Sun, 2006-02-19 19:21
Hi I am new to this forum and this is my first post, so Hello people!!
I am a student studying web design at the mo and have recently been asked to make a website for a property business.
Was wondering as a newbie is it best to go straight into the css route or should I start off in xhtml first, also can anyone suggest some good css books to learn from. 
Sun, 2006-02-19 19:37
#1
Re: Newbie saying Hello!!
Welcome! 
You're going to need both XHTML and CSS. They are not exclusive languages. They both depend on each other almost symbiotically.
XHTML can live by itself (but it's unstyled). CSS by itself is useless.
Sun, 2006-02-19 21:06
#2
Newbie saying Hello!!
Hi Triumph, thanks for your reply. I had a look at your website, and the suggestions you have made for making website's and I agree with the advice on there. I have to confess that I have used Dreamweaver because I felt that I could get something done quicker-though I do agree that if you want your code to be properly optimized and you want to have full control over what is happening with your web page then you should be putting in some quality coding of your own.
I wanted to ask you-does laying out your page with css give you more control (if you were to go head to head in a battle with a person using tables would you be confident that you could do any layout that they could).
Sun, 2006-02-19 21:19
#3
Newbie saying Hello!!
Then delete it it's the little [×] in the top right hand corner of the individual post.
Hugo.
Sun, 2006-02-19 21:50
#4
Newbie saying Hello!!
redboy wrote:
(if you were to go head to head in a battle with a person using tables would you be confident that you could do any layout that they could).
Just about, yes and after you've been doing it for a while, the time taken will be roughly the same too.
Sun, 2006-02-19 21:52
#5
Newbie saying Hello!!
Hi Tyssen, do you have a recommendation for a good book/s to learn css?
P.S. Thanks Hugo, will remember that in future.
Sun, 2006-02-19 21:54
#6
Newbie saying Hello!!
Not me personally cos I haven't read any. I've done all my CSS learning online (and most of it through this forum).
Sun, 2006-02-19 23:13
#7
Newbie saying Hello!!
redboy wrote:
We've had some come in this forum and challenge us. Usually, they try to say "this layout is not possible" just to get us to do the work for them. (if you were to go head to head in a battle with a person using tables would you be confident that you could do any layout that they could)
I have not run into anything that I wanted to achieve that's proven impossible so far.
Here are the only two books that I've read on the subject:
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition -by Meyer
Designing with Web Standards -by Zeldman
Zeldman's book doens't go deep into css but it gets you started. If you read Meyer's book from cover to cover you get tons of ideas.
Zeldman's book is slightly soft of standards (it works with transitional xhtml as a way to explain site updating) to help get the job done but after reading it you will be battle ready against tables based layouts.
Looks like a second edition of Zeldman's book is coming out later this year. I wonder what's changed.
Mon, 2006-02-20 00:13
#8
Newbie saying Hello!!
Triumph wrote:
redboy wrote:We've had some come in this forum and challenge us. Usually, they try to say "this layout is not possible" just to get us to do the work for them.(if you were to go head to head in a battle with a person using tables would you be confident that you could do any layout that they could)
I have not run into anything that I wanted to achieve that's proven impossible so far.
I bet you could do some .css layouts that couldn't be done with tables, too.
Mon, 2006-02-20 09:19
#9
Newbie saying Hello!!
redboy wrote:
(if you were to go head to head in a battle with a person using tables would you be confident that you could do any layout that they could).
I bet I could do it quicker, and my code would be ten times smaller.
Mon, 2006-02-20 19:24
#10
Newbie saying Hello!!
thepineapplehead wrote:
redboy wrote:(if you were to go head to head in a battle with a person using tables would you be confident that you could do any layout that they could).
I bet I could do it quicker, and my code would be ten times smaller.
And easier to maintain.
Mon, 2006-02-20 19:41
#11
Newbie saying Hello!!
hell yes
Tue, 2006-02-21 00:35
#12
Newbie saying Hello!!
Yeeeaaahhh, wellll, jeeezzzz, I could do that in three lines if I had ta'.
Tue, 2006-02-21 10:47
#13
Newbie saying Hello!!
Wow!! Was just looking through some of the posts, sounds like you guy's should go in a head to head battle against the dreamweaver forum (where a some of the people there are still resisting css for laying out pages).
Thanks to Triumph for the suggested books to read, Im off to Amazon to have a look around.
Tue, 2006-02-21 15:00
#14
Newbie saying Hello!!
Could you give me an example post? And a link to a page they insist on using tables for?
Tue, 2006-02-21 15:09
#15
Newbie saying Hello!!
Quote:
dreamweaver forum (where a some of the people there are still resisting css for laying out pages)
This will be due in large part to the fact that the Weaver of Lies cannot output real standards code based around CSS-P and has to resort to tables and absolute positioning and the fact that often people who are stuck on DW do not really know how to code if you took their automated assistant from them.
Hugo.