Re: [css-d] ADMIN: Browser doesn't load all images?
At 12:01 PM 3/24/2009 -0400, Eric A. Meyer wrote: Still, I've seen many instances of people quoting an entire message and then putting a one-line response at the bottom of it all. This is really no better than doing the same and putting the response at the top. I can totally relate. I currently run a list myself, and have been a list admin on a few other lists in the past, and I've always tried to get people to do exactly the same, too -- some people just don't get it, though! Indeed, I ended up in a heated argument a few months ago with someone who thought that I was being extremely strict in expecting people to trim their messages, etc., and he felt that it was actually advantageous and beneficial to have 5, 6, even 7 or more previous quoted posts just for reference as to what was being talked about. I can't imagine what a daily digest version of a list like *that* would look like! ;) I'm not picking on Donald here, by the way. I'm simply using his observation as a launching point for a public reminder that quoted material should always to be trimmed to the bare minimum needed, and maybe slightly less than that. It's more efficient and more respectful of the other members of the list. Here's a couple of references that I usually give out to people (if/when they don't get it)... - How to Write Effective Mailing List Email http://www.digital-web.com/articles/how_to_write_effective_mailing_list_email/ - A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email http://www.webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php - Quoting style in newsgroup postings http://www.anta.net/misc/nnq/nquote.shtml - Problem Solving: Sending Messages in Plain Text http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/listadmins/plaintext.html ...and last but certainly not least... - Godwin's law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law Thankfully, I haven't seen this latter issue come up here yet (not *on* list, anyway!). ;) With that said, surprisingly there are still some people out there who can read those articles, but still insist that it's much better to waste hundreds of peoples' time with messy, poorly-formatted, poorly-trimmed, difficult to understand, utter waste-of-bandwidth list posts (let alone off-list messages). Ron :/ Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Font sizing
At 10:51 PM 2/17/2009 -0500, Felix Miata wrote: ...have nothing to do with the Golden Section, and to me would look I have to wonder if more than a tiny fraction of professional web designers know that that is. Probably far fewer of the zillion hack designers or the junkware they use to create would. Well, for those here who don't know what the Golden Section is, if it's any consolation I haven't got a clue what people are talking about here on this list half the time either! ;) With the assumption that you know what I'm referring to, though, you subsequent points do bring up a whole other can of worms for me... All rendering engines round nominal font sizes to whole numbers of px, but not all browsers use equivalent rounding methods. IE, the dominant overall representative, truncates every computed px size to a whole number, while some popular other browsers use something resembling the mathematical rounding most of us learned when we graduated from simple fractions to decimals in school. This is actually very frustrating to me (now). For all these many past years, I've had my base font size set at 14px -- this was, for the longest time, the recommended size (in px) for general readability. Since being on this list, I've learned that this recommendation is no longer valid, and percentages (specifically 100% for one's base font) are the recommended way to go instead of px. However, when I was doing my font sizing using px, I could very easily size my text, headings, etc. with specific whole, rounded numbers (9px, 14px, 23px, 37px, etc.) no problem at all, but from what you've pointed out, if I start doing things using the far more vague percentages values, then things will simply not quite look as I might expect/hope from one platform/browser to another. So this is all rather ironic: in order to get things to look right, I have to do them in the wrong way (using px), but in order to do them in the right way (using %), then I'll never be sure that it actually looks right (in fact, I'm virtually guaranteed that things will look wrong for some people). Argh...! Ron :/ Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Font sizing
At 08:03 AM 2/18/2009 -0600, Cheryl D Wise wrote: Where did you get 14px as the recommended size for general readability? I've been creating websites since 1993 and never recall seeing that size mentioned. That's basically when I started, too, and then I was on webdesign-l for many years (indeed, I was on it *before* it even started!), and that's essentially where I got it from. I really wish I had some URLs for you, but I can't seem to find any references in searching my own email archives. I do recall quite distinctly, however, that that figure (14px) was arrived at through various research done by some universities and stuff -- and, at *that* time (when CSS first arrived on the scene), there was also some legitimate reasoning for choosing px over em or %, too. Indeed, this was a BIG thing back at that time, with virtually everyone in the know insisting to go with 14px, and indeed there were various studies that could be pointed to for reference (I just don't know what/where they are any more -- sorry). And so, I took that well-researched, well-heeded advice, and for the next 10 years I did everything in a way that would ultimately prove to be wrong (in the long run -- although who knows where we'll be in another 10 years???). Ron :/ __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Font sizing
At 09:30 AM 2/18/2009 -0500, David Laakso wrote:
What's so difficult about keeping it simple and honoring user default?
body {font: 100%/1.4 sans-serif;}
#primary-content p {/*inherits default*/ }
#secondary-content p {font-size:95%;}
#tertiary-content p {font-size:90%;}
h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {/*set in whatever percent value rocks your boat*/}
Sure! Why not?! But then what's the point in studying typography, and
art, and aesthetics, and what's the point of trying to do anything
with CSS and trying to get things to look good?
The point that I was making -- what my question (and frustration) is
-- is that as Felix pointed out, things can go screwy if/when one is
using more vague specifications like 90% of some user's system
default of 12pt (or whatever) in comparison to another platform
and/or browser. If I specify all my various font sizes in pixels then
everything will *proportionally* all be exactly how I want them to
look, but if I use percentages then that's simply not the case --
that page that Felix created...
http://fm.no-ip.com/auth/Font/font-rounding.html
...shows that issue perfectly.
And hey, maybe these slight differences don't matter to you or
others, but they matter to me. Perhaps I'm just being too picky,
though, I don't know -- maybe I've hung around with type (font)
designers too long, where it matters if that teeny-tiny serif that
one can only see under a microscope is a billionth of a millimeter
off. And as a graphic designer/digital artist, too, when I create a
piece of artwork it can matter a great deal to me if a single pixel
(out of thousands or millions) looks wrong. In that same regard,
when I create a web site (for myself, at least) my desire is not just
to create a repository to dump text/information, but to create a work
of art, where viewing the text on the page (even if it was pure
gibberish, or written in Arabic or Russian characters or something)
is also visually pleasing to the eye. If I wanted to specify, say, my
list items to be 85.4% of my base font size, then if they end up
being 80% instead (because of the issues that Felix points out),
well, to me it just wouldn't look right.
Hence my frustration...
