Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability

Book Description
A great source of form design information for web designers, most important in the new age of web services.

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AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Product Description
Mac users everywhere–even those who know nothing about programming–are discovering the value of the latest version of AppleScript, Apple’s vastly improved scripting language for Mac OS X Tiger. And with this new edition of the top-selling AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, anyone, regardless of your level of experience, can learn to use AppleScript to make your Mac time more efficient and more enjoyable by automating repetitive tasks, customizing applications, and even controlling complex workflows.

Fully revised and updated–and with more and better examples than ever–AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition explores AppleScript 1.10 from the ground up. You will learn how AppleScript works and how to use it in a variety of contexts: in everyday scripts to process automation, in CGI scripts for developing applications in Cocoa, or in combination with other scripting languages like Perl and Ruby.

AppleScript has shipped with every Mac since System 7 in 1991, and its ease of use and English-friendly dialect are highly appealing to most Mac fans. Novices, developers, and everyone in between who wants to know how, where, and why to use AppleScript will find AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition to be the most complete source on the subject available. It’s as perfect for beginners who want to write their first script as it is for experienced users who need a definitive reference close at hand.

AppleScript: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition begins with a relevant and useful AppleScript overview and then gets quickly to the language itself; when you have a good handle on that, you get to see AppleScript in action, and learn how to put it into action for you. An entirely new chapter shows developers how to make your Mac applications scriptable, and how to give them that Mac OS X look and feel with AppleScript Studio. Thorough appendixes deliver additional tools and resources you won’t find anywhere else. Reviewed and approved by Apple, this indispensable guide carries the ADC (Apple Developer Connection) logo.

About the Author
Matt Neuburg has been programming computers since 1968. He majored in Greek at Swarthmore College, and received his PhD from Cornell University in 1981. Hopelessly hooked on computers since migrating to a Macintosh in 1990, he’s written educational and utility freeware, and became an early regular contributor to the online journal TidBITS. In 1995, Matt became an editor for MacTech Magazine. He is also the author of “Frontier: The Definitive Guide” and “REALbasic: The Definitive Guide” for O’Reilly.

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Web Comics for Teens

Product Description
Are you always doodling heroes and villains for your own comic adventures? Have you ever imagined creating your own comic book for others to read? With “Web Comics for Teens”, you can! “Web Comics for Teens” introduces you to the skills, tools, and programs you need to create your own web comics, comics, and cartoons published on the World Wide Web.

The book begins with an introduction to basic pencil and ink drawing techniques to help you hone your illustration skills. You’ll learn how to create memorable characters that come to life and how to develop your own unique drawing style. From there you’ll discover how to compose and lay out a comic strip and get tips to help you create a great story. Once you have the basics of the story down you’ll learn how to incorporate popular comical themes to add wit and humor to your comic. When your story is complete the book will show you how to use Flash software to bring your web comic to life with awesome backgrounds, cool animation, and sound effects. And if you want to take your art to the next level, you’ll get the tips and information you need to host and publish your web comic on the internet where you can share it with others. With “Web Comics for Teens”, you could be the next web comic star!

About the Author
Michael Duggan is a writer and artist currently residing in the forests of the Ozark Mountains. He got started drawing cartoons at age three and sold his first gag strip to a local newspaper when he was still in high school. His work has appeared in multiple publications since. Duggan is the author of two textbooks, The Official Guide to 3D GameStudio and Torque for Teens, both of which he illustrated with his zany characters. He runs the site MDDuggan.com and teaches game design at North Arkansas College. In the personal philosophy of the late Jim Henson, Duggan hopes to leave this world a better place than what it was when he entered it.

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Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates (CSS & XHTML), Third Edition (Charles River Media Internet)
By Clint Eccher

Publisher: Charles River Media
Number Of Pages: 735
Publication Date: 2008-04-02
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 1584505672
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9781584505679

Product Description:

Learning CSS technology and continually improving one鈥檚 design and developer skills is essential for every Web designer. Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates (CSS and XHTML), Third Edition educates beginning-to-intermediate Web designers on crucial design issues through general discussion, case studies, and helpful tips and techniques. Using easy-to-understand language and concepts, the book bridges the knowledge gap from XHTML table-based design to full CSS-based design, helping you master the most current technologies and techniques needed. With over 13 years of experience as a Web designer for Fortune 500 companies, non-profi ts, and small businesses alike, author Clint Eccher has learned numerous tips and techniques of the trade and discloses them here, saving you time and potential aggravation by alerting you to potential pitfalls. Best of all, he shares over 200 of the completely customizable design templates that he has developed over the years on this book鈥檚 companion CD-ROM! The designs included on the CD illustrate the book鈥檚 content and offer you a variety of options鈥擷HTML table-based coded Web sites, e-newsletters, signatures, Photoshop-only designs, and CSS-coded designs. These designs not only offer the reader a variety of designs that can be quickly customized and used, but are great for inspiration as well. This is a complete Web design training course and free library of templates all in one!

Amazon.com Review:

Clint Eccher has designed professional Web sites for seven years and now makes some of his designs available as templates through his own site (A5design.com) and with his new book, Professional Web Design. You get 50 templates (each of which features home and second-level pages) and careful instructions on how to adapt them for your own use. Along the way, Eccher offers sound advice on good Web design practices; a little bit about HTML, cascading style sheets, and JavaScript; a look at JPEGs and GIFs; and some insight into “comping” (sketching) a site design for the client’s approval.

