Most useful CSS related resources?

June 2, 2006 7:02 AM

I'd like to learn more about Cascading Stylesheets, but there are so many resources related to CSS - so I simply do not know where to begin. Sometimes there is too much, sometimes there isn't enough. Therefore I'd like to ask, which resources would you recommend as the most useful and ultimate web-sites related to CSS?

Please don't post hundreds of links, instead please describe, why the resource is useful and why you keep using it every day, while developing web-sites.

posted by volandmast to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

You'll probably find Index Dot CSS more useful once you've found a firm footing. It's not a from-scratch tutorial by any means, but hang onto this link: it's the only CSS reference I've ever needed.

I find myself most using the complete property index, sorted by type (background, font, margin) and alphabetically (from accelerator to zoom), and the invaluable reference table for selectors. The browser-compatibility data is a bit out of date, but the rest is golden.

(I've been writing HTML for ten years and I still look things up at Index Dot HTML once a week.)
posted by Zozo at 7:12 AM on June 2, 2006

Here's a downloadable course from Westciv which web geeks love in ways most unwholesome.
posted by gsh at 7:31 AM on June 2, 2006

I use the w3schools quick ref all the time to look up the exact format of a rule.

Other than that, I've never "learnt" CSS (beyond the "eureka" moment I got from this); I just kept reading essays, and stirring more and more CSS into the mix until I was mostly producing semantic XHTML.

Keep an eye on the css/html/web/javascript tags at del.icio.us. If it's worth reading, it will bubble up to the top there at some point, though of course popular doesn't always equal good (I'm still pissed at the guy a few months back who wrote an article on using definition lists for FAQs, and styling the <dd> display:none by default).
posted by Leon at 7:51 AM on June 2, 2006

Find a website that uses css craftily and study the code. Manipulate it. Experiment, then reference the internet when you don't understand something. Take it piece by piece.
posted by rinkjustice at 8:07 AM on June 2, 2006

I taught myself with help from Mulder's Stylesheet Tutorial.
posted by synecdoche at 8:33 AM on June 2, 2006

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned CSS Zen Garden yet. Hundreds of styles applied to a single standard page designed with showing off the capabilities of CSS in mind. Not strictly a tutorial but highly educational nonetheless, with new styles added all the time.
posted by scalefree at 9:28 AM on June 2, 2006

Max Design has good articles on CSS; their Listutorial, Floatutorial, and Selectutorial are good introductions.

SelectORacle translates CSS selectors into English and Spanish.

A List Apart has some good CSS articles by industry experts.

The W3C's CSS Validator is very useful in tracking down CSS problems; there's a browser favorite for one-click CSS validation.

HTML Dog's CSS Beginner's Guide "assumes that you know as much about CSS as you do about the cumulative effects of sea squirt discharge on the brain chemistry of Germanic ammonites. Their intermediate and advanced guides are also pretty good, and they have a nice CSS reference.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:03 AM on June 2, 2006

Max Design has good articles on CSS; their Listutorial, Floatutorial, and Selectutorial are good introductions.

I second the above. Extremely helpful tutorials.
posted by jeremias at 10:22 AM on June 2, 2006

I'll third Max Design. I had basic knowledge of CSS for cosmetics, but not layout - last time I did a redesign, I decided to go whole hog. The Max Design stuff (in particular, the coloured boxes method) perfectly suited my learning style around HTML and CSS, which is usually just taking layouts of sites I like, and then messing around with them to see which element moves what and how they look in different browsers.
posted by Cyrie at 11:33 AM on June 2, 2006

If you'd like to have a book, I'd recommend Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML. I'd say it's damn near impossible to read this book and not understand it the first time through. It goes one step at a time -- learning the concepts and using them rather than spewing reference information.
posted by Mike C. at 8:44 PM on June 2, 2006

The No Crap Primer to CSS along with the CSS Crib Sheet and the CSS guide at HTML Goodies. Once you know what you're trying to do, Holy CSS Zeldman is good too.
posted by IndigoRain at 7:47 AM on June 3, 2006