Molly-Mae: Behind It All - Part 2
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Dan Cederholm
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Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS Paperback – 28 July 2005

by Dan Cederholm (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 41 ratings
No matter how visually appealing or packed with content your Web site is, it isn’t succeeding if it’s not reaching the widest possible audience. If you get this guide, you can be assured it will! By deconstructing a series of real-world Web sites, author and Web designer extraordinaire Dan Cederholm outlines 10 strategies for creating standards-based designs that provide flexibility, readability, and user control―key components of every successful Web site. Each chapter starts out with an example of what Dan refers to as an “unbulletproof” concept―an existing site that employs a traditional approach and its associated pitfalls. Dan then deconstructs that approach, noting its downsides and then making the site over using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). By the end of each chapter, you’ll have replaced traditional, bloated, inaccessible page components with lean markup and CSS. The guide culminates with a chapter that pieces together all of the page components discussed in prior chapters into a single page template.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0321346939
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0321346933
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    New Riders
  5. Publication date
    28 July 2005
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    18.42 x 1.27 x 21.59 cm
  8. Print length
    280 pages
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Product description

About the Author

Dan Cederholm is an award-winning Web designer as well as the founder of the design and development consulting firm SimpleBits.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Riders
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 28 July 2005
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0321346939
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0321346933
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 522 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 18.42 x 1.27 x 21.59 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 41 ratings

About the author

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Dan Cederholm

Dan Cederholm

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Dan Cederholm is a Web designer and author living in Massachusetts. He's the founder of SimpleBits, a tiny design studio. A recognized expert in the field of standards-based Web design, Dan has worked with Google, MTV, ESPN, Fast Company, Blogger, Odeo, and others. He embraces flexible, adaptable design using Web standards through his design work, writing, and speaking. Dan is the author of two best-selling books: Bulletproof Web Design (New Riders) and Web Standards Solutions (Friends of ED). Dan also runs the popular weblog SimpleBits, where he writes articles and commentary on the Web, technology, and life. He also plays a mean ukulele and occasionally wears a baseball cap.

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4.5 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • B. Eaton
    5.0 out of 5 stars A must for developers, designers, and hobbyists.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 August 2005
    Verified Purchase
    If you design or develop web sites then you really have to read this book. You may, as I did, think that you know a thing or two about putting together a website. Well this book in combination with Mark Pilgrim's dive into accessibility guide, and Dave Shea's CSS Zen Garden, have taught me otherwise.
    While other texts explain the why, this explains the how - and it does it very well too. This is a hands-on book that takes a number of websites, points out what is wrong with them, and re-creates them using web standards. That is not to say the book preaches in a condescending tone about standards - it simply points out why the bad way is bad and the good way is good. It then does what so many standards evangelists fail to do and actually give practical guidance on how to improve websites.
    Even if your eyes haven't been opened to the negative effects of poorly marked-up and low-accessibility websites you will not regret buying this.
    31 people found this helpful
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  • DAZ
    5.0 out of 5 stars Essential For All Web Designers
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 August 2006
    Verified Purchase
    Dan Cederholm's second book is a must-have for all web designers. This is essentially a 'cookbook' that uses a problem and solution approach to solve oft-encountered situations (such as creating navigation tabs). Each chapter begins with a new situation and the 'old school' (tables, spacer-gifs etc) way of doing it before explaining why this is wrong and then constructing a step-by-step bullet-proof solution. Bulletproof basically meaning that the code is more flexible, accessible and easier to maintain. This mainly involves trimming down the XHTML markup to its bare essentials and then adding everything else using CSS.

    Dan's writing style is very easy to follow and the presentation of the book sets new standards for this type of book - full colour, glossy paper means that all the code examples are easier to follow and there are some excellent diagrams and screenshots.

    Highly recommended.
    13 people found this helpful
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  • IfeellikeAhSaid
    5.0 out of 5 stars You need this book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 May 2008
    Verified Purchase
    I have to say that I'm suprised at one reviewer saying that it was confusing.Not at any point did I find it confusing.This book is a very very good example of how to write reusable bulletproof code. Obviously the code supplied from the website,as with ALL coding books, is not quite the same as the written examples, but hey! the point is that YOU write the code,not cut and paste.And yes he does point to others websites as examples of how they can be improved with DECENT code,bloody right, there's far too many people still writing sloppy xhtml and css,with sites that belong in the dark ages.Get with it! and get some standards.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Prof K
    5.0 out of 5 stars Something for Everyone
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 December 2005
    Another fine book from Dan Cederholm. This time around he divvies a typical web page down to its components - text, navigation, boxes and rows and the layout itself and explains and demonstrates the most bulletproof way of implementing them in a standards-compliant way.
    In each chapter he'll pluck a real-world example to deconstruct, tell you why it's not bulletproof and offer a rebuild in a very easy to follow manner using XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets. He'll then explain why his solution is bulletproof.
    There's something here for everyone, I consider myself pretty knowledgeable on the CSS front but I've said "Ohhhh, that's neat" a few times already (I'm hopping around the book). Which is another point, it's very accessible in that respect - no reading chapters 1 to 4 before tackling the issues presented in chapter 5 (hypothetical use of numbers).
    Beginner or expert alike, I think you'll like this book a lot.
    29 people found this helpful
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  • James Mackay
    5.0 out of 5 stars Superb easy to read book!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 February 2007
    I used this book in conjuction with my course at University and it really helped me.

