REVIEW OF: Dave Raggett, Jenny Lam, Ian Alexander, and Michael Kmiec. Raggett on HTML 4, 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1998. by Martin R. Kalfatovic (http://www.lita.org/ter/ter-5-9.html)
With so much information on HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) available for the free Web browsing, any guidebook, manual or handbook that costs more than the paper it would take to print out its Web competitor had better be very good. Raggett on HTML 4 meets this criteria.
For the experienced HTML writer, be forewarned: HTML 4.0 is a much different creature than the previous standard version, HTML 3.2. HTML 4.0 introduces a number of new tags, features, and functionality that allow you to use HTML to create screen layouts that approach the look of desktop publishing. Unfortunately, your "old" browsers will be unable to interpret much of what's new in HTML 4.0, and page designers will have to be careful to create pages that degrade for the majority of the world who are not yet (in early 1998) using an HTML 4.0 compliant browser such as Netscape 4.0 or Internet Explorer 4.0.
Dave Raggett, a member of the World Web Consortium (W3C) for HTML, heads up a team of authors (Jenny Lam, Ian Alexander and Michael Kmiec) in this second edition of his work. Though there are occasional slips in the text that indicate that a sentence or paragraph was not updated from the first edition, in total, the book shows extensive revision and updating from the first edition. The authors also include the obligatory introduction to the WWW and a history of HTML and an introduction to Internet conventions for the newly initiated. Raggett and company keep a wry sense of humor throughout. Their various examples are both useful and display--as befitting Raggett's United Kingdom origins--a cool humor and British slant.
The authors start with a simple tutorial that will guide you through the process of creating an HTML document that incorporates elements of HTML 4.0. In logical progression, how to control various parts of the document are handled in turn. Paragraphs, character emphasis, lists, hypertext links, and graphics are each discussed in their own chapters.
About a third of the way through, the authors introduce the concept of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS are a feature of HTML 4.0 that allows the writer to globally control a number of HTML elements. This clear and well-written chapter is a good introduction to CSS. [1]
More complex elements--and their HTML 4.0 enhancements--are discussed in the remainder of the book. Tables, forms, frames, and image maps close out discussion of familiar elements. Client-side scripting in HTML 4.0 is discussed at length as is the object element which allows for the handling of multimedia within WWW documents.
A number of appendixes conclude the book. In addition to the standard appendixes to be expected in a work of this type (e.g., a list of tags, examples of the use of tags, and non-standard character codes), Raggett and company, with tongue firmly in cheek, list tags that didn't make it into HTML 4.0 (e.g., An excellent replacement for all those old, out-of-date HTML guides (e.g., those purchased in the latter half of 1997!). A highly recommended addition to the web-developer's bookshelf and for libraries with cliental interested in web-authoring guides.
Notes:
[1] For a more extensive and thorough coverage of implementing style sheets, see Håkon Wium Lie and Bert Bos. (1997). Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Martin R. Kalfatovic (mkalfato@sil.si.edu) is the Information Access Coordinator for Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C.
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