How did you learn CSS?

6sigma · 2006-01-15 19:24:58

I wrestle with the simplest of positioning problems with CSS.

How did you learn CSS? Do you have advice for someone who wants to learn how to properly “write CSS” and position elements on the screen?

a book or books
strictly by doing; is there a sample problem you’d recommend?
an online site or tutorial
a software tutorial (e.g. StyleMaster or TopStyle?)
by asking questions and getting answers
a tutor
a certain set of tools/software/websites
some other way

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

mrdale · 2006-01-15 22:20:06

Immediate feedback. That means use developer tools for firefox and editing css from the sidebar pane of a live page.

That, and use resources like floatorial at maxdesign and w3schools.

RenJonsin · 2006-01-15 22:24:07

I installed Textpattern onto my site.

Then I was forced to do what MrDale did to use it, Same way I learn everything! lol

MsContrary · 2006-01-16 05:03:22

I started dabbling—just playing around with CSS. Hung out in CSS/HTML newsgroups.

Then took an online course. Yikes, I paid money to do that! It dealt with CSS 2 before most browsers supported much of it. Now that was certainly fun!

Used BBEdit.

Read the Textpattern forum regularly and follow suggested links that sound interesting.

It sure helps to know CSS!

M

brian.zerangue · 2006-01-16 05:15:45

Here’s a few ideas…

Go to htmldog.com and go through there html / css tutorials… they are really easy to pick up and very informative.
After you have a basic feel for CSS… Read Web Standards Solutions and Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm of SimpleBits.com…
then take a look at csszengarden.com and inspect the CSS files.

Last edited by brian.zerangue (2006-01-16 05:18:56)

Hans · 2006-01-16 05:57:20

Looked at CSS Zen Garden stylesheets, pored over w3c schools pages, and got lots of practice with IE5.

Jeremie · 2006-01-16 06:10:05

I started with a few examples, and mostly by looking at websites source code. But that was like 6 or 8 years ago. It’s easy now.

I can recommend a very good book, Cascading Style Sheets – The Definitive Guide (2^nd^ edition) by Eric Meyer. It’s a classical, a CSS bible. Good to start, good as a refence.

Last edited by Jeremie (2006-01-16 06:11:11)

Jeff_K · 2006-01-16 09:44:02

All I know about CSS I learned at <a href=“http://alistapart.com”>A List Apart</a>. Well not really, but they got me started… I also second Jeremie’s suggestion.

Jaro · 2006-01-16 13:17:08

I learned alot from westciv.com and then practice and immediately check what’s the css rule doing.

Last edited by Jaro (2006-01-16 13:17:40)

maniqui · 2006-01-16 23:14:19

I have done my first steps in XHTML and CSS with Russ Weakly and with Ross Shannon.

Great articles:
http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/

Also, he has this great resource, where I have learned a lot:
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/

raveoli · 2006-01-24 13:33:21

Westciv’s tutorial took me from almost complete novice, to the “never ever will I ever more develop a site in the old way” -state.

So go on =)

hakjoon · 2006-01-24 14:41:36

Brainjar’s CSS position Tutorial , A List Apart’s Taming Lists and Eric Meyer’s Containing Floats were the AHA moments for me. They took me from hacking to understanding.

I would also recommend, just building a site using nothing but CSS. That’s what helped me the most. When I started to move from tag soup to standards I decided to re-design my site all via css as a learning experience. No tables allowed. That forced me to re-arrange my thought process to start thinking like CSS, which to me was the main obstacle after almost a decade of table hacking.

Never looked back.

Last edited by hakjoon (2006-01-24 14:42:17)

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#1 2006-01-15 19:24:58

How did you learn CSS?

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