This is a much more academic book than the jaunty 'HTML For The World Wide Web'. It even has numbered sections aiong the lines of 8.4.2. This should be familiar to students and other users of technical guides and manuals. To lighten things up there are witty cartoons by Fred Volans (A woman named Fred! There was a song about a man named Sue!) within the chapters, and an extensive number of illustrations throughout including two blocks of 'colour plates'as they used to be called. These all show example pages from popular Web sites and the accompanying text explains how they work and how the results were achieved.
Three authors put this book together, the prime mover being Dave Raggett, who is influential in the 'virtual' standards committee which governs what goes in to each version of HTML. As the book's title suggests, this near 400 page tome is primarily about the proposed HTML version 3, but it also covers HTML 2, and many of the extensions put forward by Netscape and Microsoft.
As it has been written by someone on the inside of HTML, you get an insider's view of the language and the world which created it. Therefore HTML 3 should be read perhaps more as a novel-type story than for reference. But it is still a useful guide to what's around now and what is to come in the near future. The Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) and Java are discussed and new commands such as the versatile OBJECT control element are explained.
HTML 3 - Electronic Publishing on the World Wide Web is not for the fainthearted or those who think AUI is already too technical. This book takes several day's reading, and then you will probably have to reread some of the chapters for the details to sink in. Although the preface describes the book as being written for the complete novice, one academic's novice is another rnan's expert.
There are nine appendices and a comprehensive glossary of terms used. Appendix A gives examples of how to use HTML codes while B gives a complete list in alphabetical order of HTML elements. C & D cover special characters and symbols, and H the dingbat icons that are now replacing simple bullets and graphics. URL, country, and language codes are listed in appendices E, F, and G respectively. Appendix I is a short story about co-author lan Alexander's experiences in one of London's lnternet Caffs - Cyberia in Whitfield Street, just off of Tottenham Court Road.
HTML 3 - Electronic Publishing on the World Wide Web is the definitive book for Netheads intent on getting the most out of the language and is therefore a 'must have' publication to share desk-space with the cola cans and empty pizza boxes. AUI