Sunday, September 20, 2009
Week 4: September 21 to 27, 2009
This week you are beginning to stretch your new abilities using Dreamweaver to build Web pages. And, in that respect, CSS has been dropped in your lap. I'd like to hear your comments about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets); what are they? What possible benefit will you derive from using them in your Web site? Can CSS help you in your goal to become as accessible as possible on your site? Any of these and other related comments are welcome this week. Think about CSS as your friend?
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8 comments:
Cascading style sheets are a great way to edit multiple things on many different pages and to stick with a theme. As in all headings the same size & color.
However huge style sheets that consist of unused code can cause the page to load slower. Especially if theres multiple style sheets and each of them are huge in size.
I am very excited about CSS. The ability to create rules for the pages will produce cleaner work. I really like that I can import the CSS rules from one page to another...or even one site to another.
Also thank you, Prof Al for the explanation of "em" - I will be sticking with "em" in the future.
I like CSS a lot. I've done some in the past and as I did exercises using the property panel I found that the code was looking pretty cluttered. And of course it's great to impact a whole site from one place.
The challenge is still the fact that different browsers have different ideas about how to read the code. It'll be a while yet before maybe there can be some agreement about how to play with common rules. Meanwhile, there are lots of creative hacks that can be included to fool the browsers that just haven't figured out how to play on a team.
I'm really appreciating how Dreamweaver provides tools for creating CSS so that the designer is not held captive to typo errors in code. The best thing about CSS is having the freedom to change your mind about a design and quickly try a different color, leading, or typeface and see the change executed across the entire site. Do this in front of a client and it blows them away!
Also, for the sake of accessibility, positioning with CSS vs. tables is worth its weight in gold. Here's a cool site for a CSS demo. I'd like to do the same, eventually, with my own personal site.
http://www.csszengarden.com/
This is a little off topic, but is it possible to be xhtml-compliant and open an external link in a new page, so the reader doesn't leave the site? Anybody have a solution to this?
cheerio,
Ruth
Cascading Style Sheets are amazing! From what I've seen so far in our class, they solve alot of problems for designers as well as users. First and most important, it provides a uniform look to the web site. The user can more easily navigate through the website, as well as always be sure they are still in the original website. The designer has many more tools and flexibility in layout and customization. It's great how CSS has replaced the use of tables - the little bit I've tried to work with tables on some websites I've had to update has been horrible! You think you've formatted the table one way, and it never displays correctly on the browser!
From the experience i got in class, cascading style sheets are very convenient and seemingly numberless in the amount of rules and commands that you can make it do. There is at least 8 little subcategories for different types of rules. This makes the page very beneficial in many ways including a catchy yet simple interface; or the opposite, an archway to possibly making your site accessible, and most importantly there are many available options that are available to the designer to use at his disposal which leaves for great diversity and creativity; thankfully making all websites different and not the same.
Haha, CSS seems very open minded and I'm glad to think of him as a friend. Along with uploading chp 2 i will be starting chapter 3 this week and will learn more about the topic of CCS.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are spectactular. They allow you to control the styling of an entire website's worth of pages - all with one "linked to" file. I remember back when stylesheets were first being developed, and how odd they seemed. But now - I couldn't imagine living without.
What's great is that it allows you to have MUCH less code, as your font styling doesn't need to be duplicated with large HTML codes. It's also great because it keeps your website consistent, clean - and uniform.
One problem we run into is that browser do see CSS in different ways - but it's a small price to pay for how wonderful CSS makes designing.
A nice assortment of ideas and thoughts from you this week, thanks!
I know that the CSS vs. Browsers is going to be somewhat of a problem for a while, esp. since people are allowed to have a choice of which Browser to use. That's not a bad thing, just makes our job a bit more difficult, but no hill for a climber, right?
All in all, the Browsers have done a wonderful job of producing our CSS on our sites, it is now in our court to be sure to know what is deprecated (old and not to be used any longer), and what works is all Browsers. That list is very long, so we are not being held captive by the Browser prefs. at all.
Ruth had a question: "Is it possible to be xhtml-compliant and open an external link in a new page, so the reader doesn't leave the site?"
From what I read into the question, sounds like you want to use a Frameset with a single frame holding another Web site. Yes and No. Framesets can be made accessible, but we are discouraged from using them because not all designers are willing to learn how to be accessible, or give a damn.
If the site that was linked to a single frame was accessible, you might have a shot, but not many designers like having their pages seen inside of frames.
All of this applies to iFrames too. That's a small window cut into a normal page that links to another site.
I just try to imagine what the site would sound like if it was visited by an Aural Browser. That goes for using Tables too.
Did I answer your question or did I open another can of worms?
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