Your favorite book for website development?

[JohnB352]

Looking for suggestions.

[Cheryl D Wise]

What topic? Seriously, I have different books I use for different purposes. What topic? Seriously, I have different books I use for different purposes.

For example I highly recommend Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug re usability. Its an easy to read, relatively short book that can give you some principles that are very useful in creating a site that can in fact be used.

Pretty much anything written by Eric Meyers when it comes to CSS though his O'Reilly book CSS The Definitive Guide is more of a reference than anything else.

In addition to topic also what is it you want to get out of the book? For example if your goal is to have a complete reference on Expression Web then Jim Cheshire's books are excellent. If you want a quick up and running introduction for beginners then Morton's books are good.

Authors I like are:

• Molly E. Holzschlag
• Andy Budd
• Jeffrey Zeldman

Then of course I'm somewhat partial to my own book Foundations of Microsoft Expression Web  even if it was written for v1 so a few of the bug workarounds are no longer needed and the menus are a bit different. I wrote it because I wanted something that while program specific in the exercises took the approach of here's how you make a good cross browser site using Expression Web instead of here what you do in Expression Web. The difference is more than just  wording since I spend as much time on the why you should and how you should approach it as the how while most program specific books cover just the how.

[JohnB352]

That's just it, I'm too new to know all the topics, or at least what they would normally be called.

I bought CSS Mastery, 2nd edition.  That's a great book.
I've had for 2 years now, Jim Chesire's book on EW.  Honestly... I learned more from your videos than the book. I think I'm good, for now, on using EW.  I don't believe that is what's holding me back the most.

Things I need help with are the basics of website development; for example in the MS forum I've been told the I'm using H1, H2, H3, etc... incorrectly.  I need help with "what the correct way is".

Also; website design.  From everything I've read on the net, this is forever evolving and changing.  I am gathering that "less presentational" is the current fad.  I need help with the do's and don'ts of website design.  I've found a few things on the net like "the top 10 do's and don'ts".  But it was 3 years old.  May not all apply now days.

Part of my problem is, I don't know what "I'm supposed to know".
You probably have seen the site that I'm currently working on - LINK - probably one of my biggest problems is that my external CSS sheet seems to be a mess.  I need to get a handle on organizing it better and, a better understanding of descendant and child selectors.  The CSS book I have covers that, but only very briefly.  Maybe I just need more practice, or another book.

Also, things like Doc Type, and BOMs.  I have no idea what either of those are. But have seen reference to them in forums.

I hope that answers your question. At least it's a start.

[Cheryl D Wise]

Sounds like what you need is in part is to come to grips with HTML and semantic structure. Think back to what you learned about writing back in elementary school.

HTML is a mark-up language which is why the elements for the most part seem to be plain English. Headings h1-h6 are levels of heirachy like you have in an outline. P is body text and there are a variety of lists: ordered, unordered and definition. Strong & emphasis (em) provide information on the relative importance of content. Elements like <address>, <code>, <cite>,

(for large blocks of quoted text, <q> (for smaller quotes) are almost self explanatory.

Others are more specialized like <fieldset> for form fields and are related as much to accessibility as to page structure.

There are more than one HTML/XHTML specification with different elements or changes to how an element is displayed. The doctype tells the browser which version to use so that it doesn't have to guess. The most commonly used doctypes currently are HTML 4.01 & XHML 1.0. If you don't specify a doctype then the browser has to guess what you are telling it to do. That's called "quirksmode" and typically results in a sort of HTML 3.2 display which can be both different from and far less predictable than how a page would display with a doctype specified.

[patgeary]

Things I need help with are the basics of website development; for example in the MS forum I've been told the I'm using H1, H2, H3, etc... incorrectly.  I need help with "what the correct way is".

A good article on using heading tags written by James Huggins

http://www.genealogy-web-creations.com/heading-tags.html

Any of the W3schools tutorials are good.
http://www.w3schools.com/html/
http://www.w3schools.com/xhtml/xhtml_intro.asp

pat

[agnesdelvin]

CSS The Missing Manual is my most favorite book. So would suggest this book for website development. You will get essential information.

[Fracototh]

The http://www.w3schools.com is a nice site to get more knowledge. I got so much new information from here.