Ron :/
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Re: [css-d] Font sizing
At 04:04 PM 2/18/2009 +0100, Gunlaug Sørtun wrote: We web designers create illusions, but there's no reason for us to live in them. Pixel sized text doesn't guarantee the right size anywhere but on our own screen(s) and in our own browser(s), and that's just something all web designers _have to live with_ whether they like it or not. I understand what you're saying, but specifying font sizes in pixels *does* guarantee that things will look *proportionally* the same, regardless of browser/platform. If I specify my font sizes as: 9px, 14px, 23px, 37px, etc. ...then that's what they'll be, no matter what resolution, browser or platform the user is on, and things will all look *proportionally* exactly how I want them. With that said, however, I do understand all the issues with using px instead of percentages (or em) -- but again, this is just my frustration. One day, when the average screen resolution is well above 300dpi, Well, a 300dpi monitor is certainly another reason to *not* go with px, that's for sure! Ron ;) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Font sizing
At 11:39 AM 2/18/2009 -0500, Felix Miata wrote: maintain realistic expectations That much I already learned, many years ago! Are you really really sure? Not really really, just really... ...maybe. Ron ;) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
[css-d] Superscript issues
Just to change the subject... At 05:12 PM 2/18/2009 +0100, Gunlaug Sørtun wrote: Check out what happens when those sizes meet 'minimum font size' and other barriers across browser-land. So, no, sorry, proportional is not guaranteed, no matter the method. This is, in fact, *exactly* another issue I've been meaning to bring up here. As I mentioned a while ago (in my first CSS Overlords post a while back), I had various problems that I'd been trying to resolve related to line height, etc. Although I had everything looking perfectly fine for myself (just testing in IE and Firefox), these were brought to me when I showed the site to a friend of mine (who's on Mac, using Safari) -- my smaller font sizes weren't smaller, and in particular my superscripts were showing up at virtually regular sizes (but bumped up from the baseline, of course). As it turned out -- as I found out six months later -- the issue wasn't what I was trying (theoretically) to do, but rather that my friend had set his browser to accept only a minimum font size of 14pt, and so anything smaller than that just wasn't, well, smaller. Now, I realize that there's not much I can do if I want some block of text to be smaller, but my question here is what to do about superscripts -- does the fact that people can set a minimum font size mean that we might as well throw superscripts out the window (at least, if we don't want them to end up making a mess of our typography)? In that regard, rest assured that I'm not using superscript all over the place, but I do like to use them in appropriate contexts, for example: - footnotes; - for numbers like 1st, 2nd, 3rd (where the latter half, er, two-thirds is superscripted); - certain words like Ye, Dr, etc. If I put those parts in superscript -- and if a person has a minimum font size (which, of course, is smaller than the typically quite small size of superscripted characters) -- then things start going haywire. Not only do the superscripted look ridiculous (because they're so big), but it also *forces* the line height up for that particular line, regardless of what I've specified as my line height to be (in %). Is there anything that can be done about this -- without just throwing out superscript as an option entirely? Ron :? Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Font sizing
At 08:57 AM 2/18/2009 -0800, Joseph Sims wrote: It sounds like this is something you have been dealing with for a while, Yes and no, in a way: I suppose I've always been concerned about typographic issues and stuff, but it's really only since I joined this list (last summer) and started taking a closer look at the sites I've created in the past that I began to realize how many issues there are, and how much more I have to learn. All my sites still use tables for layout, for example (please don't shoot me!), and I'm simply just not ready yet, just don't know enough yet, to even consider taking the plunge and changing them all to CSS layouts. Indeed, I feel so ignorant about so much of this stuff that it might well be years before I actually do so -- especially considering that I find myself spending months just trying to figure out the simplest little typographic issues. :/ It's often very frustrating working for print design studios needing websites for their clients that think that they can manually rag their blocks of text and have it translate to the web, or elegantly justify text... as HJ control is out the window. Hey, I have a solution: ALL web sites should be created as PDF files! HTML/CSS be damned! With PDF, everything looks *exactly* how you intended, it's zoomable to any factor you want, and prints out perfectly each time, every time. Phew! We can all relax now... Ron ;) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Font-color issue
At 10:02 AM 2/13/2009 -0800, David Hucklesby wrote: I find that these percentages work best cross-browser: 69%, 75%, 82%, 94% ... with a base font-size of 100%. Interesting. As an avid typophile -- and someone who still, admittedly, has a lot to learn about CSS -- I've been trying to follow any and all threads on the subject of fonts/typography over these last months (since I joined the list). Perhaps I missed something, but your comment above makes me wonder about a couple of things... Firstly, from past threads, my understanding is that one shouldn't be going any smaller than 100% -- or at least should try not to -- if only to be in keeping with whatever it is that any particular user has set their own settings at, so wouldn't going as small as 69% (or whatever) be *too* small? Secondly -- and perhaps more importantly -- in recommending those specific percentages, are you saying that things go funny in some browser or platform if those exact percentages aren't used -- like if I used, say, 76% or 85% or something? And what about for percentages higher than 100% (for headings or whatever)? Ron :? Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Font sizing [was: Font-color issue]
At 07:45 PM 2/17/2009 -0600, Brian Funk wrote: The 100% is needed as a base to avoid problems in certain browsers - others can explain this in detail far better than I. With regard to respecting users settings it seems more important to create in a way that the text /can/ be scalable to let them do what they want with it - hopefully without breaking your page design. Some ways of sizing prevent this from being possible - or at least make it difficult or problematic. Well, in that regard, I've been completely re-doing the CSS for my one of my sites (and, in doing so, that will have ultimately have implications across the board for all of my sites), and I've been trying to take the advice that I've gotten here and have set my base font size at 100%, with all my other font sizes done in percentages relative to that (I'm not using em or px anywhere at all, except for in the tiny copyright notice at the bottom of each page). In that regard, the site you pointed out... As an avid typophile the following page may be interesting to you. http://www.webtypography.net/Harmony_and_Counterpoint/Size/3.1.1/ ...brings up exactly what part of my issue is! Firstly, thanks so much for pointing that out -- I'm amazed that I've never come across that site before, and I'll certainly enjoy spending some time there. :) However, it's quite intriguing because Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style -- upon which that site is based -- has largely influenced me (among other sources) with regard to typographic choices. More specifically, his discussion in that book about the Golden Section has had me adopt various font sizes (for headings, etc.) within any particular site by using proportions that fall within that theory/observation of his, and which have made for visually effective and aesthetically pleasing designs. However, the font sizes/proportions/percentages that David mentioned earlier... At 10:02 AM 2/13/2009 -0800, David Hucklesby wrote: I find that these percentages work best cross-browser: 69%, 75%, 82%, 94% ... with a base font-size of 100%. ...have nothing to do with the Golden Section, and to me would look *disproportional* (even if it somehow gets rid of that blur effect that was referred to earlier in the thread) and, well, basically that's why I'm wondering what it is that's going on if/when one uses other, different, in-between percentages. On my system (WinXP) everything looks fine, no matter what browser I'm viewing anything in, and no matter what percentage (or pixel size or whatever else) I'm using for my font sizes. By the way, just to throw another question into the fray, is there anything wrong with using non-whole numbers (like 61.8, etc.) in one's font size percentages? For reference, the closest amounts (to one decimal place) to the percentages that David mentioned that would indeed be perfectly within the Golden Section would be: 61.8%, 76.4%, 85.4% and 94.4%. Those are the sorts of percentages that I'd *like* to use, if I could (without causing problems anywhere/anyhow). Ron :) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] New to List First question.
