Preface
In the beginning, the Web was simple. When I first encountered it in
early 1993 (working for O'Reilly's Global Network
Navigator), there was only one browser for viewing web pages, and it
ran exclusively on the Unix platform. There were only about a dozen
tags that did anything interesting. Designing a web page was a
relatively simple task.
It didn't stay simple for long. With the explosion of the Web
came an avalanche of new technologies, proprietary tags, and
acronyms. Even for someone who is immersed in the terminology and
environment on a professional basis, it can be truly overwhelming.
You just can't keep all this stuff in your head anymore.
Since leaving O'Reilly's Cambridge, MA offices for a
freelance career, I never feel more alone than when I get
stuck -- whether it's because I don't know what audio
format to use for a project, or I just can't remember what tag
uses that MARGINWIDTH attribute. And I'm not
ashamed to admit that I've been reduced to tears after battling
a table that mysteriously refused to behave, despite my meticulous
and earnest efforts.
It's at times like these that I wish I could walk down the hall
and get advice from an expert co-worker. Without that luxury at my
home office, I do the best I can with the volumes of web design
information available online (on the Internet, no one knows you have
red, puffy eyes). Unfortunately, finding the answer to a specific
question is a time-consuming and sometimes equally frustrating
process in itself. Deadlines often can't accommodate a two-hour
scavenger hunt.
I wrote Web Design in a Nutshell because it
was the book I needed -- one place to go to find quick answers to
my questions. Apparently, lots of other folks needed it too, as it
went on to be a best-seller and found a permanent home on the desks
of web designers around the globe.
The difficult thing about writing about the Web is that it's a
moving target, constantly changing and evolving. A lot has happened
with the Web since I wrote the first edition in 1998. We've
seen new technologies emerge and others fade away. The raging browser
wars have quieted and the industry is inching towards standards
compliance. Countless software versions have come and gone.
This new edition has been thoroughly reviewed and revamped to reflect
the new web design environment. All HTML chapters have been updated
to reflect the 4.01 specification, and the browser support
information now reflects Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (in beta as of
this writing) and Netscape 6. In keeping with current trends, there
is a new emphasis on creating web pages according to
standards -- using HTML for structure and Cascading Style Sheets
for all style information. Although traditional nonstandard web
tricks are still included for the sake of thoroughness, they are
presented in a more cautionary tone.
In addition to the buff and shine on existing chapters, I've
added a number of new chapters on important topics, including:
printing pages from the Web (Chapter 5, "Printing from the Web"), making
web pages accessible to users with disabilities (Chapter 6, "Accessibility"), Flash and Shockwave (Chapter 26, "Flash and Shockwave"), multimedia presentations with SMIL (Chapter 27, "Introduction to SMIL"), XHTML (Chapter 31, "XHTML"), and
designing for the wireless web with WML (Chapter 32, "WAP and WML"). I'm pleased to say that this edition
is a significant improvement over the last.
0.1. Contents
This book focuses on the front-end aspects of web design: HTML
authoring, graphics production, and media development. It is not a
resource for programming, scripting, or server functions; however,
whenever possible, I have tried to provide enough background
information on these topics to give designers a level of familiarity
with the terminology and technologies. The content in this book is
appropriate for all levels of expertise -- from professionals who
need to look up a particular detail, to beginners who may require
full explanations of new concepts and individual tags.
The book is divided into six parts, each covering a general subject
area.
Part I, "The Web Environment" introduces some broad concepts about
the way the Web works, which should orient designers to the
peculiarities of the medium. It ends with an introduction to the
server and basic Unix concepts.
Chapter 1, "Designing for a Variety of Browsers", looks at how differing browser
capabilities affect design decisions.
Chapter 2, "Designing for a Variety of Displays", discusses varying monitor resolutions
and accessibility issues and their effects on the design process.
Chapter 3, "Web Design Principles for Print Designers", introduces how the Web deals with
color, graphics, and fonts. This is particularly useful for those
accustomed to print; however, it is also essential background
information for any new web designer.
Chapter 4, "A Beginner's Guide to the Server", provides a primer on basic server
functions, system commands, uploading files, and file types.
Chapter 5, "Printing from the Web", shows you how to control the way your
pages look when they're printed.
Chapter 6, "Accessibility", covers ways in which you can make your
pages accessible to users with hearing, sight, cognitive, or motor
skills impairments.
Chapter 7, "Internationalization", addresses key issues for
internationalization, including character sets and new language
features in HTML 4 and CSS2.
Part II, "Authoring" focuses on HTML tags and their use.