    This is an easy-to-read book which, unlike most computing/website design book is incredily dry, nor does it have a soporific effect on the reader! Quite a change from most.

    I would highly recommend this book to anyone. It is supberb, and has a flexiably structure that allows you to jump from place to place in the book, if you feel a paticular chapter is of interest to you.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • Mr. Conor Oneill
    5.0 out of 5 stars The design bible for Web 2.0
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 July 2007
    I bought this along with Dan's other book, "Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook" last year. It has been a constant companion since and really gave me a strong understanding of how to use CSS in some incredibly intelligent ways and avoid all the horrors of tables for layout. His approaches for fluid designs are particularly smart and I loved working through the examples and using the examples myself. A must-own book if you have any interest in web-design.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Thomas
    5.0 out of 5 stars Bulletproof Web Design
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 February 2006
    This book will set you on the right path to the way web design should be. It's well thought out easy to follow chapters break down the essentials of XHTML and CSS making it easily understandable and interesting. I read the book cover to cover in one sitting. As someone with little knowledge and understanding of CSS this book has help me enormously and now I look at the code view as much as the design view. Highly recommended.
    11 people found this helpful
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  • Mr. Mark Russell
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Bible
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 October 2005
    This book is an excellent review of techniques and how to bullet proof your ccs website. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.
    7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Nate Klaiber
    5.0 out of 5 stars A must for any web developers library!
    Reviewed in the United States on 1 August 2006
    Verified Purchase
    Bulletproof Web Design does an incredible job of teaching, step-by-step, how to make your website `Bulletproof.' The author introduced the book by defining what it means to have a bulletproof website. He used the example of a police officer wearing a bulletproof vest. No, it is not 100% protection against a bullet - but it decreases the chances and is extra protection. When applied to a website, this means that your website can handle the `bullets' being thrown at it. These are things like text resizing, use of assistive devices, no CSS, no images, and a few other examples.

    The thing I liked most about this book is that it wasn't preaching web standards - It was simply walking you through each chapter - with each chapter building on the last - and showing you techniques that WORK. The book itself does an incredible job of keeping your attention through the use of images, highlighting, and full code listing. For those who can't quite grasp CSS (especially positioning and the like), this book is extremely helpful through its thorough explanations and visuals. Screenshots are provided each step of the way to let you see your progress.

    Each chapter introduces you to new ways of handling things like text display, link display, navigation, list elements, layouts, floating, positioning, and a few others. Each chapter first take an example of a website (or aspect of a website) that is NOT bulletproof, then re-constructs that example with semantic XHTML and CSS to show you the results. The last chapter of the book brings it all together and shows you how it could be used in a production environment, with each piece of the puzzle being put together. The author doesn't dwell on the array of hacks and filters - but simply lists the ones that he uses and how they get the job done (and why they are needed).

    Using proper XHTML and CSS is sometimes misunderstood. This is where many will start with a bad case of classitis and divitis and start going crazy adding extra markup. The author does a great job of creating very lean, structured, semantic XHTML. This is the XHTML that is friendly to browsers and other devices alike, as well as rich in meaning. Using proper elements to get the job done is vitally important to the meaning of the website itself. He focuses on this aspect, and with each chapter discusses the importance of the structure and not adding unnecessary presentational markup to your pages. It is this separation of presentation and content that ultimately makes using proper CSS a wise choice.

    Quite frankly, this is one of the best CSS books I have read - and would recommend it to both the beginner and advanced CSS developer. This review doesn't even do the book justice - mainly because you need to buy it and read it to really enjoy the context as a whole. There are many things I could explain in more detail, and there are many different things that I learned through reading this book (some of which were things that were needed immediately). This is a no-fluff CSS book that brings everything together nicely, and a must have for any web developers bookshelf!
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  • ohmysohopeless
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very practical and offers excellent practices
    Reviewed in the United States on 6 August 2008
    Verified Purchase
    I have been a so-called "table monkey" and have been longing to become a human being. So I picked up this book.

    Throughout the text, the emphasis is placed in creating an XHTML/CSS page that does not break, when the user environment and/or the browser setting are not what the site designer expect or anticipated. At first I was a little skeptical of the author's rather strict adherence to the design that does not break in situations such as, say, a user uses a very large font setting for better readability; such a consideration may be of little importance nowadays, since even Firefox 3 now "zooms" in and out the entire page contents by default, not just text fonts. Furthermore, for many web developers under pressure to produce web sites that just work "well enough" for most reasonable cases, it does seem like the practices that are recommended in this book seem to take a little more care and time than desired.

