useful to determine what needs to be fixed), Chapter 12 specifies how to use hacks and filters within Macromedia Dreamweaver and Chapter 13 finishes off by mentioning how to use Macromedia Dreamweaver to create CSS-Savvy looking websites. Finally in the appendix there is a list of useful related websites and a chart which explains in simplistic terms how to apply the hacks and filters in certain website browsers.
This book is suitable for the following types of people interested in website development:
- People with a working knowledge of HTML and CSS who want to fix browser related issues.
- Website developers who use valid coding methods but find serious layout or style problems.
- Anyone interested in website design who want to make their sites show properly in all browsers.