At 03:11 PM 2/16/2009 -0800, Dan Gayle wrote: IIRC, those stats only come from visitors of the W3Schools website, and thus are highly swayed toward web designers who are using FF and away from IE. I would agree with that. My busiest site (Psymon) gets a couple of thousand unique visitors every day, who come via a whole variety of search queries on all sorts of different subjects, so it's probably more representative of the general population out there than a site geared more specifically toward web designers. I just ran my stats for all of this year so far (Jan/Feb), and the top ten browsers are... 1 Internet Explorer 7.x 33.30% 2 Firefox 26.98% 3 Internet Explorer 6.x 20.52% 4 Safari 6.92% 5 Opera 2.38% 6 Others 1.48% 7 Internet Explorer 5.x 1.33% 8 Internet Explorer 8.x 0.64% 9 Google Desktop 0.64% 10 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;) 0.48% Don't know if/how that might affect any decisions you might want to make, but hope it helps! Ron :) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Continuing IE6 support
At 12:48 AM 1/24/2009 +, Bobby Jack wrote: The problem is those businesses - and they do exist - that enforce IE6 usage with no alternatives available. If we can't convince them, maybe google can: http://www.fiveminuteargument.com/blog/google-save-us That would be a *horrible* idea -- not only for web site designers, but for just the average person doing web searches, too -- at least, it would be if they implemented it as one of their default search options, rather than as solely an advanced search option (waaay down at the bottom of the advanced options). As the article says... We've honed our alt attributes, learnt our doctypes, and migrated all our layout tables to well structured HTML + CSS. But that still leaves a large number of practitioners who have failed to do so. [...] [Google should start] indexing data about how well a site validates, how accessible it is, what markup language (and version) it uses, and any requirements (javascript, flash, etc.) it may have. In other words, a site might rank high in search results simply because it uses the latest doctype, and that everything validates nicely -- but what Google's computers can't see (and I do mean *see*) is how that site has all sorts of glitches, like that big graphic that ended up placed on top of, and obscuring, the text (because of lousy -- but valid! -- CSS), or that nav bar that isn't showing up at all, basically the web site not only looks utterly awful, but the information on the page is virtually useless. And yet, this latter page would get higher rankings than, say, an old table-layout designed page with an older doctype, which looks and works just perfectly fine cross-browser, cross-version, cross-platform, and is chock-full of meticulously researched, useful information. That's not a way for Google to index better -- that's just a way for them to pander to the desires and wishful/hopeful aspirations a special interest group (web designers) at the expense of everyone (including, indeed, those very same web designers themselves). And after it panders to web designers, then the Librarians of America will demand that only web sites that exhibit correct use of grammar (with no spelling mistakes whatsoever) be given higher rankings, because all those not doing so are a detriment to the education and development of our youth. And who will get pandered to next? One might as well also go down to the local library, while we're at it, and picket them until they throw away half of their inventory (at the public's loss and expense) simply because certain books aren't state-of-the-art to have been printed on acid-free paper. Ron ;) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Drop Caps
At 11:14 PM 1/21/2009 +0100, Gunlaug Sørtun wrote: FWIW: the basic layouts on my private site... http://www.gunlaug.no/contents/wd_additions_26.html ...are just overbuilt and overstyled versions of negative margins... http://www.alistapart.com/articles/negativemargins Once you've understood how negative margins work, such layouts are relatively easy to create and work with. A different approach for achieving pretty much the same look/feel and cross-media flexibility can be found here... http://www.gunlaug.no/contents/template-080929.html ...and the HTML/CSS is definitely simpler and should be easier to understand. Haven't tuned it or added full support for older browsers to it yet though, since it's just a proof of concept example. Interesting -- thanks, Georg! Lots to consider... lots to learn... at least I won't be bored for the next couple of years! Ron :) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Drop Caps
Firstly, thanks for your reply, Holly -- and also thanks to Jen, too, for the tip (in a separate message) on the book to look for At 11:59 AM 1/19/2009 -0600, Holly Bergevin wrote: As with most things CSS, you'll need to test the effect you want in the environment it's going to be placed. Oh, and in a variety of browsers as well to see if the results are acceptable to you. Actually, I had already done that before I even posted my question, tested out different variations of the drop cap style that I'd gotten from the wiki site for this list, and also ran my page through Browsershots and tried it out in 40+ browsers -- it seemed to work okay for the most part, except for a couple of browsers where things went a little bit haywire (I forget which browsers, but I think they were less popular ones, so if things go funny for, like, 0.01% of my visitors, well, that's too bad, but I suppose I could live with that). it is doubtful that the author would suggest padding in ex units at this time I seem to recall a fairly recent thread here on that subject -- in fact, I saved a bunch of font-related posts, so I should go through them (again) and see what they had to say about that (again). On a similar note, for all these many years (ever since I first implemented CSS on my sites) I've had my base font size set at 14px, because that was -- apparently -- what tons of research said was the best way to go, at least at *that* time (years ago). From the aforementioned recent thread it would seem not to be the way to go, though, and so now I've been re-thinking how to do up the font sizing on my site. Argh. That's a discussion for a separate thread, though, of course (if there's anything further to discuss, that is). Another page that may give you an example is - http://www.gunlaug.no/contents/wd_additions_04.html Nicely laid out page, Georg (assuming you're reading this)! As an old table layout guy (for the time being, at least), when I look at the source code for pages like yours, though, I find that I'm just utterly mystified, it's hard for me to make head or tail of how you did certain things -- but that'll all come in time, I suppose. :/ The nature of web pages and browsers is not static like print, and there are a variety of variables that can come into play on any given page. If you don't like the look of the padding, take it out, or adjust it until you do like it. That's one of the beautiful parts of CSS That may be what's beautiful about it, but it's also what worries me about it -- that is, whether what I create today (which might seem to work well enough cross-browser/platform) will still work tomorrow, whenever some new browser version (or new browser!) comes out. Good luck, Ron, and keep experimenting. I think that's part of it, too -- I don't want to spend all my time experimenting, I really just want to get things published, over and done with. I wish one didn't have to experiment and test practically everything -- I wish things were developed enough already that there was just simply tried-and-true ways to do certain things, so that one could just do them and not have to worry about them, whether they look/work okay (and will continue to do so for the long haul). Maybe, at middle-age (but sometimes feeling more like a senior!), I'm just getting too old for this. Ah, if only I could have what I know now, but could be a teenager once again... Ron :/ __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Scrollbar styles (etc.) validation
At 11:18 PM 1/19/2009 +0100, bruce.som...@web.de wrote: condiional comments are claptrap of the top order. Can you explain what you mean by that? As suggested here, I tried it out (specifically to implement just those IE scrollbar features) and it seems to work just fine. Ron :? __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] RE; The CSS Overlords
At 09:25 AM 1/19/2009 +1300, Karl Hardisty wrote: At 11:31 AM 1/18/2009 -0500, Larry C. Lyons wrote: CSS pages render about 1/3rd less time than table based layouts snip Ask anyone not on a fast internet connection. Not everyone has the luxury (utility?) of high speed internet connections such as those most of us on this list enjoy. I must have a slow brain connection, because something about the above just hit me: how fast a page renders has nothing to do with the speed of your internet connection, but rather the speed of your computer. You would *download* the files faster or slower depending on your connection, but they only start rendering once they actually reach your computer, of course -- and, hence, it's the speed of your computer that would be the relevant factor. In that regard, I still don't know how important a factor it is for CSS pages to render 1/3 faster than table layouts, even on a slow(er) computer -- it would have to be an extremely, extremely complex page, I would think, for it to be any difference greater than negligible. Ron :) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] RE; The CSS Overlords
