Tip: Crucial CSS Concepts Lecture Notes

Here’s a very sketchy outline of notes on the basic concepts of CSS that need to be understood before getting into the details about applying specific styles to selectors and classes.

  1. The box model. Padding, borders, margins, colors, backgrounds, display and placement can be manipulated for every element: words, paragraphs, images, divs, body, tables. Understanding the box model is essential to understanding what can be accomplished with CSS.
  2. The Cascade. Proximity and importance affect results.
  3. Multiple style sheets. Know when to use linked vs. imported style sheets, as well as how to write style sheets for different media (such as print).

Refer to Eric A Meyer’s Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide for more about all these concepts.