36 replies to this topic

[dmcconkey]

Rounded and shadowed box model looks awesome.

[Randy]

True. If CSS3 were out there today we'd probably still be looking at 2 years or more for decent browser support. There is one tiny difference this days from what happened in the past when CSS1 and CSS2 first came out though.

There is a lot more competition in the browser market now than there was then. Back then IE/Microsoft basically wanted to present their own "standards" and force everyone to conform. With the advent and health of other choices these days (Firefox, Safari, etc, etc) --all of which seem to be especially quick to accept standards and have a user population that updates frequently-- the boys and girls at Microsoft have to be a bit more careful.

Which hopefully means they'll accept and apply the standards more quickly.

MS is also pushing updates to everything a lot more these days than they did back then. So it would be fairly simple for them to incorporate CSS3 support into even existing browsers through one of those security updates than it was in the past. If they felt the need to do this of course.

It's definitely not going to happen tomorrow. But the browser landscape is a lot different today than it was even 3 or 4 years ago.

[linux_lover]

*sigh*

I miss the ie3 vs ns4 days... (not)

[Raphael]

Don't even mention that, those days still give me veteran's flashbacks

[dmcconkey]

Come on, Raph. The <layer> tag was so useful, helpful, and friendly. How long has it been since we've had the pleasure of writing one site for NS and another for IE?

-Dan

[linux_lover]

heh, I do that sometimes with css
I use a detection class via php, so its transparent to the user (no hacks).

Point is - you shouldnt have to do that

[dmcconkey]

I used to write two CSS sheets. One for IE, one for all others. Now, I've edited my httpd.conf to parse PHP in .css files. With user agent detection at the top of a .css file, I can then build the rest according to the browser.

Still the same damn hack though. Just like you said. When can we just build a site and let the browsers figure it out?

-Dan

[kpdelvalle]

I was a table fiend in the worst way. Much of the fun of web design for me had been looking at a design and figuring out how to build it with tables.

But because of discussions like the one in this thread and after marveling at the CSS Zen Garden designs I decided to take the plunge into CSS about 2 months ago.

I have not regretted it. I have reduced (not eliminated!) my dependence on tables for layout. The size of some of my web pages was cut in half without the table code (those tr's and td's add up for us fiends, I guess) and, of course, the sites are that much easier to maintain. The way we all use CSS to manage font size across a site, I can use CSS to manage padding and margins. I don't have to go into each page of a 30 page site and change the table code.

Some areas of CSS just make my head spin. I'm still working on those. Do clients care that I can build a beautiful site without using a single font tag or lots of 'decorative' markup? No. But the technical side of me gets a weird sense of satisfaction at knowing someone could now look at my source code and mostly see pure structure: H1, H2, p, ul, ol, strong, etc. (modified by CSS classes and ids of course).

And in a controlled environment like an intranet, where the browser in use is usually regulated, CSS can be seriously cool and efficient.

If nothing else, delving into CSS might give you some extra tricks to use. Now maybe I'm showing my ignorance here but I had all but abandoned using H1, H2, etc. because the "designer" in me didn't like the big space underneath. I didn't know CSS could take care of that! I knew about controlling line spacing, link rollovers, etc. but I guess I had missed that one! So who knows what you'll discover.

[dmcconkey]

Now maybe I'm showing my ignorance here but I had all but abandoned using H1, H2, etc. because the "designer" in me didn't like the big space underneath. I didn't know CSS could take care of that!

CODE

<style type='text/css'>
h1,h2,h3
{
margin-bottom:0;
}
</style>

-Dan

[kpdelvalle]

Yes, I use that regularly now -- it would have more helpful if I'd added the code in my post instead of just the tease, huh? Thanks for sharing!

[dmcconkey]

I'm sorry, kpdelvalle. I had misread your post and thought you were still looking for how to do it. Oh well.

-Dan

[jfj3rd]

Hey I actually hit on a decent topic that got some real good response!

I just took a look at the CSS Zen Garden site and in particular the Peace of Mind example grabbed my attention (Long night).

I found it interesting that when I tried to save one of the images (say of the girl) that it went to 'Save background as'. I tried saving other image elements of that page and found it always giving me the option to save background as.

Thinking that the whole load of images was one, set in a background and CSS was positioning the text, I decided to go ahead and save the background just for kicks and when I went to look at the background guess what I got?... Only one image from the site and definitely NOT the entire background as it appears.

Now this is INTERESTING to me! Each image on the site comes up as a background image!

Time to hit up some resource guides, open a test site for all my CSS travels.

One question I do have... I currently use DreamWeaver to set up my CSS. Is it advised to open up a text document and and write my style sheets? I have a feeling that due to flexibility with a text document vs Dreamweaver that I know the answer but who knows... I've been wrong before.

Thanks again all for the already existing support and I hope for more to come! This has been extremely fascinating to me.

[maleman]

A little table razzle-dazzle. Copy and paste this into notepad and save it as holymoly.html. Then open it with your favorite browser.

Merry Christmas!

CODE

<html>
<head>
<html>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
body { margin: 0;
padding: 0;
h1 { padding: 0 0 16px 0;
}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body>
<table dir="rtl" width="98%" border="1" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0">
 <tr>
   <td width="80%" align="left">
     <h1 dir="ltr">This text cell is at the top of html source.</h1>
     <span dir="ltr">What do you think about this?
     </span>
   </td>
   <td width="20%" align="center">
     <p dir="ltr"><a href="#">Amazing, Huh?</a><br><br><br>This td cell is in the bottom of the source.
     </p>
   </td>
 </tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

Edited by maleman, 07 December 2005 - 02:17 AM.

[chrishirst]

One question I do have... I currently use DreamWeaver to set up my CSS. Is it advised to open up a text document and and write my style sheets? I have a feeling that due to flexibility with a text document vs Dreamweaver that I know the answer but who knows... I've been wrong before.

Up to you really and whatever you feel most comfortable with. For me every bit of of code is done in code view. Depending on which version of DW you use (I have MX 6.0) you may have problems with creating definitions for IDs in the "wizard" as it will whinge that # is not a valid start for a name. right!

[dmcconkey]

Pretty cool, Maleman. I'd never heard of the dir attribute in a table. Is there any sort of down-to-up variation? (Scratching my head to figure out if it's useful or just fun.) Either way, thanks for the new attribute.

-Dan