At 12:57 PM 1/21/2009 -0800, Kevin Doyle wrote: It's ~both~ how quickly your computer can process the page and how quickly your computer can download the page; however, it's mostly how quickly you can download a page because the processing load of a single web page, no matter how complex, is very, very small. Think of how quickly an HTML page displays when you view it locally versus online. I guess it just depends on how one defines rendering -- to me, that means the process of taking all the parts, performing whatever calculations are needed in order to place them in the correct places (and with whatever effects, etc.), and then putting everything together as a whole. Rendering a graphic in photoshop, or rendering a video file, is basically the same thing, in that sense -- you already have all the parts, it's just putting it together (or applying an effect or whatever) in the correct, specified way -- and thus downloading isn't a part of that process. In fact, this brings me back to my early learning about web design, when we were all taught (as we are still) the importance of specifying image height/width tags and stuff in our code, so that the page (HTML) could *render* itself and display correctly even as the images were still downloading, i.e. two separate processes (downloading and rendering). But that's me, how I define rendering, I suppose -- and I guess if others include downloading in that process... well, there you go. Ron :) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] RE; The CSS Overlords
At 01:32 PM 1/21/2009 -0800, Joseph Sims wrote: I know this whole thing is did to death already... Actually, I agree, believe it or not -- I don't know what else could be said, really, about the whole tables vs. CSS layouts thing. I only popped back in under that subject heading, though, because that afterthought occurred to me regarding CSS making the page render faster, supposedly in relation to one's connection speed, which I disagree (still) is the case. Didn't mean to re-beat the already dead fish/horse. ;) I wonder, Ron, do you use a WYSIWYG editor to make your tables? Or do you get in the code and type in you td tr tags? I've typed in my own code since the beginning, first doing it in plain ol' Notepad (when I first learned web design, back in the early 1990s) and then eventually using Macromedia Homesite -- which, although now outdated (as far as certain wizards and stuff go, which I don't even use anyway), is still what I very happily use virtually exclusively, except for *some* editing of CSS files that I use TopStyle for. Ron :) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] RE; The CSS Overlords
At 04:18 PM 1/21/2009 -0600, Del Wegener wrote: I have had ( and surely others have also had) clients who were so insistent the webpage (as designed by their long-time advertising company) be as static as the printed page that they furnished a JPEG image of the desired page and I was instructed that web page was to consist of that single image. In a case like that, I would recommend that the page at least be in PDF format instead -- at least then it could have text that's selectable, is more accessible for the visually impaired, and for these latter reasons can be indexed by search engines. There is very little to be done when the client insists. That's one of the reasons I don't do this professionally any more. Ron ;) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Scrollbar styles (etc.) validation
At 01:16 PM 1/19/2009 +, Bobby Jack wrote: Which validator are you using? It does sound like a flawed warning - the validator should be intelligent enough to determine that a background image/color will show through (and, thus, 'protect' the color), at least in the trivial case. Actually, yes and no. Someone was kind enough to send me this URL off-list yesterday... http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200610/css_validator_colour_warnings_are_not_errors/ ...which explains what the problem (and the lack of problem) is. Ron :) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Drop Caps
At 08:43 PM 1/18/2009 -0500, Bill Brown wrote:
I'm just leading horses to the Kool-Aid...I can't make 'em drink it.
Okay, apparently I didn't explain my questions well enough, it would seem.
Once again, on this page...
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=DropCaps
...is the following recommended way to do up dropcaps...
p:first-letter {
font: 2.5em/80% serif;
float: left;
padding: 0.2ex 0 0 0.2ex;
margin: 0;
overflow: visible;
}
Now, like I said, I'm not sure if there's a specific reason for that
padding. If I'm confused about that, it's only because so often I've
seen replies (to other problems) go by on this list, where the
solution has been Oh, you just have to add some padding, otherwise
it won't display correctly in such-and-such a browser (or whatever
similar response. I find it strange that the above recommendation has
that padding added, in fact, because to me -- being the nit-picky
typographer that I am -- it looks a bit weird, it pushes the dropcap
just a teensy little bit over. I could see indenting a first line
(for aesthetic reasons), say, 14px or somoething, but to just push it
over a mere 0.2ex makes it look more like an error than anything intentional.
So is that padding there for a reason? If not, then can that whole
line (for the padding) just simply be deleted? On the other hand, if
so, then does it have to be 0.2ex, or can it not be changed to indent
the first line even more -- or, indeed, even have negative indenting
and have the dropcap hanging outside the paragraph, in the margin?
That could be cool, too, actually.
Similarly, the recommendation of...
font: 2.5em/80% serif;
...is given, but I don't know if for some reason those values are the
magic number, arrived at through years of testing and stuff. See,
that web page basically says here's how to do it, but then doesn't
say but you can change the values to whatever you want -- let alone
does it explain what the reasons were for coming up with those values
in the first place (or, for example, why padding is part of the
recommendation).
As usual, pardon my ignorance, but I can only assume that someone
here made that page, so surely someone here knows?
Thanks again, in advance!
Ron :)
Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com
Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org
Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca
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Re: [css-d] The CSS Overlords
At 10:24 PM 1/17/2009 -0800, Dan Gayle wrote: Part of it is a generational gap between younger web designers and older. I never knew that table based designs were ever ok. The books always talk about table based layouts as if the Civil War were still raging, and the victory of the good North (CSS) was almost complete over the evil South (table-based layouts). Hey, we might be old, but we're not *that* old (and we're certainly still quite a way from the grave). ;) But another part of why tables hurt my brain is the lack of semantic structure. I can look at, analyze, and improve the code of a div and CSS based layout any day. Just to play Devil's Advocate... And I can create a site with tables, and -- assuming that I'm happy with my design -- I *don't* have to subsequently look at, analyze and improve on the code, having to come up with all sorts of hacks and fixes to make it work right (and always worrying, still, if I did actually get it right), and constantly worrying about what the next versions of browsers are going to do, all the testing and fixing that I'll have to go through, over and over again, forever re-doing and re-learning everything that I've already done/learning, forever having to fix things that were previously fixed (often with great time, effort and exasperation). On the contrary, the sites that I created 10+ years ago have lived through numerous browsers and browser versions, not once ever breaking in any of them, not once ever needing any change (indeed, the *only* major change that I've had to make on *any* of my older sites was when I first implemented CSS in them). The sites that you're making today with CSS layouts will quite possibly be completely obsolete within 5 years, but the sites that I've made with tables will in all likelihood still be around -- and working/looking perfectly fine -- in 100 years (unless, of course, the CSS Police decide to abolish and impound the entire concept of tables, forever and anon). ;) What is there to guess about this structure? It's easy, it makes sense, and is really easy to modify. div id=header/div ul id=nav/ul div id=content/div div id=sidebar/div div id=footer/div But when I look at the structure of even a simple table based layout, I have to blink my eyes a few times to even guess at what I'm looking at. Seriously? Messy/disastrous coding practices aside (which can apply to CSS layouts just as much as table layouts), but do you mean you can make sense of your code, above, but you can't make sense of this code, below? tr td id=header colspan=3/td /tr tr td id=nav/td td id=content/td td id=sidebar/td /tr tr td id=footer colspan=3/td /tr My code might *look* like there's more work involved in creating it, but what you're not showing in your code is all the countless hacks and fixes that you have to implement behind the scenes -- whereas my code requires *none*, *zero*, and in all likelihood never will. Ron ;) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] The CSS Overlords
At 10:51 AM 1/18/2009 +, Christian Heilmann wrote: Cool, then show the sidebar on the left. Doesn't require a hack with CSS :) What do you mean -- on top of, and obscuring, the nav bar? Don't know what you mean (exactly), but I'm sure I'd have no problem pulling it off with ease (if you can explain what you mean better). Ron :) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] The CSS Overlords
