CSS questions

[Thomas Dowling]

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Thomas <sthomas at library.adelaide.edu.au>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Thursday, February 05, 1998 7:29 PM
Subject: Re: CSS questions


>At 03:55 PM 98/02/05 -0800, Bob Duncan wrote:
>>Much of what's in the CSS1 spec does not yet work with the majority of
>>browsers, and some style sheet rules can actually have adverse effects on
>>browsers: ...
>>
>
>Add to that the fact that many users still use pre-version 4 browsers that
>don't support style sheets at all, and one could make a good case for NOT
>using style sheets at this time. After all, most people who create web
>pages actually do want others to use them, at least once, so it is foolish
>to put barriers in their way. (Seems to me I've heard this thread before:
>anyone want to start a debate about frames?)

Andrew Mutch has more or less anticipated my response and put it more
succinctly than I would have.  Suffice it to say, short of outright abuse, I
don't see how CSS represents any sort of barrier.  In a non-CSS supporting
browser, the following two bits of markup will appear exactly the same:

    <p class="indent">
    <span class="drop-cap">W</span><span
    class="small-caps">elcome to my page!</span>  Thanks
    for dropping by.</p>

AND:

    <p>Welcome to my page!  Thanks for dropping by.</p>

The OhioLINK Web site has had a stylesheet in place for over a year now, and
I have never received a complaint about it.

In my opinion, the greatest challenges in using CSS right now come not from
browsers that don't support it, but from some of the browsers that claim
they do.  CSS support in Netscape 4 is bad; support in MSIE3 is laughably
bad.  http://style.webreview.com/mastergrid.html does a thorough job of
detailing the shortcomings of each.  Getting around those shortcomings may
require a slightly conservative approach to CSS authorship; you can also put
some of your style rules in an extended.css file and @import that file into
a basic.css--since IE3 and Netscape don't support @import, they won't even
see those rules.  An inelegant solution, but effective.


Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu