what's the easiest way to learn css?

Check out the “Siblings” questions on the right for some good ideas… well, at least this one: http://fluther.com/disc/3608/how-should-i-start-to-learn-html-css-and-java/

You might check out Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 as well.

The way I learned css was through usage. I would want to do something, then google how to do it. Eventually I learned. I’d suggest w3schools for a good overview of it.

W3Schools is the best. Not so much for their CSS tutorial (which is also excellent) but more for their CSS reference. If you keep that within reach while working on some CSS then you learn most :-)

I really enjoy learning from books. I would suggest getting a good book and working through that.
Eric Meyer is a CSS god and I would start with one of his books.. A list can be found at the link below.

http://meyerweb.com/eric/writing.html

Check out

cssZenGarden.com

The Beauty in CSS Design
A demonstration of what can be accomplished visually through CSS-based design.

The thread bob linked to above is good. But I think this sort of question begs a question in response: How do you learn best? What sorts of new skills have you successfully developed as an adult, and how did you gain them? If I had an idea about that stuff I might have more specific resources/strategies to recommend.

I learned a lot about CSS by modifying existing websites. Firefox has a great Web Developer extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60) that lets you open up an Edit CSS pane. As you change the CSS, the page updates itself real-time. Hit up a blog or something, open up the Edit CSS pane, and start changing things around. You’ll get a good understanding of how things change when you alter attributes. Good luck!

My CSS basic know-how has been gathered much in thanks to a Mac program called CSS Edit, which is a realtime WYSIWYG CSS editor. Meaning, I can change values and the webpage’s CSS pimped elements update instantaneously.

My recommendation is to skip the step of reading up on whatever rules does what, and just test things out with a WYSIWYG editor. Eventually, you’ll learn the basic stuff from there.

But.

For further (or prior?) reading, you should know the basics of how to include CSS into your document. As well as CSS specificity, nesting and traversing, etc. A good place to start out is the sitepoint references on both HTML and CSS.

You may also benefit a lot from buying their respective books, “The Ultimate HTML Reference” and “The Ultimate CSS Reference”.

As a last hint (that has been suggested before in this thread, is to use firebug in Firefox along with sitepoint’s firebug-plugin called firescope which works as a quick search/lookup to their references.)