Comments on: What would you want in an “advanced CSS” course?

By: Johan Olsson

Johan Olsson — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:50:22 +0000

Something I would have appreciated are things like:

- When and where different CSS methods are practical, and when they should be avoided.
- Tips about good CSS in a Content Management environment. A lot of CSS tips found on the web are unpractical on big, dynamic sites.
- Good CSS structure for increasing maintainability - making code easy to read, namestandards for class/id etc.

By: Harmen Janssen

Harmen Janssen — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 12:18:28 +0000

I reckon advanced books are allowed to cover the same techniques and/or tackle the same problems as intermediate books would, except they should be cranked up a notch. For instance; creating a 3-column layout, but not only a 3-column layout, but an elastic layout with equal-height columns, with background-images, borders, the whole shebang.
Or vertically aligning something without knowing in advance how high the element will be.
I think by just adding parameters like that, you can turn intermediate stuff into advanced stuff

By: Sean Johnson

Sean Johnson — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:34:12 +0000

I agree that practice is the best method of advancing your CSS skills, however, designers can benefit from some pointers, providing they are ‘real-world’ techniques supported by ‘real-world’ browsers. Books like CSS Mastery are good, taking your basic grasp of CSS and leading you down the ‘advanced’ path rather than books like Pro CSS Techniques talking of advanced CSS capabilities that aren’t supported by IE (despite the hate for it, still the most used browser!)

By: Chris Casciano

Chris Casciano — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:10:03 +0000

Maybe an “intermediate” CSS course would be an easier target? Now, offhand I can’t say I know what you cover under the “basics” umbrella, but I imagine its floated layouts, positioning runes, getting the most out of background images rather then gutting graphics up, and the like? Maybe getting into spites / background image rollovers but not much more complex?

To me the next step from there would be a combination of more complex positioning cases [using resetting origin then using abs. positioning], some of the negative margin based column techniques, using negative margins in general to overlap elements .. and then starting into more interactive concepts and how you’d use CSS as a part of something bigger - start with gratuitous use of :hover and then go using JS to swap classes [vs. setting style directly]. And finish off with some other “goodies” like trying to get transparency working, rounded corners, generated content, etc.