CSS problem.

[Ender]

Hello,

First time post in this forum

I hope it's OK to post live links here. This is a site that has a library of CSS codes and hacks:

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/style/

Unfortunately it's not my site :rolleyes:

[Paz]

Hi Ender!

Welcome to the forum!

It's ok to put up links if they are useful to other members and not just promoting your own site - and especially if it's a cool CSS link like that one.

When I saw the title of the thread "CSS Problem" I was a bit nervous though; I can never get CSS right!

Cheers,
Paz.

[Blazingpie]

Hey cool find, Ive bookmarked that site :D

Well, I seriously love CSS as you can do so much with it, and it can come in handy for SEO, though not always in a very direct way. Yeah, the biggest gripe I ahve with using CSS though is not the markup code itself, but the browsers. I mean, Microsoft has never bothered following the W3C standards (which the other browsers like firefox (http://www.getfirefox.com)) happen to follow) so CSS never works properly in IE. So you have to try and 'trick' IE when trying to get cross-browser compatibility, and with IE7 coming up and MS announcing that its going to fix many of the bugs that allowed those hacks... :(

[Paz]

<snip> and with IE7 coming up and MS announcing that its going to fix many of the bugs that allowed those hacks... :(

This is very bad news.... we'll need to find a new hack for a old bug that's going to be fixed in IE7, which still works with IE6, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, Safari etc..

I give up! I'm just going to put up a splash page;
"This site is optimised for Internet Explorer 4 in 640x480 resolution"
everone else can kiss my bottom haha

I'm sure the clients will agree!

Cheers,
Paz.

[Blazingpie]

This is very bad news.... we'll need to find a new hack for a old bug that's going to be fixed in IE7, which still works with IE6, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, Safari etc..

I give up! I'm just going to put up a splash page;
"This site is optimised for Internet Explorer 4 in 640x480 resolution"
everone else can kiss my bottom haha

I'm sure the clients will agree!

Cheers,
Paz.

lol. well, give it some time and more hacks will be discovered. However, Im thinking that we'll just end up having to serve up specific stylesheet files according to what browser the user is using...

[Wired]

Hmm, I am a bit of a novice here. What are CSS codes?

[Paz]

Hmm, I am a bit of a novice here. What are CSS codes?

Hi Wired,

CSS is a is short for "cascading style sheets" and it's a method for adding style to web pages like you would add formatting to an MS Word document, such as bold, italic, font colour... and almost anything else.

CSS is a mixture of style/design and programming that's not easy to master though!

Cheers,
Paz.

[Blazingpie]

Hi Wired,

CSS is a is short for "cascading style sheets" and it's a method for adding style to web pages like you would add formatting to an MS Word document, such as bold, italic, font colour... and almost anything else.

CSS is a mixture of style/design and programming that's not easy to master though!

Cheers,
Paz.

a bit of clarification: CSS is merely a markup language, like HTML is. A programming language contains things like statements (if, do while, etc) and variables. Hence CSS and HTML NOT being programming languages :p However, a bit of programming sometimes is needed, eg to detect what browser the user is using and alter the CSS code to support. If you want to ahve a look at some css, then all you ahve to do is view the source code of this page and look near the top of the code. While it can be imbedded inside the html page like this, its normally better to ahve it in an external css file (eg, stylesheet.css) as ANY page can reference the code, making sidewide changes MUCH easier :)

[BSolveIT]

About IE7 - I've just about finished building a huge site, and CMS, that works absolutely fine in IE6, IE7, and firefox. The old hacks that I use at least still work fine.

I must say though, every site I look at looks so much better in IE7 than IE6 or firefox.

Plus, firefox users slate IE all the time. It's generally the done thing to slate anything by Microsoft, and find some purist reason for it. But it's worth remembering that Microsoft did include a whole load of extra functionality that you simply don't get with firefox - I mean components that you can code for for effects, extra styles, etc..

Plus, there's also components that Microsoft introduced and made available for coding in the browser, like the httpRequest object - that firefox completely failed to implement properly.

Plus, given that the majority of people use IE - it struck me way back that the thing to do would have been to go with the flow, even if w3c wrote down a different standard. I'll never understand why FireFox went off and gave us all a headache. At the end of the day, almost the only thing we're talking about here is the 'box'...oh...and png files. By the way, they fixed IE7 for PNG's.

Sorry - I'm rambling, and I know nobody will agree anyway. hehe :razz:

If you code for IE7 and FireFox - IE6 will almost certainly be fine. Thats what I've done anyway - and on a pretty complicated build, but it came out fine on all of them - all identical.

:working:

[Paz]

I'm a passionate Firefox user, more so since my wife installed a weather toolbar and I got all these wierd pop-ups.

