Stylesheets: The Next Generation

So, you've mastered Cascading Style Sheets, right? You've memorized the spec, read up on all the tips and tricks, and even understand the theoretical benefits of separating presentation from structure in your Web pages. Your Web sites are filled with gorgeously rendered text and sport fine control of point size, leading, margins, and backgrounds. You change dozens of pages by editing one simple text file. You've done all that, haven't you? Yeah, me neither.

Veen, Jeffrey. Webmonkey (1997). Design>Web Design>CSS

Stylesheets Tutorial

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a great new technology which is taking the web by storm. The strange thing is, very few people have actually heard of it. You have probably seen Stylesheets in action on many websites. Anywhere you see a text link change color when you move your mouse over it probably uses stylesheets.

Gowans, David. Free Webmaster Help (2001). Design>Web Design>CSS

Styling the Web  

Does your Web site need a new 'do? The 'cascading' look is in.

Fleishman, Glenn. Adobe Magazine (1999). Design>Web Design>CSS

Switchy McLayout: An Adaptive Layout Technique

The introduction of new mobile and computing devices challenges us to look beyond the liquid layout. Marc van den Dobbelsteen offers a way to bring appropriate layouts to a wider range of screens and devices.

van den Dobbelsteen, Marc. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Wireless Web>CSS

Ten CSS Tricks You May Not Know

With so many different ways of using CSS some important tricks and techniques may have passed you by. See how many of the ten you already know and maybe learn something new!

Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>CSS

Text Sizing

Being unhappy with the current wisdom and distrustful of our browsers, I wanted to have the font sizing options laid out so I could see where they did and didn't work. So I made 264 screenshots. This collection is posted for anyone else who is unhappy and distrustful.

Noodle Incident, The (2002). Design>Web Design>Typography>CSS

Thinking Outside the Grid

CSS has broken the manacles that kept us chained to grid-based designâ€≈so why do so few sites deviate from the grid? Molly E. Holzschlag can tell us that the answer has something to do with airplanes, urban planning, and British cab drivers.

Holzschlag, Molly E. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Web Design>CSS

To Hell With Bad Browsers

Why does ALA look like @#$ in your 4.0 browser? Read this now.

Zeldman, Jeffrey. List Apart, A (2001). Design>Web Design>CSS>Web Browsers

Toward a Standard Font Size Interval System

This document discusses the strengths and weaknesses of various deployed and recommended methods of specifying font sizes in Web documents and application interfaces, and proposes a harmonization. This scheme will enhance the legibility, clarity, and aesthetics of documents presented on screen, and help retire less elegant alternatives that are hurtful to the Web as a dynamic information resource - one that is accessible to users with widely varying needs and purposes. It is intended for Web browser and stylesheet implementors of all religions, but may be of interest to Web authors and digital typography and/or CSS enthusiasts at large.

Fahrner, Todd. Cleverchimp (1999). Design>Web Design>Typography>CSS

The Trouble With Em 'n En

More than you ever wanted to know about dashes, spaces, curly quotes, and other vagaries of online typography. HTML specs, grammatical rules, browser bugs and character encoding—it’s all here.

Sheering, Peter K. List Apart, A (2001). Design>Web Design>CSS>Typography

Twelve Lessons for Those Afraid of CSS and Standards

if you're starting to work with CSS, everything you've learned to this point probably feels useless, or worse than useless.

Henick, Ben. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>CSS>Standards

Typography Matters

It's a style thing. It's a usability thing. It's a tricky thing for large content sites and a step up for independents. It's typographically correct punctuation on the web, and ALA's associate editor makes the case for it.

Kissane, Erin. List Apart, A (2001). Design>Typography>CSS>Web Design

Understanding CSS Design Concepts

This article is the first in a series of tutorials about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The aim in Part 1 is to familiarize you with some of the basics of CSS.

Senior, Adrian. Adobe (2004). Design>Web Design>CSS

Use Inverted Colors to Highlight Active Link

It is often difficult to find the cursor when a web site is navigated using the keyboard. Where is the active link? With CSS the author of a web page can adjust how the active link is visualized. Inverted colors are the best way to highlight the active link.

Tverskov, Jesper. Smack the Mouse (2006). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design>CSS

User-Defined Style Sheets and Accessibility

How you can set your own stylesheet for greater accessibility; another lecture/essay.

Bartlett, Kynn. HTML Writers Guild (1999). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>CSS

Using CSS with Your HTML  

Ellison's detailed introduction to cascading style sheets (CSS), the technology that enables technical writers to apply formatting to HTML-based content, includes examples of how CSS is commonly used and offers tips on how to implement it.

Ellison, Matthew. Intercom (2002). Design>Web Design>CSS

Vertical Sizing in CSS

This article covers vertical sizing and shows how to determine the height of elements with CSS. Once you’ve mastered both height and width, you should be well on your way to effectively using CSS.

Apple Inc. (2006). Design>Web Design>CSS

Web Page Reconstruction with CSS

J. David Eisenberg tried to re-do a Yahoo! weather page in his article titled Converting a Page to CSS. While his attempt was not a complete success, he totally transformed the page's structure and style using contemporary CSS methods. As David says, 'anything worth doing is worth doing again.' The goal of transferring the page to a CSS layout is to get rid of any HTML that's used for presentational purposes in order to achieve the layout. As it is now, the Digital Web layout uses HTML tables for layout purposes and spacer GIFs for spacing and positioning of elements on the Web page. We will be using CSS to replace the JavaScript in the JavaScript rollovers on this page.

Schmitt, Christopher. Digital Web Magazine (2002). Design>Web Design>CSS

What to Expect When Moving to SGML

From the authors author's viewpoint, working with structured documents does not change if there is going to be an SGML representation of the document. There is more setup work for the developer to prepare an application, though.

Price, Lynne A. IRTC (2001). Design>Web Design>CSS

Why a CSS Website Layout Will Make You Money

Many of us know about the benefits of using CSS over tables for layout. But did you know doing so could also make you money? Sounds strange but this article explains why and how.

Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>CSS

Wither the Star-HTML Hack?

Recently the Microsoft blog told us that some of our CSS hacks will stop working in IE7, a fact we detailed in our first IE7 article. While this is generally good news, it is a bit disturbing that the Holly hack in particular will cease to function while many of the layout problems it is meant to fix will still be there, and will still need fixing.

Bergevin, Holly and John Gallant. Position is Everything. Design>Web Design>Standards>CSS

XML Transformations with CSS and DOM

Mozilla permits XML to be rendered in the browser with CSS, and manipulated with the DOM. This is a real boon to those of us eager to experiment with XML transformations (both visual and structural) without having to delve into unfamiliar technologies such as XPath, the verbose traversal language of XSLT. If you’re already familiar with CSS and DOM, you’re more than halfway to achieving XML transformations in Mozilla.

Apple Inc. (2006). Design>Web Design>XML>CSS

Year Zero

I am as frustrated as any other web developer at the glacial pace of the CSS Working Group and the lack of progress with CSS3. I just don't think we need to dump the baby out with the bathwater. Change is needed. It looks like change is coming. It may even be a regime change. But let's not start drawing up new calendar systems just yet. The clock of CSS is running slow. We need to wind it up. That doesn't mean we need to smash it.

Keith, Jeremy. Adactio (2007). Design>Web Design>Standards>CSS

Your CSS Bores Me

The state of the use of Cascading Style Sheet on the web is really beginning to get boring. Why haven't designers begun exploiting its benefits yet?

Casciano, Chris. ChunkySoup.net (2001). Design>Web Design>CSS