Ian Lunn - CSS3 Foundations

This edition first published 2013

2013 Ian Lunn

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978-1-118-35654-8

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-118-35654-8 (paperback); ISBN 978-1-118-42516-9 (ebook); 978-1-118-42514-5 (ebook); 978-1-118-42515-2 (ebook)

Printed in the U.S. at Command Web Missouri

About the Author

Ian Lunn (Devon, UK) is a Freelance Front End Developer, passionate about building the future of the web using technologies such as CSS3 and HTML5. With a Higher National Diploma in Internet Technology, Ian combines his education with expertise in CSS, HTML, JavaScript, and WordPress to build creative and effective websites and applications. Ians enthusiasm for utilizing cutting edge technologies is matched by his dedication for advocating them; sharing his knowledge with the community, in the form of blog tutorials and open source projects.

Follow @IanLunn on Twitter (www.twitter.com/IanLunn) where he shares links and ideas about web design and development.

Publishers Acknowledgements

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Introduction

Youre reading CSS3 Foundations at an exciting time. Right now, the way in which the web is styled is undergoing changes, and with the constant advancement of technology, that doesnt look to end any time soon. The web is already a beautiful place, but with more features allowing you to style a page than ever, the possibilities of what can be created are endless.

Who Should Read This Book?

CSS3 Foundations is for those completely new to styling web pages, but also makes as a great reference for those familiar with CSS tooparticularly when you want to remind yourself of the newest CSS features that you may not have committed to memory.

Ideally, you have a basic understanding of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) but its not essential. The HTML that makes up the web page built upon throughout CSS3 Foundations is provided for you and described in Chapter 2. So, whether youve chosen to start learning CSS before HTML, or vice versa, youll be gently eased into both technologies.

If youre a hobbyist, somebody looking to make a career change into the wonderful world of the web industry, an owner of a website that is need of restyling, or a web designer/developer looking to upgrade your skills to the most recent techniques and methods in use today, CSS3 Foundations is for you.

What You Will Learn

CSS3 Foundations aims to get you not just hitting the ground running, but hopping, stepping, and jumping too!

Youll go from the very basics of styling a web page; changing the background color, the size of text, and so on, all the way through to more advanced topics such as animations and media queries, which allow you to change a pages layout for different sizes of device.

Although the easiest topics come first and slowly progress to reach the more advanced chapters, the way in which CSS3 Foundations is laid out represents the workflow I, and many other people in the web industry use to create a website. So, as well as learning CSS, youll also learn a best practice approach that can be applied to real-world projects, to make pages not just great to look at, but easy to update and robust enough to be viewed on a wide range of devices too (such as desktop computer and mobile phone).

Youll also learn methods and techniques not described in the CSS specification (the official technical document that explains CSS), which web designers and developers have relied on for years to make the most of CSS.

How to Use This Book

In Chapter 2, Ill introduce you to a fictitious company that has asked you to create a web pagetheres no pay but the experience is golden! Youll be able to download the necessary project files to get started. This download contains updated project files for each chapter (which are sometimes broken into milestones for the bigger chapters). Ill let you know when a milestone is reached and you can either use the project files to compare to your own work, or switch to that milestones project files in case you didnt follow the steps that came before it.

Depending on your current experience with CSS, you may decide to jump ahead to the chapters that interest you most -- thats fine, the beginning of each chapter will let you know which project files to start with.

Once youve finished reading CSS3 Foundations, itll make a great desktop companion for when you need to remind yourself on how to use a feature or solve a particular problem. Each property description includes useful information for quick reference, such as the propertys initial value, browser compatibility, and so on. If youre unfamiliar with those terms, Ill explain those too!