Contents

PART 1. The Detective’s Apprentice

Chapter 1. Investigating the Scene of the Crime

HTML Document Structure

HTML tag structure

POSH, or Plain Old Semantic HTML

CSS Document Structure

Employing styles in your documents

CSS Foundations

Document tree, hierarchy, and element ancestry

Inheritance

The cascade

Selectors

Styles of writing CSS

Preliminary CSS troubleshooting tips

Chapter 2. Tools of the Trade

Advanced Selectors and Style Declarations

Grouping selectors

Complex relationship selectors

Multiple classes to one element

Style shorthand

Shorthand troubleshooting tips

CSS Reset

Wherefore art thou, reset?

To reset or not to reset, that is the question

As you like it: approaches and recommendations

Building a Solid Foundation

Tailored HTML

Sleek CSS

Standardized style sheets

Intermediate CSS Troubleshooting Tips

Play by the rules

Curb your creativity

More is not always best

Chapter 3. Giving the Third Degree

Validating Your Hunches

“Huh? What are you saying?”

What validating can and cannot do

Errors vs. warnings

Troubleshooting tips for validation

Bait-and-Switch Tactics: Doctype Sniffing and Switching

Anatomy of a DTD

Browser modes

Troubleshooting tips with doctypes

Zeroing In on the Problem

Debugging interrogation techniques

Troubleshooting tips for disabling and zeroing in

Resorting to Drastic Measures

Start with the basics

Process of elimination

Dismantle it completely

Rebuild it from the ground up

The Shakedown: A Debugging Process

Steps to finding the bug

The big fix

An Interrogator’s Work Is Never Done

Chapter 4. The Usual Suspects

Concepts to Remember

Document flow

Positioning

A Broken Box

A boxed set of problems

A complement of solutions

hasLayout (hasIssues)

hasWhat?

I can hasLayout?

A blanket hasLayout application

Flaky Floats

How floats work

Containing floats

“We have a float down!”

Misbehaving Lists

Scratching white space from lists

Margins and Errors

Negative margins

Unwanted space

Disappearing Acts

Peekaboo bug

Guillotine bug

Fonts Gone Wrong

An assortment of sizes

Typography tips

Text size bug

Planning for the Future

A Positive ID

Properties

Techniques

Quick-fix list

Part 2. The Game’s Afoot

Chapter 5. The Case of the Devilish Details

The Crime Scene

Initial snapshots

Follow the Evidence

Identifying suspicious characters

Mug shots

The Evidence Never Lies

Confirming suspicions and naming the culprit

Case Closed!

Chapter 6. The Case of the Mistaken Identity

The Crime Scene

Initial snapshots

Follow the Evidence

Identifying suspects

Mug shots

The Evidence Never Lies

Confirming suspicions and naming the culprit

Case Closed!

Chapter 7. The Case of the Single White Space

The Crime Scene

Initial snapshots

Follow the Evidence

Identifying suspects

Mug shots

The Evidence Never Lies

Confirming suspicions and naming the culprit

Case Closed!

Chapter 8. The Case of the Float

The Crime Scene

Initial snapshots

Follow the Evidence

Identifying suspects

The Evidence Never Lies

Confirming suspicions and naming the culprit

Case Closed!

Chapter 9. The Case of the Browser

The Crime Scene

Initial snapshots

Follow the Evidence

Identifying suspects

Mug shots

The Evidence Never Lies

Confirming suspicions and naming the culprit

Case Closed!

Chapter 10. The Case of the LOL Layout

The Crime Scene

Initial snapshots

Follow the Evidence

Identifying suspects

Mug shots

The Evidence Never Lies

Confirming suspicions and naming the culprit

Case Closed!

Appendix

Index