At 08:31 PM 1/18/2009 +0900, Philippe Wittenbergh wrote: Christian means: move that sidebar (right column in your code) to the left of the page, without modifying your html code. That is very easy to do with a (decently) stylesheet. Ah, okay. Well, sure, I see what you mean, and how that would be easier with CSS, but I do have to sit here and wonder... geez, when you folks create a web site, and you've finished/finalized the design, aren't you happy with it? Or do you just continually change the layout, just for the sake of changing the layout (because you can)? This has me thinking that perhaps my perspective comes from the fact that I came to web design after being into desktop publishing -- which, of course, is stagnant (i.e. in the sense that once one has created something, and put it into print, one doesn't have the option of going back and re-doing it, at least not without coming out with a second edition or whatever). On the other hand, perhaps for those of you who began your careers (whether professionally or non-professionally) in web design, the whole medium is just so conducive to change that that is your inclination -- to constantly change things around (and probably confuse any regular visitors!), simply because you can. I don't know. Any time I create a new site, I try to create something that -- in my mind, at least -- is perfect (so-to-speak), which is visually exactly what I'm trying to convey. Now, if that means having a nav bar on the left and a side bar on the right, well, if that's what looks right to me, then I can't see why I would then go and change it, making it visibly imperfect (at least, to anyone with any sort of design sense). Of course, I am using the term perfection loosely -- there isn't any such thing (when it comes to art) -- and it is all subjective, but if I've gotten it right, well, then I've gotten it right. Sure, there is the possibility that I might change my mind down the road and want to change the layout (or whatever), but even if that happens, we're only talking about, what, once every 5, 10 years or something? In the meantime, I can create a site and essentially forget about it -- and when Internet Explorer version 1042 (beta) comes out, and for all the decades in-between, I can rest with comfort, reasonably and justifiably assured that my site has worked and looked just fine, all along, I won't have to go off into a panic *each* time that *any* browser comes out with a new version, endlessly testing and revising my code. Hey, don't get me wrong, I really *do* embrace CSS, and really *would* like to learn more and then transform my sites into CSS layouts, because I know that that's exactly what it was meant for -- but, quite frankly, a lot of these responses to this thread are actually having the reverse effect that is intended, and are actually providing me with additional reasons that tables do, in fact, work much better (at least, at this point in the development of where CSS is at, and most certainly in the long run, as evidenced by the longevity, and lack of need for revisions, of my own sites). Yea, O Faithful Ones! I want to believe! I want to believe! But, pray, I ask thee: what about the dinosaurs? The CSS scriptures predict that the 8th Coming of the Browser is nigh, at which point all the coding will be washed away and a new world will begin -- but in my philosophy all is well, and there is, and has forever been, Eternity. Ron ;) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
[css-d] Scrollbar styles (etc.) validation
I know this topic has come up here before (because I've searched the list archives), but I couldn't find what any ultimate recommendation is over what to do. I've got the CSS for one of my sites validating with no errors, except for the styling of the scrollbars (for IE only, of course), i.e. scrollbar-track-color, scrollbar-face-color, etc. -- this/these alone are causing the CSS file to not validate. In searching the list archives, it would seem that there's nothing that one can do about that, that using that feature simply will prevent the CSS file from validating. But what's the recommendation, then? If that -- and that alone -- is all that's making the style sheet not validate, then is it really important that it does (validate)? Or is the recommendation to just never, ever use that scrollbar stuff (and, if so... well, what really is the harm)? Also, for a variety of different things (like link colors, etc.) I get a bunch of these warnings (not errors)... You have no background-color set (or background-color is set to transparent) but you have set a color. Make sure that cascading of colors keeps the text reasonably legible. How on earth is that a warning? If I set a background color for my links or whatever else, well, then there goes my background graphic out the window. On the other hands, are warnings like the above safe to just totally ignore completely? Pardon my stupidity (if that, in fact, is the correct observation and answer for all of the above!). Ron %} Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] The CSS Overlords
At 08:55 AM 1/18/2009 -0500, Adam Ducker wrote: So I guess my question is what exactly is it that you're doing that you need a zillion fixes and hacks to make it work? I haven't had to do that kind of development in years. Well, that's what I meant -- *I* don't need all sorts of fixes/hacks in order to do what I want, but since I've been on this list (since last July) that seems to be all I see amongst those who do choose to create layouts (etc.) purely with CSS. I see one post after another go by with one problem or another, and quite often the answer will be that Yeah, IE is funny that way, and you have to do this and this and this and this in order to get it to work (or whatever similar solution might be for the question at hand). And yet, there's often been times when I looked at the person's problem and thought, gee, I could resolve that issue EASILY, if only I *wasn't* trying to do it exclusively with CSS. Don't let this list confuse you. People have innumerable CSS problems because we are all learning and growing in CSS, not because CSS is critically flawed in the ways you have come to believe. Well, perhaps flawed is the wrong word (although I don't believe I used that word, specifically). I guess what I mean, though, is that CSS is still very, very young (it's hardly hit puberty, let alone young adulthood!), and surely, surely everyone here can see and acknowledge that there's still all sorts of things that need to be worked out and really, genuinely standardized. In a way, how all the various browsers seem to be going off on their own, each creating their own standards, reminds me of the competition between HD and BluRay -- sooner or later someone is going to come out on top, and all the other browsers will follow. I mean, geez, if they don't then the need for all these ridiculous hacks and fixes will never, ever end! And that would be stupid, utterly ridulous and ultimately self-defeating, for *all* browser manufacturers and *all* web designers. But that's basically where things are at now -- a world of hacks and fixes. I'd like to think, though, that hopefully within the next decade things will indeed become better in that regard. In the meantime, I can't understand why anyone would take issue with something that *does* work (i.e. table layouts), that works in the long, long, long term, without any problems at all. It is not only possible to develop 100% hack free CSS based web pages, but it is possible to do so quickly and efficiently. The browser wars are over and the good side won. Now 99% of non vision-impaired web users have browsers that are IE 6 or newer (80% are much newer than IE 6) and this means the days of hacking and witching our HTML into cross browser compatible pages are over. Interesting. So the thousands of posts that I've seen go by on this list, all of which require a solution that involves hacking and witching, are just my imagination? I challenge you to throw away the tables. If you have an issue between browsers you can't clear up then bring it to the list and we'll all talk about it. Developing for the web without tables should not be the stressful situation you outline above. If it is then you're doing it wrong. And I challenge you to not condescend, and not tell me how to create my web sites. :) Look, what you're expressing in that last paragraph is *exactly* the sentiment that I was referring to in my first, initial post in this thread: that those out there who advocate CSS layouts can be very intimidating for those of us who continue to use tables, and can leave us feeling extremely apprehensive in posting a question, any question, to the list (for fear that we be admonished for using tables for layout). I don't know about anyone else here, but I think the conclusion that I've come to through this whole thread is that, hey, it's up to you! I absolutely, truly and whole-heartedly applaud all of you out there that are making sincere efforts at designing web pages purely with CSS layouts (etc.), if only because it's because of *YOU* people that things will, indeed get better and better over time. But with things still being as buggy as they are -- and with only hope for the future that things will get better -- until things do get better then I see no reason why people should be condescended to for choosing to stick with tables for layouts, for what's tried-and-true, for what *works*, long-term and quite possibly forever. Hey, if I walk out my door tomorrow and get hit by a bus and die, at least I'll be able to rest in peace, knowing that my web sites will live on after me -- even if the manner in which they're made is archaic, at least they won't completely fall apart and then eventually disappear from the web forever, the next time the next version of browsers hits the airwaves. In the end, I think Andrew said it best, and most succinctly... At 07:11 AM 1/18/2009 -0500, Andrew Badera wrote: One's
Re: [css-d] Scrollbar styles (etc.) validation
At 04:00 PM 1/18/2009 +0100, Gunlaug Sørtun wrote:
If total validity matters and you want to keep the proprietary styles,
Conditionally Commented stylesheets for IE only stuff is an option.
