

Best online CSS tutorial/class? - lennysan

My CSS kung-foo is relatively weak, and I'd like to work on that. Any favorite CSS tutorials out there I should take a look at?
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rufo
CSS is simple, until it's not.

Then it's like clawing your eyes out with a rusty spork. Underwater. With your
hands tied behind your back.

It's best learned when you have a goal in mind, as tutorials are too
idealized; you're not going to learn all that much by reading yet another
"holy grail layout" article, you're going to learn by getting your hands
bloody and finding out how stuff _really_ works in the browser.

My advice? Have a layout in mind; for a challenge, try and replicate something
you have a mockup of in Photoshop. Take a copy of Firefox. Install Firebug.
Inspect elements at other websites that have done what you're trying to do:
keep in mind how the <div>s are nested and laid out, and what CSS styles are
applied to those <divs>. Read lots of alistapart.com and quirksmode.org, and
Google as much as you can. Try and replicate styles yourself, ideally with an
editor that's going to show you your CSS changes live as-you-go (ideally by-
the-character) so you can experiment and iterate rapidly. Check your stuff in
IE6 to discover exactly how many man-hours have collectively been wasted
coding around MS's shit. And let me reiterate: Don't be afraid to Google for
answers to problems, and to learn from how other pages have solved your
problems.

Oh, and one book you absolutely _must_ read: Dan Cederholm's Bulletproof Web
Design. You may or may not need to design your pages that way, but it will
expand your mind as to how you can get things done.

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Hexstream
I learned directly from <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/> and loved it.
Familiarize yourself with the content, read the chapters that look
interesting, and then use CSS in your projects, reading on the relevant
material as you go. And then a bit of reading on the more advanced chapters
and you'll be pretty expert.

~~~
tylercarbone
I second that. I think the best/easiest way to learn CSS is just to have a
project that needs to be accomplished and get started. You'll be really slow,
but you'll learn what you need as you go.

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tel
CSS, the language, is relatively simple. CSS, the kung fu, is a matter of
learning how tons of edge cases and tricks come together.

It's best to treat it like other programming languages: go find some websites
that you respect the look of and ask yourself _how did they make that effect?_

Then skim through this stuff: <http://alistapart.com/topics/code/css/>

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brianlash
I started looking at the free resources at Sitepoint with some success (see
<http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/css>), but I haven't delved deep enough to
give it a full-on recommendation. Still, it seems elaborate, and you have the
benefit of switching to the HTML and the (forthcoming) Javascript references
when you want to color your studies with some context.

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ochiba
I asked the same question on HN earlier:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=73284>

I ended up buying the book CSS Mastery by Andy Budd and I'm quite satisfied
with it ;)

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alexk
Try this: CSS: The Definitive Guide, Third Edition
(<http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527334/index.html>)

and this: CSS Cookbook, Second Edition
(<http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527419/index.html>)

These books are a pleasure to read and they are really cool.

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tortilla
If you're a total beginner, the Head First HTML is pretty good. I know some
people don't like the style of these books, but for HTML & CSS, I think it
worked well.

[http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-HTML-CSS-
XHTML/dp/059610197...](http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-HTML-CSS-
XHTML/dp/059610197X)

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senthil_rajasek
Here are some links suggested by a friend/ great designer.

<http://senthil.homelinux.com/2008/06/08/six-cool-css-links/>

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bprater
I love Eric Meyer's books.

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bkbleikamp
Apress books on CSS are good. Go from beginner -> expert.

