CSS2 and Core Styles

[Thomas Dowling]

> > 3. "Clean" Markup
> Please elaborate.  Fewer nested tags?

<h3 class="course_offering">Searching the Web</h3>

...is simple, clean, and easy to understand.  At this level, it's
irrelevant that you would like it centered, in light grey text on a dark
blue background, set in Avant Garde Demibold 18pt.

<center><table border=0><tr><td bgcolor="blue"><font face="avant garde
demibold" size="+3" color="#CCCCCC">Searching the
Web</font></td></tr></table></center>

...may have a comparable effect, but it looks like gibberish and (in this
all too common example) also loses the fact that this is a header.

>
> > 4. Advanced layout features accessible without losing users in older
> > browsers
> But I want the layout to be good for all users.  What about
> browsers that let me use <b></b> but not <strong></strong>?
> That would mean that users of older browsers would not see
> bold text if the <strong> was used in place of <b>.

Bill, you're hung up on <B> vs. <STRONG>.  Both of those elements have
been around since HTML 2.0, neither is even deprecated in HTML 4.0 Strict,
and neither involves CSS per se.  But since you bring it up...

<B> explicitly marks text for boldface rendering.  <STRONG> marks text for
strong emphasis; the fact that every browser in the known universe
defaults to rendering <STRONG> in boldface is a monument to the lack of
imagination in browser designers.  As an author and designer, I can
imagine wanting to emphasize words or phrases by:

  Displaying them bold, italic, or underlined
  Shading the background, as with a hiliter
  Reversing background and foreground colors
  Drawing a box around the text
  Printing the text in small caps
  Having the text blink (The horror...the horror...)
  Speaking the text more loudly
  Speaking the text more slowly
  Speaking the text in a different voice
  Preceding the text with a chime

HTML has tags to do the first line in this list.  CSS has properties to do
them all, and at the markup level, it will still be as intelligible as:

  <p>Please complete <strong class="really_important">sections 1
  and 2</strong> before proceeding to section 3.</p>

You want backwards compatibility?  Point Netscape 1.0 at that, and it will
show a paragraph with the word "all" showing strong emphasis.

Of course, the punchline is that if my page cannot function without the
specific layout I suggest, or if I'm unable to give up that degree of
control over my pages' appearance, then what I'm doing isn't Web
authorship (at least, not with HTML).

Regarding suggestions that there are HTML tags to do much of what CSS
offers, I invite attempts to duplicate
http://gold/tdowling/caucus-race.html in HTML without CSS.


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