    However, all the design ideas presented in this book are very well thought out, and it actually does not take much extra effort to implement, once a designer gets used to them. I am in the process of updating my web design skills from what I knew as a table monkey, and I assure that this book offers plenty of enlightenment to those in similar situations as I am. Good thing is that once I learned the techniques presented in the book, I can come up with other effective ways to use CSS to fine tune layouts. Using HTML tables still offer some advantage if you need to support older nonstandard-compliant (Microsoft) browsers, but the flexibility of CSS just cannot be beaten if the site designs require extreme attention to detail.

    The only drawback is that the presentation of the XHTML/CSS codes is slightly too meticulous and verbose for someone who is already very proficient in reading them. It is also not a cheap book for the amount of contents. Highly recommended, especially considering that the good CSS support in most modern browsers has started allow us to transform ourselves from table supermonkeys to CSS subhuman.
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  • Silverbox
    4.0 out of 5 stars Good overview of CSS best practices
    Reviewed in the United States on 4 April 2007
    Verified Purchase
    I like the style of this book. It's got a nice graphic look, and the writing is easy to understand and has a friendly tone. The examples are laid out very well - new code is highlighted with red text, which is very helpful. I really like the approach of gradually adding more elements to CSS, explaining each as you go. And finally, I like the overall structure, which is to explain the "standard" way of doing something, then explain why that's not the best approach, and then to present the "bulletproof" way of doing the same thing.

    However, I'm not sure I buy the author's suggestion that it's imperative to move from old-style HTML markup to a CSS-oriented approach. His main argument is that there is usually less code, and it's easier to read a page using a cell phone, or some other non-browser device. Also, he feels that users should be able to change text size in their browser, and the page should smoothly adjust to that.

    This is all true, of course. Smaller code is easier to read (which is helpful only to the developer), and it does download quicker (although most of the bandwidth consumed is usually graphics and the like, not HTML). Certainly it's a good idea to structure a page so a blind person can read it using a special device. And finally, it's a nice thing to be able to adjust the size of the text on a page.

    On the other hand, there are still many problems with using CSS so it works across all browsers. The book describes many workarounds, but to me, the fact that you need these workarounds really raises the question of whether it's "better" to switch to this new style. It's a question each developer will have to think about.
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  • Just another Music/Outdoor/Technology Lover
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book on CSS
    Reviewed in the United States on 3 January 2007
    Verified Purchase
    This is an excellent book on CSS. The title is a little misleading, as it is really about creating bulletproof web designs using CSS. It does not address any of the myriad of other topics that would make a site bulletproof like security, XHTML, web servers, application servers, etc. etc.

    If you don't know what CSS is yet, then this book is certainly not for you. If you are looking for a basic getting started book on HTML, with a little on CSS I would suggest the VERY excellent Elizabeth Castro book, now in its sixth edition entitled "HTML, XHTML and CSS, sixth Edition" a Quick Start quide, of course available on Amazon.

    Dan Cederholm's book "Bulletproof Web Design's" is a good companion to other more basic books, once you know that you want to use CSS to format web sites, and have a clue how to use it.

    The one problem I have with this book, is that it _only_ provides the CSS. There is absolutely no HTML anywhere, which makes looking at examples a litle tough. The graphic illustrations of the results look great, the examples are useful, well explained and in a logical order.

    This is certainly one of several books to have around when creating a modern web site with HTML and CSS.

    In fact, it can be a good companion for those who both hand-code sites, and use professional tools like Dreamweaver.

    So, as a CSS book, I give it 5 stars, as a general bulletproof web design book, I give it 3 stars, because it really has very little content about the other relevant subjects.. But, I'll be fair and rate this as a CSS book, title notwithstanding, and give it 5 stars.
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  • Scott Park
    5.0 out of 5 stars Breif Review of Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cerderholm
    Reviewed in the United States on 14 May 2006
    Verified Purchase
    Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cerderholm is an excellent example of how any instructional book should be written. It doesn't read like a text book and has refreshing polished look and feel. Fit and finish aside, the book guides by example, and provides a wealth of information for readers of all skill levels. Each section takes a traditional solution and shows several ways to accomplish it, as well as the pros and cons of each. It also stresses standard compliant methods that are compact and supported by all the major browsers.

    The only shortcoming was that it leaves out some of the advanced CSS techniques that remain a mystery to most, such as true vertical alignment, the kind you would find by using a table. Aside from that all I can hope for is a second book that tackles more advanced issues.

    Pros:

    - Very well written and formatted

    - Loaded with real world examples

    - Color illustrations

    - Uses compact and widely supported methods

    - Great for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

    - Excellent for learning semantic markup

    - Downloadable examples from the author's website

    Cons:

    - Leaves out some sought after CSS solutions and advanced techniques
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