CSS: The Missing Manual

Tutorial: Selector Sampler

In the rest of this chapter, you'll create a variety of selector types and see how each affects a Web page. This tutorial starts with the basic selector types and then moves on to more advanced styles.

To get started, you need to download the tutorial files located on this book's companion Web site at http://www.sawmac.com/css/. Click the tutorial link and download the files. All of the files are enclosed in a ZIP archive, so you'll need to unzip them first. (Detailed instructions for unzipping the files are on the Web site.) The files for this tutorial are contained inside the folder named chapter_03.

INDIGNANTLY ASKED QUESTION: Keeping It Internal

Hey, what's up with the internal style sheet in this tutorial? Chapter 2 recommends using external style sheets for a bunch of reasons.

Think you're pretty smart, eh? Yes, external style sheets usually make for faster, more efficient Web sites, for all the reasons mentioned in Chapter 2 . However, internal style sheets make your life easier when you're designing a single page at a time, as in this tutorial. You get to work in just one Web page file instead of flipping back and forth between the external style sheet file and the Web page.

Furthermore, you can preview your results without constantly refreshing your browser's cache; flip back to the box in Section 2.5.1 for more on that quirkiness.

Many hotshot Web designers like to begin their designs with an internal style sheet, since it's faster and it avoids ...