HTML5 and CSS3: Building Responsive Websites

Table of Contents

HTML5 and CSS3: Building Responsive Websites

HTML5 and CSS3: Building Responsive Websites

Credits

Preface

What this learning path covers

What you need for this learning path

Who this learning path is for

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Module 1

1. Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design in a nutshell

Viewport meta tag

A word on screen size and viewport

Media queries

A look into responsive frameworks

The Responsive.gs framework

A word on CSS box model

CSS3 box sizing

The Bootstrap framework

The Foundation framework

A brief introduction to CSS preprocessors

Have a Go Hero — delve into responsive web design

Pop Quiz — responsive web design main components

Responsive web design inspiration sources

Summary

2. Web Development Tools

Choosing a code editor

Sublime Text Package Control

Time for action – installing Sublime Text Package Control

What just happened?

Have a go hero – install the LESS and Sass syntax-highlighting package

Setting up a local server

Time for action – installing XAMPP

What just happened?

Choosing a CSS preprocessor compiler

Browser for development

Source maps

Mobile emulator

Managing project dependency with Bower

Time for action – installing Node.js

What just happened?

Have a go hero – get yourself familiar with command lines

Time for action – installing Bower

What just happened?

Bower commands

Pop quiz – web development tools and command lines

Summary

3. Constructing a Simple Responsive Blog with Responsive.gs

Responsive.gs components

The classes

Using HTML5 elements for semantic markups

HTML5 search input types

HTML5 placeholder attribute

HTML5 in Internet Explorer

A look into polyfills in the Responsive.gs package

Box sizing polyfills

CSS3 media queries polyfill

Examining the blog's wireframe

Organizing project directories and files

Time for action – creating and organizing project directories and assets

What just happened?

Have a go hero – making the directory structure more organized

Pop quiz – using polyfill

The blog HTML structures

Time for action – constructing the blog

What just happened?

Have a go hero – creating more blog pages

Pop quiz – HTML5 elements

Summary

4. Enhancing the Blog Appearance

Using CSS3

Creating rounded corners with CSS3

Creating drop shadow

CSS3 browser supports and the use of vendor prefix

Customizing to placeholder text styles

Using CSS libraries

Working with Koala

Time for action – integrating project directory into Koala and combining the style sheets

What just happened?

Have a go hero – renaming the output

Pop quiz – website performance rules

Thinking mobile first

Composing the blog styles

Time for action – composing the base style rules

What just happened?

Have a go hero – customizing the link color

Time for action – enhancing the header and the navigation appearance with CSS

What just happened?

Have a go hero – customizing the header

Time for action – enhancing the content section appearance with CSS

What just happened?

Have a go hero – improving the content section

Time for action – enhancing the footer section appearance with CSS

What just happened?

Optimize the blog for desktop

Time for action – composing style rules for desktop

What just happened?

Making Internet Explorer more capable with polyfills

Time for action – patch Internet Explorer with polyfills

What just happened?

Have a go hero – polish the blog for Internet Explorer

Summary

5. Developing a Portfolio Website with Bootstrap

The Bootstrap components

The Bootstrap responsive grid

Bootstrap buttons and forms

Bootstrap Jumbotron

Bootstrap third-party extensions

Jasny Bootstrap off-canvas

Digging into Bootstrap

Using font icons

Examining the portfolio website layout

Project directories, assets, and dependencies

Time for action – organizing project directories, assets, and installing project dependencies with Bower

What just happened?

Have a go hero – specifying Bower custom directory

Pop quiz – test your understanding on Bower commands

Updating Bower components

The portfolio website HTML structure

Time for action – building the website HTML structure

What just happened?

Have a go hero – extending the portfolio website

Pop quiz – Bootstrap button classes

Summary

6. Polishing the Responsive Portfolio Website with LESS

Basic LESS syntax

Variables

Nesting style rules

Mixins

Parametric mixins

Specify a default value in a parametric mixin

Merging mixins with extend syntax

Generating value with mathematical operations

Generating color with mathematical operations and LESS functions

Referential import

Using a variable in an import statement

Using source map for easier style debugging

More on LESS

External style sheet references

Time for action – creating style sheets and organizing external style sheet references

What just happened?

Have a go hero – name and organize the style sheets

Pop quiz – which of the following option is not LESS Import option?

Working with Koala

Time for action – compiling LESS into CSS using Koala

What just happened?

Polishing the portfolio website with LESS

Time for action – composing the website styles with LESS syntax

What just happened?

Have a go hero – being more creative

Pop quiz — using LESS function and extend syntax

Improve and make the website functioning with JavaScript

Time for action – compiling JavaScript with Koala

What just happened?

Summary

7. A Responsive Website for Business with Foundation

Examining the website layout

A look into Foundation

The grid system

The buttons

The navigation and top bar

The pricing tables

Moving around Orbit

How is Orbit constructed?

