Preface

When I wrote the first edition of this book in 2011 and 2012, it was by no means certain that responsive web design would become the de facto approach for web design for the foreseeable future. Here we are, 10 years and three further editions later, and its popularity and utility show no sign of abating.

There's a saying that is apt for the authors of technical books, "When one person teaches, two people learn." That's certainly been the case each time I write a new edition. I've learned so much more covering these topics than I imagined I would. In my day-to-day work, I already find myself coming back to certain chapters and sections when trying to refresh my memory on how to do one thing or another that I have subsequently forgotten. I hope these pages prove as resourceful for you!

Thinking back on the contents of the first edition, it's also struck me just how capable the technologies we have at our disposal have become. If you are an old hand at the web development game, feel free to jump right in to some of the newest topics such as CSS color or cascade layers - I'd be shocked if you didn't come away the least bit excited. Many of the things now trivial would have blown my mind a decade ago.

I won't waste any more of your precious time here. Thank you for taking the time to read this book. I hope you enjoy this latest edition and take plenty from it. Please reach out to me via my website at benfrain.com with your thoughts, both good and bad, and any questions that arise. They will naturally inform the content of any future editions.

Finally, while the publishers mention it again in a moment, if you do enjoy it, please consider adding a review on Amazon or your book store of choice. From a commercial point of view, it really does help with sales. From a personal perspective, it's really lovely to read them and know people around the world are making use of something you spent so long working on.

It should go without saying here that if you don't enjoy it, please keep your opinions to yourself!

Who this book is for

Are you a full stack or backend developer who needs to improve their frontend skills? Perhaps you work on the frontend and you need a definitive overview of all modern HTML and CSS has to offer? Maybe you have done a little website building but you need a deep understanding of responsive web designs and how to achieve them? This is the book for you!

All you need to take advantage of this book is a working understanding of HTML and CSS. No JavaScript knowledge is needed.

What this book covers

Section I: The Fundamentals of Responsive Web Design

Chapter 1, The Essentials of Responsive Web Design, is a whistle-stop tour of the key ingredients in coding a responsive web design.

Chapter 2, Writing HTML Markup, covers all the semantic elements of HTML5, text-level semantics, and considerations of accessibility. We also cover how to insert media such as video into our pages and how to use the new dialog element.

Chapter 3, Media Queries and Container Queries, covers everything you need to know about CSS media queries: their capabilities, the syntax, and the various ways you can wield them. There is also an overview of container queries.

Chapter 4, Fluid Layout and Flexbox, covers how to convert designs into proportional layouts and provides a thorough exploration of Flexbox layouts.

Chapter 5, Layout with CSS Grid, is a deep dive into the two-dimensional layout system of CSS grid, with an explainer of how to make use of the new subgrid property.

Section II: Core Skills for Effective Front-End Web Development

Chapter 6, CSS Selectors, Typography, and More, gets us to grips with the endless possibilities of CSS selectors, feature queries, and web typography, including variable fonts, viewport relative units, and a whole lot more.

Chapter 7, CSS Color, covers the latest developments in expressing colors and color manipulation, including Lab/LCH, P3 color, and new color functions like color-contrast and color-mix.

Chapter 8, Stunning Aesthetics with CSS, covers CSS filters, box shadows, linear and radial gradients, multiple backgrounds, and how to target background images to high-resolution devices.

Chapter 9, Responsive Images, covers how to make use of new image formats like AVIF and WebP, and how to make the most relevant version of an image available to the browser.

Chapter 10, SVG, teaches us everything we need to use SVG graphics inside documents and as background images, as well as how to interact with them using JavaScript.

Chapter 11, Transitions, Transformations, and Animations, gets our CSS moving as we explore how to make interactions and animations using CSS.

Chapter 12, Custom Properties and CSS Functions, covers the many benefits of custom properties, then moves on to the utility of new CSS functions like min(), max(), and clamp().

Chapter 13, Forms, shows us how the latest HTML5 and CSS features make interacting with forms easier than ever before. Many HTML input types give you easy access to the relevant software keyboard on mobile devices.

Section III: Latest Platform Features and Parting Advice

Chapter 14, Cutting-Edge CSS Features, covers how to use CSS layers to better organize your code and how to write nested CSS, hopefully coming to your browser in the near future.

Chapter 15, Bonus Techniques and Parting Advice, explores the essential considerations before embarking on a responsive web design and also provides a few last-minute nuggets of wisdom to aid you in your responsive quest.

To get the most out of this book

• You need a text editor such as Sublime Text, Neovim, or VS Code.
• You'll need a modern browser such as Firefox, Edge, Safari, or Chrome.
• You'll need an appreciation of mediocre jokes and obscure references to popular culture.

Download the example code files

The code bundle for the book is hosted at the book's dedicated website at https://rwd.education/, as well as on GitHub at https://github.com/benfrain/rwd4. We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. For example: "We can fix that prior problem easily by adding this snippet in the <head>."

A block of code is set as follows:

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes. For example: "When writing HTML, you will typically be marking up or writing content inside a series of tags or elements."

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Get in touch

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