CSS Curriculum
I feel that the number one reason why people fail or struggle with CSS is that they don’t take the time at the beginning to understand the theory and concepts behind CSS, and instead just jump right in trying to recreate their old table layouts from scratch using CSS. In order to succeed with CSS, you need to take the time up front to learn how it works. If you have been laying pages out in tables, it will take some time to switch out of the table mindset and into the CSS one. It truly is a different way of looking at design and building your pages.
The CSS Curriculum is a collection of articles that I think do a good job of getting you into the CSS mindset and understanding how it works instead of just what it does. This is a work in progress; I have not yet added all the links I want to, nor will it ever really be finished.
Start with proper markup
Always start your pages by first deciding what type of markup you will be using. Choose a doctype that matches your chosen markup. Write markup that is valid and semantic.
- Book: Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm
- Rendering Mode and Doctype Switching
- Making it Legal: Validating Your (X)HTML and CSS
- Semantic (X)HTML Markup: An Introduction
- Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Headings and Paragraphs
- Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Creating Emphasis
- Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Blockquote, Q, and Cite
- Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Structuring Lists
- Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Styling Lists
- Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Using Tables Appropriately
- Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Styling Tables
- Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Phrase Elements
- Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Other Elements
Add divs for structure
Once your markup is in place, add to it just a bit with divs to logically group sections of content on the page.
Understand box properties
Understand selectors
Disrupt the normal flow to create columns
- Flowing and Positioning: Two Page Models
- CSS Positioning
- Floatutorial
- Containing Floats
- Float: The Theory
- Create Columns with Floats
- Float: The Bugs (part three)
Featured Project
The Walk to School web site is the primary resource material for Walk to School coordinators across the US to plan their annual events. Learn more in the Portfolio section.
The online home of Zoe Mickley Gillenwater