Adding add-ons, the font Icons

Further on Foundation

Additional required assets

The project directories, assets, and dependencies

Time for action – organizing the project directories, assets, and dependencies

What just happened?

Time for action – building the website's HTML structure

What just happened?

Summary

8. Extending Foundation

Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets

Nesting rules

Storing a value with a variable

Variable interpolation

Reusable code block with mixins

A brief on the Sass mixin library

Creating and using a Sass function

Manipulating color with Sass functions

Useful Foundation's own function

Em and Rem

Have a go hero – diving into Sass

Pop quiz – multiple parameters in Sass function

Pop quiz – Sass color manipulation

Project recap

Style sheet organizations

Time for action – organizing and compiling style sheets

What just happened?

The website's look and feel

Time for action – build on the website

What just happened?

Have a go hero – colors and creativities

Pop quiz – importing an external Sass style sheet

Fine-tuning the website

Time for action – compiling JavaScript and styling the website with media queries

What just happened?

Have a go hero – remove unnecessary Foundation components

Summary

A. Pop Quiz Answers

Chapter 1, Responsive Web Design

Pop quiz – responsive web design main components

Chapter 2, Web Development Tools

Pop quiz – web development tools and command lines

Chapter 3, Constructing a Simple Respons3ive Blog with Responsive.gs

Pop quiz – using polyfill

Pop quiz – HTML5 elements

Chapter 4, Enhancing the Blog Appearance

Pop quiz – website performance rules

Chapter 5, Developing a Portfolio Website with Bootstrap

Pop quiz – test your understanding on Bower commands

Pop quiz – Bootstrap button classes

Chapter 6, Polishing the Responsive Portfolio Website with LESS

Pop quiz – which of the following option is not LESS Import option?

Pop quiz – using LESS function and extend syntax

Chapter 8, Extend Foundation

Pop quiz – multiple parameters in Sass function

Pop quiz – Sass color manipulation

Pop quiz – importing external Sass style sheet

2. Module 2

1. The Essentials of Responsive Web Design

Beginning our quest

Defining responsive web design

Setting browser support levels

A brief note on tooling and text editors

Our first responsive example

Our basic HTML file

Taming images

Enter media queries

Amending the example for a larger screen

The shortcomings of our example

Summary

2. Media Queries – Supporting Differing Viewports

Why media queries are needed for a responsive web design

Basic conditional logic in CSS

Media query syntax

Media queries in link tags

Combining media queries

Media queries with @import

Media queries in CSS

What can media queries test for?

Using media queries to alter a design

Any CSS can be wrapped in a media query

Media queries for HiDPI devices

Considerations for organizing and authoring media queries

Linking to different CSS files with media queries

The practicalities of separating media queries

Nesting media queries 'inline'

Combine media queries or write them where it suits?

The viewport meta tag

Media Queries Level 4

Scripting media feature

Interaction media features

The hover media feature

Environment media features

Summary

3. Fluid Layouts and Responsive Images

Converting a fixed pixel design to a fluid proportional layout

Why do we need Flexbox?

Inline block and whitespace

Floats

Table and table-cell

Introducing Flexbox

The bumpy path to Flexbox

Browser support for Flexbox

Leave prefixing to someone else

Choosing your auto-prefixing solution

Getting Flexy

Perfect vertically centered text

Offset items

Reverse the order of items

How about if we want them laid out vertically instead?

Column reverse

Different Flexbox layouts inside different media queries

Inline-flex

Flexbox alignment properties

The align-items property

The align-self property

Possible alignment values

The justify-content property

The flex property

Simple sticky footer

Changing source order

Wrapping up Flexbox

Responsive images

The intrinsic problem of responsive images

Simple resolution switching with srcset

Advanced switching with srcset and sizes

Did you say the browser 'might' pick one image over another?

Art direction with the picture element

Facilitate new-fangled image formats

Summary

4. HTML5 for Responsive Web Designs

HTML5 markup – understood by all modern browsers

Starting an HTML5 page the right way

The doctype

The HTML tag and lang attribute

Specifying alternate languages

Character encoding

Easy-going HTML5

A sensible approach to HTML5 markup

All hail the mighty tag

New semantic elements in HTML5

The

The

The

The

The

The

The

The

The

The

A note on h1-h6 elements

HTML5 text-level semantics

The element

The element

The element

Obsolete HTML features

Putting HTML5 elements to use

Applying common sense to your element selection

WCAG and WAI-ARIA for more accessible web applications

WCAG

WAI-ARIA

Don't use roles for semantic elements

If you only remember one thing

Taking ARIA further

Embedding media in HTML5

Adding video and audio the HTML5 way

Fallback capability for older browsers

Audio and video tags work almost identically

Responsive HTML5 video and iFrames

A note about 'offline first'