The cool thing about Firefox are the seo and developer's extensions...
Search Staus http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/ (don't forget to "Enable" the Alexa ranking)
Firefox Show IP https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/590/
HTML validator http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/
Web developer extension http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/
InForm Enter extension https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/673/
User Agent Switcher https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/59/
Google PageRank status https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/262/
Undo close tab https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/58/
seopen https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/570/
SEO Links http://www.webmasterbrain.com/seo-tools/firefox-extensions/seo-links/
Session Saver https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/436/

The two in bold are highly recommended!

Cheers,
Paz.

[Blazingpie]

Plus, firefox users slate IE all the time. It's generally the done thing to slate anything by Microsoft, and find some purist reason for it. But it's worth remembering that Microsoft did include a whole load of extra functionality that you simply don't get with firefox - I mean components that you can code for for effects, extra styles, etc..

Plus, there's also components that Microsoft introduced and made available for coding in the browser, like the httpRequest object - that firefox completely failed to implement properly.

Plus, given that the majority of people use IE - it struck me way back that the thing to do would have been to go with the flow, even if w3c wrote down a different standard. I'll never understand why FireFox went off and gave us all a headache. At the end of the day, almost the only thing we're talking about here is the 'box'...oh...and png files. By the way, they fixed IE7 for PNG's.

Sorry - I'm rambling, and I know nobody will agree anyway. hehe

If you code for IE7 and FireFox - IE6 will almost certainly be fine. Thats what I've done anyway - and on a pretty complicated build, but it came out fine on all of them - all identical.



well, the hatred towards IE boils down to several things. a) it's seriously flawed security-wise b) security problems get fixed MUCH quicker in Firefox than in IE c) you can do a lot more with Fx (all those extensions :D) d) they actually follow the standards set down by the W3C. This one is important, because YOU'RE MEANT TO FOLLOW THOSE SPECIFICATIONS :p Microsoft is NOT the internet. They should be following the rules, not trying dictate them.

The argument about the 'extra functionality in IE' is moot as you still couldnt use them in alternative browsers that came out before Fx :p And besides, the 'extra functionality' stuff Ive looked at before weren't standards set down by the W3C. And firefox giving us a headache? More like IE doing that. Virtually everone else is following the W3C standards, so why not MS, hmmm?

as for everyone using IE, it seriously depends on what industry your site is in. For example, a lot of image BBS sites I go to report that the clear majority of users use Firefox. Sites that are more technology-minded (esp things like web-development) sites likely to have the majority browser as Fx, too.

[BSolveIT]

Yup - all valid points.

We didn't create the system at the end of the day - we just have to work with it. I just wish there was 1 browser - would make life easier. Personally, I wish that 1 browser was IE.

Then, I also wish everyone was working at the same resolution. :cry:

I'm not actually sure how important it is that 1 browser is technically superior to another? If you see what I mean? I think thats what I mean about purist anorak types. I mean, where IE is the clear market leader by a gazillion miles and all my commercial clients use IE, and all my corporate clients use IE, and 90% of the world use IE (or is it only 85%?).... it's practically moot that firefox might actually be a better browser. Even if there are some niche areas where firefox is the browser of choice by most of the users,.. it's the exception to the rule.

I wonder if there are still some hardcore BetaMax users out there? It was the superior system apparantly.

I gather LP's are making a bit of a come back? But the CD is king, even though LP's have superior sound quality.

Linux is apparantly an infinitely superior operating system in many ways. It sure has world wide support and gained more ground than anyone thought possible. But if you opened a new computer shop to build and sell PC's - what OS would you put on them by default?

Like I say, I don't / can't disagree with what your saying...I just don't think it matters very much to the average person that uses a browser. Generally, they'll use whats there. They don't care. They don't even want to know about anything else - lifes too short.

You see my point though? Like it or not, IE is what most people use - by a long way, and thats not going to change any time soon. It doesn't matter if it's not the best, or that it doesn't follow all the standards guidelines (neither does ff by the way, or Opera)... remembering thats all they are... suggested guidelines - thats all.

Lastly, don't forget that when MS started producing their browser evolutions, there was no W3C - and when it came into being, MS were a major contributor...and still are.

Here's a quick quote from the W3C about us page:

W3C primarily pursues its mission through the creation of Web standards and guidelines. Since 1994, W3C has published more than ninety such standards, called W3C Recommendations.

Jeez I go on - don't I? hehe :p

You want to know whats worse? I've actually snipped this post short. I could easy go on, and on,..... as is my way I'm afraid. :shhh:

BTW... if firefox was to become the No.1 browser of choice by almost everyone - thats the one I'd be using. God forbid Opera becomes No.1... thats the one I'd be using :???: (I can't believe I just said that!?)