Book review: More Eric Meyer on CSS

Those who have layed out a web page or application with CSS should be familiar with the name Eric Meyer. He has a web page with many well known examples of CSS layout techniques. “More Eric Meyer on CSS” is his second book describing some of the tips and tricks he knows.

Have you ever been on a web site that has a very cool feature that you’d like to incorporate into your web site as well? And having a look at the HTML source and CSS file just doesn’t reveal how to exactly do it? In that case, this book may be just what you’re looking for.

In a pleasant and easy to read style, Eric guides you through a few examples of laying out a web page with CSS. In each example, he starts with carefully describing what the goal of the project is and then implements the steps necessary to reach that goal one by one. In each step he explains what he does and, at least as important, why he does it. He explains the do-s and dont-s of CSS and where to expect problems on what browser. Fortunately, he also provides workarounds for those problems 🙂

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a downside to the book too. Eric displays and incredible amount of knowledge of CSS and the rendering capabilities of many browsers and he ventilates this knowledge where appropriate. But the sheer amount of information may leave you behind feeling “I know this issue is described in the book somewhere, but where?” Also, people not being too familiar with CSS may need an additional HOWTO or an overview like the CSS 2.1 Specification to look up the CSS tags and values Eric uses.

All in all, the book is an excellent resource for people seeking new challenges or wanting another cool feature for their websites. Way to go Eric!