Summary

5. CSS3 – Selectors, Typography, Color Modes, and New Features

No one knows it all

Anatomy of a CSS rule

Quick and useful CSS tricks

CSS multi-column layouts for responsive designs

Fixed columns, variable width

Adding a gap and column divider

Word wrapping

Text ellipsis

Creating horizontal scrolling panels

Facilitating feature forks in CSS

Feature queries

Combining conditionals

Modernizr

Feature detection with Modernizr

New CSS3 selectors and how to use them

CSS3 attribute selectors

CSS3 substring matching attribute selectors

The 'beginning with' substring matching attribute selector

The 'contains an instance of' substring matching attribute selector

The 'ends with' substring matching attribute selector

Gotchas with attribute selection

Attribute selectors allow you to select IDs and classes that start with numbers

CSS3 structural pseudo-classes

The :last-child selector

The nth-child selectors

Understanding what nth rules do

Breaking down the math

nth-based selection in responsive web designs

The negation (:not) selector

The empty (:empty) selector

Do something with the :first-line regardless of viewport

CSS custom properties and variables

CSS calc

CSS Level 4 selectors

The :has pseudo class

Responsive viewport-percentage lengths (vmax, vmin, vh, vw)

Web typography

The @font-face CSS rule

Implementing web fonts with @font-face

A note about custom @font-face typography and responsive designs

New CSS3 color formats and alpha transparency

RGB color

HSL color

Alpha channels

Color manipulation with CSS Color Module Level 4

Summary

6. Stunning Aesthetics with CSS3

Text shadows with CSS3

Omitting the blur value when not needed

Multiple text shadows

Box shadows

An inset shadow

Multiple shadows

Understanding spread

Background gradients

The linear-gradient notation

Specifying gradient direction

Color stops

Adding fallback for older browsers

Radial background gradients

Breakdown of the radial-gradient syntax

Handy 'extent' keywords for responsive sizing

Repeating gradients

Background gradient patterns

Multiple background images

Background size

Background position

Background shorthand

High-resolution background images

CSS filters

Available CSS filters

Combining CSS filters

A warning on CSS performance

A note on CSS masks and clipping

Summary

7. Using SVGs for Resolution Independence

A brief history of SVG

The graphic that is a document

The root SVG element

Namespace

The title and desc tags

The defs tag

The g element

SVG shapes

SVG paths

Creating SVGs with popular image editing packages and services

Save time with SVG icon services

Inserting SVGs into your web pages

Using an img tag

Using an object tag

Insert an SVG as a background image

A brief aside on data URIs

Generating image sprites

Inserting an SVG inline

Re-using graphical objects from symbols

Inline SVGs allow different colors in different contexts

Make dual-tone icons that inherit the color of their parent

Re-using graphical objects from external sources

What you can do with each SVG insertion method (inline, object, background-image, and img)

Browser schisms

Extra SVG capabilities and oddities

SMIL animation

The end of SMIL

Styling an SVG with an external style sheet

Styling an SVG with internal styles

SVG properties and values within CSS

Animate an SVG with CSS

Animating SVG with JavaScript

A simple example of animating an SVG with GreenSock

Optimising SVGs

Using SVGs as filters

A note on media queries inside SVGs

Implementation tips

Further resources

Summary

8. Transitions, Transformations, and Animations

What CSS3 transitions are and how we can use them

The properties of a transition

The transition shorthand property

Transition different properties over different periods of time

Understanding timing functions

Fun transitions for responsive websites

CSS3 2D transforms

Scale

Translate

Using translate to center absolutely positioned elements

Rotate

Skew

Matrix

Matrix transformations for cheats and dunces

The transform-origin property

CSS3 3D transformations

The transform3d property

Use transforms with progressive enhancement

Animating with CSS3

The animation-fill-mode property

Summary

9. Conquer Forms with HTML5 and CSS3

HTML5 forms

Understanding the component parts of HTML5 forms

placeholder

Styling the placeholder text

required

autofocus

autocomplete

List and the associated datalist element

HTML5 input types

email

number

min and max ranges

Changing the step increments

url

tel

search

pattern

color

Date and time inputs

date

month

week

time

range

How to polyfill non-supporting browsers

Styling HTML5 forms with CSS3

Indicating required fields

Creating a background fill effect

Summary

10. Approaching a Responsive Web Design

Get designs in the browser as soon as possible

Let the design dictate the breakpoints

View and use the design on real devices

Embracing progressive enhancement

Defining a browser support matrix

Functional parity, not aesthetic parity

Choosing the browsers to support

Tiering the user experience

Practically delivering experience tiers

Linking CSS breakpoints to JavaScript

Avoid CSS frameworks in production

Coding pragmatic solutions

When a link becomes a button

Use the simplest code possible

Hiding, showing, and loading content across viewports

Let CSS do the (visual) heavy lifting

Validators and linting tools

Performance

The next big things

Summary

3. Module 3

1. Responsive Elements and Media

Introduction

Resizing an image using percent width

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

See also

Responsive images using the cookie and JavaScript

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

Making your video respond to your screen width

Getting ready