Product Description

Microformats burst onto the scene a couple of years ago and are fast becoming an essential tool for all professional web designers and developers. Imagine being able to integrate all of your web-based contact details, tagged articles, and geographical information seamlessly in web and desktop applications, without having to add anything extra to your websites except a little specialized HTML markup. Microformats provide a more formalized technology for adding commonly used semantics (such as contact details, location, and reviews) to today's Web. Unlike XML or the semantic Web, microformats use ubiquitous technologies like HTML and XHTML, existing developer skills, and current web tools, and, perhaps most important, they work in all of today's web browsers.This book is a comprehensive guide to microformats. It explores why, in Bill Gates's words, "We need microformats"; how microformats work; and the kinds of problems microformats help solve. the book covers every current microformat, with complete details of the syntax, semantics, and uses of each, along with real-world examples and a comprehensive survey of the tools available for working with them. the book also features case studies detailing how major web content publishers such as yahoo put microformats to work in their web applications. Written by one of the Web's best-known educators, John Allsopp, Microformats: Empowering Your Markup for Web 2.0 will help you painlessly get up to speed with this exciting technology.In this book you'll learnHow to take best advantage of the built-in semantics of XHTML and HTML How to extend the semantics of HTML using microformats and open up a world of new possibilities with web applications Every aspect of all the common microformats currently in useHow microformats help your websites and applications easily integrate with web applications like Google Maps, as well as desktop applications like iCal, outlook, and entourage What innovative publishers and services, big and small, are doing right now with microformats Summary of Contents PART ONE: INTRODUCING MICROFORMATSChapter 1: What Are Microformats?Chapter 2: The State of the Art in MicroformatsPART TWO: USING MICROFORMATSChapter 3: Structural and Semantic HTMLChapter 4: Link-Based Microformats: rel-license, rel-tag rel-nofollow, and VoteLinksChapter 5:Microformat to Describe Relationships Between People: XFN Chapter 6: Location Microformats: geo and adrChapter 7: Contact Information Microformat: hCardChapter 8: Event Microformat: hCalendarChapter 9: Review and Resume Microformats: hReview and hResumeChapter 10: Syndicated Content Microformat: hAtom.PART THREE: CASE STUDIESChapter 11: Case Study: Cork'dChapter 12: Case Study: YahooPART FOUR: DEVELOPING MICROFORMATSChapter 13: The Process of Developing MicroformatsPART FIVE: APPENDIXESAppendix A: Microformat Specification Reference Appendix B: Microformat Design Patterns Appendix C: People, Tools, Services, and Publishers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #290961 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

About the Author
Successful software developer, long standing web development speaker,
writer evangelist and expert, John has spent the last 15 years working with
and developing for the web. As the head developer of the leading cross
platform CSS development tool Style Master, and developer and publisher of
renowned training courses and learning resources on CSS and standards based
development, John is widely recognized as a leader in these fields.

As a presenter and educator, John speaks frequently at conferences around
Australia and the world. His idiosyncratic blog Dog or Higher covers a
broad range of subjects, particularly in technology and innovation, and is
widely read and referenced.

He is also a co-founder of the Web Directions conference series.

John's true claim to fame, and source of some embarrassment is (semi
publicly) coining the term "Web 2.0" some months before O'Reilly. John
apologizes unreservedly for helping to inflict this term on the world.

When not bathed in the glow of various computer screens, John is a
volunteer surf lifesaver at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach, where he lives
with his wife and young daughter, who are the light of his life.

Customer Reviews

The technology that will bring order out of chaos to the internet.
When I started reading this book, I was in two minds as to why the book need to cover CSS. After all I'd seen much of it before in great books like 'HTML Dog' by Patrick Griffiths. But along the way I was surprised to find a few new titbits to add to my repertoire (attribute selectors) and the axis, scope and header attributes of HTML tables.
Then it dawned on my why coverage made so much sense after all. Microformats are one of the cornerstones of the 'semantic web'. The author highlighted some statistical analysis of the way folks have used class names to style their page contents, and certain names like 'header' and 'footer' stood out. These have no 'semantic' meaning, only a positional layout reference. If you construct you page with 'semantic' building blocks, such as a div with a class of 'hCard' and nested elements with appropriate class names for properties (similar to vCard - Outlook contact), you provide not only the infrustructure to style your pages using the powerful CSS descendant selector syntax, and can achieve the same effects, whilst at the same time opening up a host of opportunities for things like Mashups, more intelligent indexing capabilities/dedicated bots capable of extracting data out of your pages into search engines. I believe it won't be long when local search pages will become order of the day and you'll be able to do things like only give results within a 50 mile radius to where I am.
There is a great discussion on Cork'd and the other spin off things that have evolved out of their innovative use of Microformats.
Along the way you'll learn about microformats like geo, adr, hCard, hCalendar (similar to Outlook Calendar), hReview, hResume (think LinkedIn) and hAtom (syndication)
I was also very impressed with 'Operator', Micahel Kaplay's Firefox plugin. Thanks John for sharing this. I'll be demonstrating it to all my tech friends. :). A most enjoyable, thought-provoking and engaging read. I thoroughly recommend this book.