This approach doesn't make the styles valid, but for most hidden is
good enough. Besides: the stuff will not show up in non-IE browsers when
CCs are used, which I personally think is more important.
Hmm... I haven't got a clue what you're talking
about -- never heard of conditionally commented
style sheets before. I'll have to look into that and see what I can learn.
How on earth is that a warning? If I set a background color for my
links or whatever else, well, then there goes my background graphic
out the window.
Background-color is layered behind background-image, so normally setting
a background-color as fallback shouldn't be a problem.
Well, that's odd, because when I got that warning
I did just try giving the offending items (p, a,
etc.) a background color, but what happened was
that entire paragraphs lost the background
graphic behind them and had that color (only) instead. And that's no good.
In my style sheet, for body I have both a
background color and a background graphic, as
well as color (#5a584e) specified. And then for
p (for example) I have this...
p {
font-size: 14px;
color: #5a584e;
margin-top: 11px;
margin-bottom: 11px;
line-height: 138%;
background-color: transparent;
}
...and that's what gives me that warning, the
fact that I'm specifying a color (with that color
being, as you can see, the same color that's also
specified in the body styles), but not
specifying a specific background color.
This seems like such a simple, stupid and basic
thing -- my apologies for not knowing/understanding this.
Ron :/
Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com
Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org
Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca
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Re: [css-d] The CSS Overlords
At 04:53 PM 1/18/2009 +0100, Gunlaug Sørtun wrote: If we all fell back to layout tables and minimal use of CSS, there would be very little incentive for growth. snip Layout tables will stay at 1998 level for a long time - probably for as long as HTML is in regular use. Thus, they're stable enough by now and those who wish can still use them. No progress in doing so though. Oh, I totally agree -- and that's basically what I was saying in my last/previous post in this thread. I absolutely, wholeheartedly do encourage anyone/everyone who does use purely CSS layouts, but... well, take my A Letter to an Imaginary Friend site, which is a literary piece of mine. At *this* point, I just wouldn't trust myself, nor CSS standards, to transform it into a CSS layout, simply because I just don't see any guarantee that it would then last forever (which, only naturally, is important to me). On the other hand, if I keep the table layout, then at least I have some semblance of assurance that it will last a long, long time. But perhaps I digress, and perhaps am becoming repetitive -- and having just been admonished off-list for being totally off-topic (along with various other admonishments), my apologies if this has, indeed, been the case. I am truly grateful for this thread, though. Believe it or not, but it really did help allay some confusion for me. I think I'll keep my table layouts for the time being, if only because I do know that they *work*, and I also just don't feel that I know enough about CSS (yet) to do anything otherwise. I suppose my only wish would be that others see that there's nothing wrong in my choosing to do that (for myself), if that's what works for me -- I mean, it's not like my doing so puts a rope around the rest of you, holding you all back. Ron ;) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] The CSS Overlords
At 09:38 AM 1/18/2009 -0600, m...@winternet.com wrote: I absolutely understand your drive to create the best, most perfect web site the first time around, for the requirements you're working with. But you must work in much more static environments than anything I've ever seen. Don't your clients ever send new requirements your way that require major redesigns, and much sooner than 5 years? That's absolutely amazing to me. Actually, in all honesty, the answer is no. If I've ever had a client want any sort of big change in any site that I've done for them, it's basically only been a complete, total overhaul -- i.e. re-building the entire site from scratch, which a CSS layout probably wouldn't have helped much at all. And even that has only happened, oh, maybe once or twice. With that said, I should probably point out that I'm not really doing web design in a professional way any more. I used to years ago, but my main interest now is for my own sites, plus the occasional volunteer work that I do for non-profit orgs, etc. In that regard, and as I said in my last post, if I'm going to stick with tables for layout (and for the time being), then that's simply what I feel is best and most appropriate for *my* sites -- but I do totally understand if others feel that their needs require CSS layouts, etc. And I guess that was my point: I'm not trying to change anyone here, and get anyone to revert backwards and use tables for layout, but for those of us who do choose to use them, the reasons for doing so are (or can be) perfectly valid, just as valid as choosing to use CSS. It's just a matter of what one's needs/goals are -- but it's not fair for anyone to be condescending (like an off-list message that I just got, admonishing me for my sites, as well as my thoughts here) if I feel that tables are *currently* what works best for me. I rarely post, because I so rarely have any problems in CSS that I'd need to tap the list for help. In the meantime, I can get the benefit of hearing other people's issues and seeing the solutions. Isn't that what this list is for? Oh, I totally agree. I don't always understand the more nitty-gritty technical things that people might be talking about, but even just checking out peoples' sites and seeing what others are doing with CSS has been fascinating, and certainly educational -- indeed, it can be quite inspiring! A few years ago, I undertook to switch all of the websites I was maintaining from the old table-based layouts to pure CSS. It has been so freeing, I could only wish the technology had arrived sooner. But oh well, that's what we all deal with in computer science, right? Well, I'll get there, too, some day. Maybe I'm really just chicken -- you people are scary. Ron ;) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] Scrollbar styles (etc.) validation
At 04:58 PM 1/18/2009 +0100, Gunlaug Sørtun wrote: Hmm... I haven't got a clue what you're talking about -- never heard of conditionally commented style sheets before. http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/conditionalcomments Oh! Thank you! I was going to just go search it out myself (just hadn't gotten around to it yet), but that certainly helps. Thanks! Rest assured I'll let you know if/when I run into any problems... Ron ;) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] RE; The CSS Overlords
At 11:31 AM 1/18/2009 -0500, Larry C. Lyons wrote: one of more important reasons is speed . CSS pages render about 1/3rd less time than table based layouts So instead of rendering in, say, 3 to 6 seconds (which, off the top of my head, seems about average, for any average page on the 'net -- at least on my computer), it'll only take a mere 2 to 4 seconds? Sorry, but I'm not sure how important a reason that is. Ron ;) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] The CSS Overlords (Ron Koster)
At 11:44 AM 1/18/2009 -0500, bj wrote: I suspect you are just complacent and don't wish to make the effort to learn. snip What are you waiting for? Thanks for your comments, BJ -- in response, please see my previous posts. In the meantime, back to this never-ending learning stuff for me (about CSS, about Photoshop, about video editing/DVD production, about typography and font design, about film studies/film history, not to mention updating my web sites, creating new artwork, and maybe even learning a new song on guitar). Ron ;) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] RE; The CSS Overlords
At 02:38 PM 1/18/2009 -0700, Cyber Cog wrote: This thread teeters precariously on the sharp edge of troll bait. (gravity pulling toward trolling) Sorry, folks -- didn't mean to beat a dead fish, er, horse. :/ I do appreciate/have appreciated this thread, though, and it has been genuinely helpful for me (and, from some off-list responses I've received, it seems to have been helpful for some others here, too), and thus I do thank everyone who shared their own thoughts on this subject -- but, as the saying goes, 'nuff said. Ron :) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
[css-d] Drop Caps
One of the issues that I've been having is with drop caps, and in
looking for a solution I found this page...
