- Covers both Windows and Macintosh software for Web design
- Teaches valid HTML and CSS
- Doesn't stick with just common tags and styles
- Provides design tips that pros use
- Explains CSS right along with the HTML
- Most reference notes are to Sitepoint
- Chapters 1 and 2: What you need to start and how to build your first Web page.
- Chapters 3 and 4: Adding CSS.
- Chapter 5: Adding images.
- Chapter 6: Using tables for data, not layout.
- Chapter 7: HTML forms.
- Chapter 8: Putting the site live.
- Chapter 9: Adding a blog.
- Chapter 10: Free stuff to improve your site.
- Chapter 11: Where to go from here.
The nice thing about this book is that it teaches Web building without any assumptions. It doesn't assume you know HTML or CSS and it doesn't assume that you're only going to build personal Web pages. By learning HTML and CSS from this book you will learn HTML without being encumbered by old bad habits of Web designers (like tables for layout) that you still find in many beginning Web design books.
While there are two chapters on CSS, this book really does incorporate the CSS right along with the HTML. So as you learn to build an HTML form, for example, you learn the CSS tricks to style it and make it look good.
The only drawback to this book is that the primary reference for the book is, unsurprisingly, Sitepoint itself. This isn't a big drawback, it is a Sitepoint book, after all. But Sitepoint isn't the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), so it seems a bit self-referential. Ultimately, it doesn't matter as Sitepoint provides a lot of accurate information about Web design.
