We began with little or no knowledge of style sheets. I hope you feel you have come a long way.
We've learnt
We've seen how to build rules, the essence of style sheets, and how these select elements on web pages, and instruct a browser how to draw any elements that are selected.
We've covered the most important kinds of selector, the HTML element selector, class selector, selectors groups, link selectors and contextual selectors.
We've learnt about the most common types of style properties you can apply using a style sheet, and the syntax for doing so.
We've learnt how to link and embed style sheets, what the difference is, and when to use each.
Along the way, we've also managed to develop a core style sheet for our sites. In future, you need to simply link your new pages to this style sheet, and instantly they will have the same appearance as your other pages.
Now you want to learn more? We'll here is a list of the places you might go, and the things you should learn about.
For a very comprehensive discussion of style sheets, see my Everything you Ever Wanted to Know About Style at
http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/tutorials.html
It includes a detailed description of every property, the values they can take, and all the other fiddly bits you need to know.
Web Monkey, Wired's web development department has a number of hands-on tutorials at
http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/stylesheets/
The specifications for Cascading Style Sheets 1 and Positioning are available from the World Wide Web Consortium at
Western Civilisation has a version of the specification that includes links to our guide, and to our browser compatability chart. Makes sense of a sometimes daunting document.
http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/the_specification
Project Cool has a hypertext overview of the specification at
http://www.projectcool.com/developer/cssref/index.html
Western Civilisation, the developers of Style Master, have a thorough, and annotated guide to browser compatibility. It explains what is supported, what isn't, and most importantly, what the pitfalls are for every aspect of style sheets.
Project Cool also has a property by property overview of what works in which browsers at
http://www.projectcool.com/developer/reference/css_style.html
The definitive reference to what works, when and how is
http://www.webreview.com/guides/style/mastergrid.html from Eric Meyer and Web Review.
Take a look at Download.com
and
Tucows http://www.tucows.com
for the latest versions of various style sheet editors. A search for "Style Sheets" will turn up anything and everything available.
Once you've got your style sheet working, check it with the Web Design Group's CSSCheck at
http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/csscheck/
c|net's Builder.com site has a section devoted to CSS, which can be found at
http://builder.cnet.com/Authoring/CSS/index.html
http://css.nu/pointers/ is as good a set of pointers to quality CSS resources on the web as you will find.
Web Review has a section which concentrates on style sheets. Includes articles, tutorials and reference material. See
http://webreview.com/wr/pub/Style_Sheets
The newsgroup which will almost always solve your problem, is
news://comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets
Try to be specific if you post, and provide URLs and examples whenever possible.
Thanks for taking the time to use these materials. If you have something to say, let me know at johna@westciv.com. And best of all, good luck in mastering style sheets.
John Allsopp