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=DropCaps
...which recommends this code...
p:first-letter {
font: 2.5em/80% serif;
float: left;
padding: 0.2ex 0 0 0.2ex;
margin: 0;
overflow: visible;
}
It seems to work great (although I have yet to test in different
browsers/platforms) and I'm hoping that will resolve the issue I was
having (which had to do with the line height screwing up), but I
don't know the history behind how this recommendation was arrived at,
and so I'm just wondering if there's a particular reason why...
a) 2.5em/80% is specified (ideally, for my own purposes, I'd like to
change that to 2.6em/38%); and
b) if there's a specific reason for the padding: 0.2ex 0 0 0.2ex;
i.e. is there some reason why those couldn't just be all set to 0,
or, alternatively, why I couldn't indent the first letter (and, in
effect, the first line) a certain number of *px* (not ex)?
Thanks in advance!
Ron :)
Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com
Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org
Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca
__
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Re: [css-d] Drop Caps
At 08:09 PM 1/18/2009 -0500, Bill Brown wrote: 2.5em is the size of the font in relation to the parent element. In your example, the first letter of every paragraph on the page would be 2.5 times the height of the font of the paragraph. 80% is the line-height, which does not require a unit, so I usually write it in decimal form (.8 in this case). b) if there's a specific reason for the padding: 0.2ex 0 0 0.2ex; i.e. is there some reason why those couldn't just be all set to 0, or, alternatively, why I couldn't indent the first letter (and, in effect, the first line) a certain number of *px* (not ex)? Try it: http://www.w3schools.com/css/tryit.asp?filename=trycss_font Oh, I realize that it *works* and that one can change the various values (I've already tried it) but since that specific bunch of styling was recommended, I just don't know what the reasons for that recommendation were -- like, if I change it from what's recommended at that page... http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=DropCaps ...will it break in some browser or other? For one thing, for example, I'm not sure why extra padding is needed (or suggested) on two sides of the drop cap. Ron :? __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
[css-d] The CSS Overlords
At 02:20 PM 1/14/2009 -0500, Bill Brown wrote: Well, tables and CSS are not mutually exclusive. That is, they can be used together, though using them for layout is generally frowned upon by the CSS Overlords. I'm not sure who these Overlords are, but I presume they're the ones referred to when people say that They say... or They think..., without actually specifically naming who it is that they are. ;) I am intrigued by that comment, though -- that is, the sentiment behind it -- if only because it does apply directly to where I'm currently at with regard to web design (including, of course, CSS). I started learning/doing web design back in the early 1990s, around the time when the capability of framed web sites had just been invented, and animated GIFs were all the rage -- CSS was, in fact, still years away at that point. I enthusiastically took part in various discussion lists for quite a few years in an effort to learn more and keep up with the changing technology, but for a variety of reasons I dropped out of them all about 7 years ago, and as a result I guess I'm now quite a bit behind. With that said, however, I do like to think that I'm a pretty good web designer (URLs in my sig, below, if you're curious), but all of my sites are still created using tables for layout. I do use CSS, but mainly for typographic purposes (specifying font sizes, etc.) but only very rarely for positioning things (like images, etc.) around the page. I'm curious: why is this approach frowned upon? Please don't get me wrong, because I do fully understand that the *goal* of CSS is for the purpose of layout, etc., and tables were never really meant for that, but at the same time I can *easily* create a site using tables and have *no* cross-browser/platform problems at all -- on the other hand, I've attempted to create sites with CSS layouts, and have only ended up with a thoroughly buggy site. Perhaps I just don't know CSS well enough to know what I'm doing, but having now been on this list for a few months now (since last July), it seems like practically everyone has innumerable, sometimes insurmountable, problems in attempting to do so -- when quite often many of these problems would simply disappear if a table had been used for layout instead of CSS. I do embrace CSS, and really would like to update my knowledge (and my sites), but at the same time one (anyone) can only acknowledge that all of this CSS stuff is still very, very young -- the simple fact that different browsers interpret so-called standards in different ways is certainly proof of that -- and no doubt anything that I might endeavour to do now (with a zillion fixes and hacks to make it work) will all change, all over again, within the next 5 or 10 years. So if tables *work* (for layout), and work *easily* and *perfectly*, without any bugs/problems at all, even it's technically the wrong use for them, what's so bad about using them anyway? I do look forward with great enthusiasm to the future, once they get their act together and things aren't so incredibly full of bugs, but in the meantime... - Table layouts are supposed to be inelegant, because they're the wrong, inappropriate use for them -- and yet, nevertheless they're extremely simple and easy to manage, and thus they *are*, in fact, extremely elegant, like a beautiful castle made out of stone. - CSS layouts are supposed to be elegant, because that's the purpose (amongst others) that it was designed for -- and yet it seems to be an absolute nightmare of problems and bugs and hacks (as evidenced, as I mentioned, by innumerable posts on this list), and thus they *are* in fact, extremely inelegant, like a house of cards, teetering on collapse. I signed up on this list back in July because I do have some typographic issues that I want to resolve. As a matter of course, and out of respect, I chose to wait a bit before posting my question, if only to get a feel for this list and what kinds of questions/answers came through. I've since read almost every post, and have checked out many of the various URLs that have come up (not only links relating to peoples' problems, but also those in peoples' email sigs), and I must say that I am *deeply* impressed with the efforts of those of you who do create your sites using CSS for layouts (among so many other purposes). It's rather intimidating, though, for a poor old behind-the-times sod like me, and if only because of that apparent perspective of them (the aforementioned invisible Overlords), it has only left me feeling rather shy and timid to post my questions to this list, even half a year later (and still with my problems unresolved). Just some thoughts -- I'm certainly interested, of course, in how others feel about these things. Ron :) PS. Assuming I get the nerve up to post the problems I have, they're all typographically related, but each relate to differing problems I'm having. They all
Re: [css-d] The CSS Overlords
