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Ramping Up

In order to be a great coder, you need to ramp up and learn about things that will help you become a better developer. In this chapter, we're going to look at text editors that will speed up our workflow. We'll then look at a CSS reset, which resets the default browser such that its styling is reduced to nothing, and the built-in browser developer tools to help us troubleshoot our code. Then, we'll look at how to rename elements with classes and IDs as well as qualify our selectors using descendant selectors.

Key benefits

Learn CSS directly from Rich Finelli, author of the bestselling Mastering CSS training course

From best practices to deep coding, Rich Finelli shares his CSS knowledge with you

Rich Finelli covers the latest CSS updates with flexbox and works with retina devices

Description

Rich Finelli trains you in CSS deep learning and shows you the techniques you need to work in the world of responsive, feature-rich web applications. Based on his bestselling Mastering CSS training video, you can now learn with Rich in this book! Rich shares with you his skills in creating advanced layouts, and the critical CSS insights you need for responsive web designs, fonts, transitions, animations, and using flexbox. Rich begins your CSS training with a review of CSS best practices, such as using a good text editor to automate your authoring and setting up a CSS baseline. You then move on to create a responsive layout making use of floats and stylable drop-down menus, with Rich guiding you toward a modular-organized approach to CSS. Your training with Rich Finelli then dives into detail about working with CSS and the best solutions to make your websites work. You'll go with him into CSS3 properties, transforms, transitions, and animations. You’ll gain his understanding of responsive web designs, web fonts, icon fonts, and the techniques used to support retina devices. Rich expands your knowledge of CSS so you can master one of the most valuable tools in modern web design.

What you will learn

Master fundamental CSS concepts like the anatomy of a rule set, the box model, and the differences between block and inline elements

Employ flexbox to layout and align elements simply and cleanly

Become proficient with CSS3 properties such as transitions, transforms, gradients, and animations

Delve into modular, reusable, and scalable CSS for more organized and maintainable style sheets

Understand media queries and other pillars of responsive web design

Get creative with the @font-face property, Google Web Fonts, font services such as Typekit, as well as, icon fonts

Understand the workflow for HiDPI (retina) devices using 2x images, SVG, and the srcset attribute

What do you get with Print?

Instant access to your digital eBook copy whilst your Print order is Shipped

Paperback book shipped to your preferred address

Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats

Access this title in our online reader with advanced features

DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want

Frequently bought together

HTML5 and CSS3: Building Responsive Websites

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€130.99

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Total € 237.97

S. A. K. Dec 15, 2017

Full disclosure that I did receive a copy of this book free of charge in order to provide a review. To help the review reader get some perspective on where I am coming to this book from, I have been in frontend development for some time, and have read through many guides, resources, and a lot of documentation for work and side projects, so while there is much I know, there are also some areas where I certainly could improve. That being said, I tried to look at this book with a few specific questions in mind and I tried to take into account others' perspectives by focusing on the following questions as I read through:1) How well does this book cover important CSS topics?2) How well are the topics explained to someone who is new?3) How would this work for someone who knows CSS, but wants a good reference for new material as devices and standards evolve?1) I chose to focus on a few sections where I feel especially knowledgeable as well as a few where I felt less so to try to answer this. One important thing to note is that Rich has done a great job of using a realistic, project-based approach to pulling CSS concepts together. If you follow through his book, you build a site alongside Rich that has many, if not all, of the major CSS properties of most projects you'll encounter in modern web development. Topics such as building for retina displays on modern devices, flexbox, CSS3 transitions and animations is crucial to today's UIs and Rich ensures he covers all of these and much more. At each stage he provides an explanation of why we're doing what we're doing, and what the impact is on the user. Consistently, he brings into play performance considerations and accessibility -- also two very important themes in web development today that one can no longer afford to overlook. I am genuinely impressed by how the breadth and depth here.2) I think one of my favorite things about Rich's writing is how accessible and friendly it is to the user. Reading/coding along you hear the author's voice and feel as though you're sitting and having Rich walk you through a process, not like you're reading some opaque documentation. I think this is great for anyone just dipping their toes into CSS, because it can be very intimidating and because technology evolves so quickly in this sphere, it can be hard to know what works in modern development. Rich does a great job of making the journey comfortable and addressing the concerns that a beginner might have, and might not know s/he should have (i.e. accessibility, responsiveness, browser considerations), without piling too much onto the user. The author is trying to teach you and preempt your questions with clear and concise explanations, not just list off standards or try to get you to memorize things. Rich works hard to make the reader connect concepts and I think he does an excellent job.3) This is probably the piece of the review that I can address most easily because it applies directly to me as a frontend dev who considers himself pretty knowledgeable and capable. I loved that I could read any section of Mastering CSS and pick up one or two new things -- sometimes small, sometimes not, but always interesting and helpful. I spend a lot of time on frontend development and I have read many articles, books, etc. -- it was really refreshing to get the depth that Rich provides, and to be able to get it delivered so concisely. His explanation of how retina displays work and how to ensure a great user experience with images that support their strengths was very clear and one of those "oh wow, that's awesome" moments for me. Those are the moments that I think most devs love to come across and there were many instances where Rich provided additional detailed knowledge that gave me those moments. Of course, I'll continue to use many different sources of documentation (some of which Rich provides in his notes on resources for the user), but this is definitely added to my repertoire.Overall I think Rich does exactly what he sets out to do here, and I think he does it well. Again, I did receive a free copy in order to write this review, but consider this my recommendation when comparing Mastering CSS to several other books and authors I've read on the topic. If you absorbed everything Rich wrote in this book, you would be able to tackle the vast majority of CSS & CSS3 concerns that frontend developers encounter.

Amazon Verified review

Pratik Jan 08, 2018

This book is suitable for beginners diving into web design. The good thing about this book is that it does not assume any prior knowledge of CSS from you. The only prerequisite is to take your time to do practice and follow along all the examples. It begins from very simple example and that same example carries through the entire book while it teaches more detailed and complex concepts gradually. Before you know, you will have a fairly good understanding of CSS3, Responsive Web Design and some of the advanced concepts such as flexbox.On the flip side, I really wish author would have added couple of appendix on different CSS selectors and CSS specificity. That would server as a reference guide to at my desk and I could refer to them as and when needed.

Christopher Allen-Poole Apr 17, 2018

There are a number of grammatical errors, some of the advice is outdated, other advice is just plain wrong. Much of the book is geared towards a novice, which might forgive some of the statements, but other statements are laughably wrong.- He calls using ID's and class names "renaming" elements. Renaming an element is changing a div to an article. What he's doing is changing the selector or specificity.- He references pseudo classes without explaining what they are (there is a vague reference to how they're used three chapters after he uses the first one).- He talks about IE7. That's not a thing anymore.- He confuses convention (calling things clearfix) with purpose (clearing CSS float property).- He advocates non-semantic CSS as a solution to the problem of non-semantic HTML- He (arguably) conflates anchors and buttons- The specificity "points" concept does not work the way he says. If you have eleven CSS classes in a selector that will not override one ID. (He does clarify this about two chapters after introducing the idea, but he's been using incorrect nomenclature the entire time.)

Mastering CSS: A guided journey through modern CSS

What do you get with Print?

Mastering CSS

Ramping Up

Text editors

CSS reset

Chrome DevTools

How to open developer tools

Renaming elements — classes and IDs

Classes

Descendant selectors

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Mastering CSS: A guided journey through modern CSS

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Key benefits

Description

Who is this book for?

What you will learn

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