Cascading Style Sheets
The advent of Cascading Style Sheets was as revolutionary as HTML itself. Until the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) established the standard for CSS, designers could not control the layout and style of text without kludges like images of text placed into tables. In the development of HTML after all, structure was intended to denote content and not vice versa.
In 1998, the mark of a good designer was someone who could slice up a composition into a mosaic of table cells to make a web page. These lumbering, graphic-intensive sites bogged down the web in a way we cannot imagine in our Age of Broadband. Ironically, as the web speeds up, the optimized code has gotten more respect from Designers.
After the "dot.com" bubble burst, surviving designers were descended from engineers. We understand how throughput demands should best be left to server queries than graphics downloads. Usability tests have found that graphics on a web page have little impact on the user's senses.
Cascading Style Sheets are closely related to Style Sheets in a Word Processor or Page Layout application. Both types of style sheets have the same backbone—an XML backbone. So if you are old-hat in configuring a style in Microsoft Word or Quark XPress, then you are well on your way with CSS!
Review some CSS Tricks with the jump menu at the top.
©2004 MadMac Creations
All recommendations are to be used at the reader's discretion, and is subject to change without notice. While a best effort is made to test software and techniques provided, the reader is advised to test thoroughly prior to implementation. MadMac Creations takes no responsibility for any losses accrued, unless Tony MacFarlane has been contracted.