For the most part, however, this book addresses just those aspects of Web design that readers will need to know in order to successfully utilize the templates. These are designed as “mortised” sites; that is, they are built with nested tables and sliced GIF/JPEG combinations, the kind of design made easy with the advent of Adobe’s ImageReady and Macromedia’s Fireworks. Although this is not a how-to about using those applications or about creating such sites from scratch, Eccher does help readers learn how to debug and otherwise adjust the source code in order to successfully implement the designs. In addition to trial versions of the major applications, the CD-ROM also contains the JavaScript Cookbook and HTML/CSS Developer’s Resource Guide, which provide lots of cut-and-paste source code for all kinds of features (games, sounds, pop-up messages) that can be added to a Web page.

One caveat: despite the templates, this book is too detailed for beginners. For those with some experience, and especially for developers who lack design skills and like the A5design style, this book amounts to an intensive Clint Eccher brain-picking seminar. He offers a few tricks that can be applied to any design (like his tips on how to drastically reduce file sizes) and some good general advice (for example, “Do not get attached to the work” because a client may just decide against it). –Angelynn Grant

Summary: Bad designs and templates
Rating: 2

I purchased this book because I thought the templates could be useful. I already have a pile of books on CSS and Web Development, but the templates made this book stick out.

The templates and designs that come with the CD are laughably bad. I can not imagine a single instance where a professional would ever consider using a template from this book.
If you dig really hard through the templates (several hundred) you might find a couple that could be useful. Other than that they are defintely good for a chuckle.

Summary: Not for everyone
Rating: 2

The title is misleading; it is not a professional approach to web page design because it relies on tables for page style. Using tables for design was deprecated by W3C when they developed CSS. A professional, “web standards” page uses CSS for layout and design. Tables are used to make TABLES.

This style of design makes it VERY difficult to change or modify a web page later. This is not something professional designers are willing to accept. Tables are easy to learn and this style of web page design is suitable for someone (with some knowledge of HTML) who wants to make their own site.

It will help you make a good looking site, save you money and get you up and running faster than you could otherwise. But there is a price to pay for that. It will give you grief if you decide to make significant design changes or want to hire someone to change it for you (they will charge you an arm and a leg to do it).

If you might want to design sites for extra money later on, you must make a serious effort to learn CSS. This is not an easy task but has significant rewards.

Over ten years ago, W3C realized that HTML had serious limitations and they developed CSS to solve the problem. CSS divides web page design into two parts. HTML deals with the content (the writing, images and stuff like that). CSS deals with design and style (what the stuff looks like, where it goes on the page, color and things like that).

The two are VERY different and when you use TABLES as a substitute for CSS, you are creating major problems for those who follow in your footsteps (including you). I hope this makes things clear and helps you decide if this book is for you.

One last thing. There are a huge number of resources, free, on the web to help learn CSS web page design. Just do a search for ‘web page css: (design - tutorials - templates). Do a search and learn a little about CSS design to see what you want to do before you decide to buy this. Good luck. Designing web sites is fun, if you have gobs of patience and a very low frustration level.

Summary: Great book
Rating: 5

This book was well written. Even though I have been a graphic web designer for several years, I still have some knowledge that I don’t know. I am happy to read new thoughts and study new technology from this book.

Summary: Pick out the good advice, leave the poor advice alone.
Rating: 3

This book has a handful of useful things to say regarding the use of graphics, planning as well as a plethora of ready-made web site templates. It is also spotted through with handy advice and clear writing as well as good examples and discussion. There is a huge “if” though.

The book has become clearly dated in regards to current web site design practice. This book uses tables for layout and to be honest, xhtml/css is the industry preferred method separating content (provided by html/xhtml) from presentation (CSS). As such, I think those looking for a complete and professional introduction and presentation of current (mid-2007) methodologies would be better served by the following suite of books:

Usability Issues
- Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition by Steve Krug

Clear Presentation and Introduction to XHTML and CSS
- HTML Dog: The Best-Practice Guide to XHTML and CSS by Patrick Griffiths

Advanced CSS Design
- CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll

Different Designs demonstrating what can be achieved using CSS
- The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter) by Dave Shea and Molly E. Holzschlag

While there are other great books about current best practice, these are the ones that I believe best encapsulate what “Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates” tries to do. I think a 3rd edition of this book is needed to truly update it to current practice.

Summary: Not-so-professional Web design
Rating: 2

The title of this book should be “Professional LOOKING Web Design.” The numerous template sites provided look great, and are useful for running by clients and asking “which of these do you like?” However, under the hood, the implementation of these pages is anything but professional, at least not by modern standards of using CSS for layout, and tables only for content that is truly tabular.

Instead, the templates rely heavily on tables, and tables within tables, for dividing up the layout of the pages. This can make it hard to customize them (particularly all the chopped-up graphics), and gives you a headache when trying to figure out which cell-inside-a-cell you’re editing. This is exacerbated by the poor layout of the HTML code, with tag pairs that don’t line up, indents that don’t reflect the document structure, and so on.

CSS is mostly relegated to providing styling for text. On page 42 of the 2nd edition, the author does briefly address the table-v-CSS issue, and concludes that CSS is more difficult than using tables (I’d disagree) and that not all browsers support CSS exactly the same way (true enough for some features, but in general a small amount of tweaking and testing will let your designs work in all major browsers).

There are some useful tips and tricks in this book, and the templates do provide some great *ideas* for design and layout, but not good *implementations*. When you come to designing your own pages, the best approach is throw out the book’s HTML and CSS and start from scratch. Because this book is most likely to be used by beginning developers, it’s unfortunate that it provides so many inadvisable lessons in implementing its templates.

Right now I don’t have a good modern (CSS) design book in my library to recommend - I’ve found that many great resources are available on the Web, such as w3.org and the CSS Zen Garden.

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