Most chapters begin with a listing of available tags with short
descriptions (for easy access), followed by more detailed
explanations and practical advice for their use.
Chapter 8, "HTML Overview", gives a detailed introduction to HTML
syntax, including how to specify color and special characters.
Chapter 9, "Structural HTML Tags", lists the tags used to establish an
HTML document and structure its contents, including settings that
control or pertain to the whole document.
Chapter 10, "Formatting Text", lists all tags related to the
formatting of text elements in an HTML document.
Chapter 11, "Creating Links", lists HTML tags related to linking one
document to another, including imagemaps.
Chapter 12, "Adding Images and Other Page Elements", focuses on the tags used for placing
objects such as images, rules, or multimedia objects on a web page.
Chapter 13, "Tables", provides everything you'd ever
want to know about tables, including a list of table-related HTML
tags, troubleshooting tips, and templates for popular table
structures.
Chapter 14, "Frames", covers the structure and creation of
framed documents, including explanations of frame-related HTML tags,
as well as tips and tricks.
Chapter 15, "Forms", lists all tags related to form creation
and provides an introduction to working with CGI scripts.
Chapter 16, "Specifying Color in HTML", covers the two methods for specifying
colors in web documents: RGB values and color name.
Chapter 17, "Cascading Style Sheets", describes how to use CSS to control
presentation of HTML documents, including detailed explanations of
available selectors, properties, and values. It also introduces CSS
Level 2 features and provides tips for style sheet use.
Chapter 18, "Server Side Includes", provides an overview of Server Side
Includes, including their capabilities and listings of the available
elements and variables.
The chapters in Part III, "Graphics" provide background
information on web graphics file formats as well as overviews of
available tools and practical tips for graphic production and
optimization.
Chapter 19, "GIF Format", describes the popular GIF format and
provides tricks for working with transparency and minimizing file
sizes.
Chapter 20, "JPEG Format", describes the JPEG format and provides
tips on minimizing file sizes.
Chapter 21, "PNG Format", shows you when and how to use this
powerful graphic file format.
Chapter 22, "Designing Graphics with the Web Palette", discusses the tools and techniques used
in creating graphics with colors from the Web Palette.
Chapter 23, "Animated GIFs", looks at the creation and optimization
of those flashing, bouncing, and wiggling animated GIFs.
The chapters in Part IV, "Multimedia and Interactivity" focus on the animation,
audio, and interactive capabilities of the Web.
Chapter 24, "Audio on the Web", provides an overview of tools and file
formats for creating nonstreaming and streaming audio on the Web.
Chapter 25, "Video on the Web", provides an overview of basic
technology and concepts for creating nonstreaming and streaming video
on the Web.
Chapter 26, "Flash and Shockwave", looks at Macromedia's Flash and
Director Shockwave formats.
Chapter 27, "Introduction to SMIL", provides an introduction to how SMIL
works and the elements used to control the timing and display of
multimedia presentations.
Part V, "Advanced Technologies" provides overviews of key technologies
that allow implementation of advanced features in web sites.
Chapter 28, "Introduction to JavaScript", provides a general introduction to
JavaScript as well as a number of templates for creating popular
effects such as event handlers, browser-detection, and status-bar
messages.
Chapter 29, "Introduction to DHTML", provides a basic overview of Dynamic
HTML and related concepts.
Chapter 30, "Introduction to XML", briefly introduces XML (Extensible
Markup Language) and explains why it is significant.
Chapter 31, "XHTML", reviews the differences and
similarities between HTML 4.0 and XHTML.
Chapter 32, "WAP and WML", begins with a brief introduction to WAP
and application development. The second half of the chapter focuses
on WML and how it works, including a summary of the elements and
attributes in the current WML specification.
Part VI, "Appendixes" provides lots of useful look-up tables
for HTML tags and CSS elements.
Appendix A, "HTML Elements", lists all HTML tags as listed in the
HTML 4.0 specification of April 1998. This list also serves as an
index to finding full tag explanations throughout the book.
Appendix B, "List of Attributes", lists all attributes and their
respective tags and values.
Appendix C, "Deprecated Tags", lists all tags that have been
"deprecated" (discouraged from use) by the HTML 4.0
specification.
Appendix D, "Proprietary Tags", lists tags that work only with Netscape
Navigator or Internet Explorer.
Appendix E, "CSS Support Chart", lists all CSS properties and the
browsers that support them.
Appendix F, "Character Entities", lists all characters not found in the
normal alphanumeric character set. The first part of this appendix
presents the standard HTML character entities. The second part
presents newly added entities in the HTML 4.0 specification that are
not as well supported
The Glossary defines many of the terms used in the
book.
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