At 08:22 AM 1/17/2009 -0800, Dan Gayle wrote: Ask a person who uses a screen reader to answer why tables shouldn't be used for layout. You'll get your answer soon enough. Pardon my ignorance, but how is it that a CSS layout wouldn't have the same potential issues? Ask a person who has had to modify or alter a website made in tables, Well, I'm one of those persons, and although, sure, if I want to modify the overall structure of a tabled site then I'd probably then have to upload all the HTML files on my site, on the other hand if I'm happy with the structure of my site in the first place (and for the long run), how often would I have to do that? Like, once every five years? Maybe never? to add new features like a new sidebar You mean like adding in a little table? ;) or a pull quote within the middle of a block of text. Well, yes, that's exactly the sort of thing that I *would* do (now/already) using CSS -- but I was specifically referring to the overall main layout/structure of a site. Ask the person using Javascript to add or remove content to their page without it breaking. I'm not sure what you mean, that is, how that relates to my previous post/thoughts. The issues with tables are numerous, but you specifically cite the speed of development. Yes, it might be fast to create the layout. But it adds tremendous amounts of time trying to modify it later. But what if I don't want to modify it? I've changed the *content* (i.e. text, images) on my sites over the years, but I haven't changed the overall *structure* -- that is, the table that holds it all together -- at all. So rather than putting my site together in a way that's not only easier to create in the beginning (and may never have to be changed, because I'm happy with it) and has *no* problems (except, perhaps, for screen readers -- although I confess ignorance about what issues these might have, and how it is that CSS apparently wouldn't have these same issues), you're suggesting that I spend an *extreme* amount of time just getting my site layed out with CSS in the first place, incorporating innumerable hacks and fixes in order to get things to work... only to have to continually update and change those hacks/fixes in forthcoming years as those stupid browser manufactures (et al.) create more (and potentially bigger) problems? I'm not trying to be facetious or anything -- seriously, I genuinely want to understand this. Indeed, I really *would* like to completely transform all my old sites into purely CSS layouts -- but at this point it seems like one has to acquire the equivalent of a PhD in style sheets (like, 10 years of intense education and research) just to do what can already be done, easily and simply and bug-free, with tables. Ron :) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] The CSS Overlords
At 10:26 AM 1/17/2009 -0800, Erika Meyer wrote: Here's a short response: if you have not yet drank the w3c web-standards kool-aid, now's the time. Well, it's been a long, long (and I do mean long) time since I dropped any acid, but if you think that's the way to go... ;) Just do it. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) http://www.w3.org/WAI/ should explain why you should avoid use tables for layout purposes. Actually, the W3C site has been, in fact, one of the deterrents which have kept me from getting up to speed! It's kind-of like... well, say I wanted to learn psychology, and basically was told that the way to do so was to read -- and memorize -- all 900+ pages of the standard Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), only to discover in the end that although it might well be the standard, it's hardly complete, extremely biased, and often entirely incorrect and unworkable in practice. ;) Here's a longer response: I empathize. I too was *very* comfortable using tables for layout. In retrospect, I think this made it harder for me to acclimate to using CSS for positioning. I suppose that's also been one of my problems -- I've had these sites up for years and years now (well over a decade in some cases), which have all worked just fine, no problem, and yet still I'm being told and urged (by them) that I should effectively just throw everything I've done out the window, not only *totally* re-doing them from scratch, but in order to accomplish that I also have *totally* re-learn practically everything I learned in the past. And it's not that my past learning won't still be useful in the future, of course, but even for something as simple as, say, a left-side nav bar, the whole concept of how to do that, all the coding and everything, is completely different. Basically, I'm just starting all the way back at the beginning again -- and what I look forward to learning is WAY more complicated, with WAY more bugs, etc. to take into consideration. :/ Can you imagine, especially a few years ago, what a *pain* to try and learn CSS for positioning? For me, I never knew what I was doing right or wrong, I was just pushing/pulling to make things work. I'm a right-brained person who just wants to make it work, and doesn't fancy keeping a detailed list of what browser support what. On top of that, you're training your brain to stop thinking in a grid and think in the CSS box + visual formatting model. It's very different. And this, too, is one of my difficulties -- designing with CSS seems to be (or, at least, be becoming) more like learning a hard-core programming language than visual design. It's like having to learn advanced physics and algebra just in order to hang a painting on the wall, and I just don't seem to have the brain (left or right) for programming-type stuff. But like everything else, it gets easier the more you do it. There are tricks and techniques to make it all work. There are also a lot of good precoded-layout simple layouts out there that can help with an initial build. That's reassuring, and that last thing is most certainly helpful, but I would still aspire to actually *understanding* what exactly I'm doing, and need to do, and not just copy/paste other peoples' templates. PS: the CSS overlords are teeny-tiny people living in your browser who's job is make your page render. And here, all along, I just thought those were bugs. Ron ;) __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] The CSS Overlords
At 07:57 PM 1/17/2009 +0100, Gunlaug Sørtun wrote: I have no idea who they are either, and finding out is off-topic on this list. We're here because we need or are able to provide help to solve CSS related problems, and advance the use of efficient, CSS based, design solution. Well, I *do* sincerely hope that I haven't been off-topic with my post(s) -- after all, if discussing/resolving problems with CSS is the subject here, I clearly do have a BIG problem with it. ;) If it works for you - and the visitors to the sites you've created, then it's fine with me. Well, in a way that's just it -- I've never had any complaints about the useability of my sites, the only complaints that I get are that I'm still using tables for layout and stuff, and that I should get up to speed with current standards. These complaints (or recommendations) come only from fellow web designers, of course -- the average lay person doesn't generally know any better, one way or the other. In that regard, rest assured that I *do* aspire to completely re-doing all of my web sites with CSS layouts and stuff -- but the longer I'm on this list, the more and more (and more) I discover just how much I still have to learn. :/ In that regard, however, one of my off-list responders indicated that things are slowly but surely becoming better, and that in time (at least), standards will be such that any additional future changes won't be the nightmare that switching from tables to CSS has been (and still is). Is that correct, i.e. that this is where things are headed (hopefully soon!), but that we're not quite there yet? If that's the case, well, then for myself I might as well just back-burner re-doing all of my sites, just leave them essentially as they are (with table layouts) for now, and, in the meantime, I can just continue to develop my knowledge and understanding of CSS, and then by the time I've got a better handle on it all (in a year or two???), then hopefully things will be more stable and stuff. Would that be, in fact, a fair recommendation for me to take, considering where I'm at right now? I'm not really up on what the future plans are for CSS, etc., so I don't know if there would be, in fact, a good reason to just hold off for the moment on making any major changes. If they're all present in one page, you may as well point to all of them in one post. Problems tend to be related. So, unless it runs into several dozen different problems; list them up in one post, one by one in ways so they're easy to spot. We can always split up the list in more manageable chunks once we see what it's all about. Sounds like a plan. Off the top of my head, there's only about three different issues, although I don't *think* they're related. I'll get back to you/the list on that (gotta get together some screenshots to illustrate the problem), but in the meantime thanks very much to you, and to everyone else, who responded (both on-list and off)! __ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
