HTML Mastery: Semantics, Standards, and Styling

Why settle for average HTML, when you can become a master of it? Markup is the fabric that holds the web together, but most people only scratch the surface of what can be achieved using (X)HTML.

That's where this unique book comes in. It's aimed at web designers and developers who have already mastered the basics of HTML and web design, but want to take their markup further, making it leaner and more semantically rich, for a more efficient, more usable/accessible web site.

HTML Mastery does all that and more, showing all of the HTML tags available, including less commonly used ones, where and how to use them, and clever styling and scripting techniques that you can employ to take advantage of them on your web site. It is totally standards compliant, up to date with modern web design techniques. Forms and tables are looked in particular detail, as there is so much that can be done with them.

In addition, the book also looks at some of the advanced semantic tools that look to further improve the usability and semantic value of your sitesan entire chapter is devoted to Microformats, and a nod is given to XHTML 2.0 and Web Applications 1.0web standards of the future.

Clawing his way from deepest, darkest Somerset, U.K. upon his coming of age, Paul Haine found himself ironically trapped for another six years on the opposite side of the country in deepest, darkest Kent, learning about web standards during the spare weeks between history lectures. Now residing in East Oxford, he spends his days working for an international publishing company, surrounded by a plethora of Apple-branded hardware, Nintendo kitsch and a truly massive collection of grunge and pixel fonts. Paul also runs his personal blog, JoeBlade.com, alongside his design blog, UnfortunatelyPaul.com. He attends to both of these approximately every six months during the gaps between catching up with his blogroll, and refreshing it to begin reading again.