Ebook: HTML, CSS, & javascript All-in-One For Dummies

A thorough and helpful reference for aspiring website builders.

Looking to start an exciting new career in front-end web building and design? Or maybe you just want to develop a new skill and create websites for fun. Whatever your reasons, it’s never been easier to start learning how to build websites from scratch than with help from HTML, CSS, & javascript All-in-One For Dummies. This book has the essentials you need to wrap your head around the key ingredients of website design and creation.

You’ll learn to build attractive, useful, and easy-to-navigate websites by combining HTML, CSS, and javascript into fun and practical creations. Using the 6 books compiled within this comprehensive collection, you’ll discover how to make static and dynamic websites, complete with intuitive layouts and cool animations. The book also includes:

Incorporate the latest approaches to HTML, CSS, and javascript, including those involving new markup, page styles, interactivity, and more
Step-by-step instructions for new site creators explaining the very basics of page layouts and animations
Easy-to-follow advice for adjusting page color and background, adding widgets to a site, and getting rid of all the bugs that affect site performance

If you’re new to the world of weaving web pages, you may be asking yourself a very basic — but a very astute — question about HTML, CSS, and javascript: What do they do? The bird’s-eye view is that HTML, CSS, and javascript are the technologies behind what appears when you visit a page on the web. Sure, your trusty web browser shows you the page text and images, but the way in which the text and images are presented to you is a function of the page’s underlying HTML, CSS, and javascript code. These technologies have three separate but interrelated functions:

• Structure: The basic scaffolding of the page, such as the page headings, the text paragraphs, and where the images appear. This is the realm of HTML.
• Style: How the page looks, including the fonts, colors, and margins. This is the bailiwick of CSS.
• Dynamism: Extras that make the page perform actions such as interacting with the user, “listening” for mouse clicks and keypresses, and writing content to the page based on certain conditions. This is the job of javascript.

That’s the big picture. I get into all this in a bit more detail later.

I mention in the Introduction that learning HTML, CSS, and javascript isn’t hard. That’s still true, but I must admit that it doesn’t tell the entire story. Yes, learning these technologies isn’t hard, but it’s certainly not trivial, either. Although you could probably memorize every element of HTML in an afternoon, both CSS and javascript are huge topics that take time to master. And although the basics of HTML, CSS, and javascript have a pleasingly gentle learning curve, after you get past these ABCs you quickly run into quite a few quirks and gotchas that steepen the ascent.
So, it’s reasonable to ask a basic question right up front: Why may you want to go to the trouble to learn HTML, CSS, and javascript? After all, there’s no shortage of templates, web page generators, content management systems, and web designers out there that — with varying degrees of ease, cost, and success — can convert your words and images into honest-to-goodness web pages. Why not take one of these easier paths to putting up a web presence? Good question. And it just may be the case that, if you’re chronically short on time or motivation, one of these let-someone-else-do-most-of-the-work solutions may be the right one for you.

Web development is a fun, interesting, and challenging skill that can lead to a lucrative career (if you’re so inclined). And with the right help, almost anyone can learn to create engaging websites from scratch. So, grab a copy of HTML, CSS, & javascript All-in-One For Dummies and you’ll be designing and building before you know it!