Jen Kramer, Freelance Instructor

Intermediate
HTML & CSS

(formerly HTML Semantics & CSS Selectors)

Learn the semantics of HTML and the mechanics of CSS selectors. The two topics are deeply intertwined, and in this course, they will be taught side-by-side.

Leverage inheritance, specificity, and the cascade to create cleaner, more understandable code.

Logo for the course. Frontend Masters produced this course.

This course is available by subscription to Frontend Masters.

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Chapter Listing

About This Course

Course Objectives:

  • Gain an appreciation of HTML elements, using semantic choices in your markup. Targeted towards more experienced developers, we'll focus on the proper use of elements rather than introducing new ones.
  • Review the basic CSS selectors: type, class, ID, compound, descendant.
  • Review and introduce more complex selectors, including attribute selectors, family combinators, and new and old pseudoclasses and pseudoelements. We'll also explore :where(), :is(), :has(), and :not().
  • Understand (yes, understand!) inheritance, specificity, and the cascade. Begin to understand why you think CSS is broken.
  • Get all the latest CSS for working with inheritance, specificity, and the cascade, including the property all and values inherit, initial, revert, and unset, and learn about @layer and how it fits into the cascade.

Is This Workshop for Me?

This workshop is oriented towards intermediate and advanced developers. You probably hate CSS. You probably don't understand why it works the way it does and think it should die a flaming hot death.

Beginning beginners would do better to work with the Getting Started with CSS course instead, to learn CSS basics. If you've mastered the basics, this is where you may dive deep with CSS to learn its mechanics, not necessarily how to make things pretty.

If you are exploring web development as a career, or if you feel like you didn't get much out of HTML and CSS at your coding bootcamp, this is a great place to start learning CSS from the ground up.

Any Prerequisites?

  • Complete the HTML and CSS portions of the Frontend Masters Bootcamp
  • Understand how files and folders work.
  • Patience, a willingness to ask questions, and an open mind to working with CSS!