Articles about designing with CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are the presentation layer of web development. Here we make the text that was structured by the HTML look good and easy to read. Properly separated web sites with all the presentation definitions in the CSS are easy to maintain and change, an option that can save a lot of time and money in the maintenance phase of a project. Learn more about CSS by picking one of the following articles.
Text-Resize Detection - 12th September 2006
A quick trick mixed with a custom event allows you to detect and react on font size changes in the page. (published at Alistapart)
The future is hybrids - how JavaScript can purify pure CSS solutions - 4th September 2006
A reminder why JavaScript is so much better in providing web page behaviour than CSS is. (published at Wait-Till-I.com)
Flexible CSS Tab Navigation - 15th Januar 2006
Learn how to create a flexible tab navigation with CSS and one rounded corner background image (published at locally)
Preview images with DOM, CSS and PHP - 19th July 2005
Sometimes we want to offer the visitors a preview of the image a link points to. Depending on PHP and GD availability, this script will offer a preview link showing or creating a thumbnail of the linked image. The visitors can see if the link is worth opening without leaving the current page. (published at local)
DOMSlides - yet another DOM/CSS based presentation slides system - 18th July 2005
DOMSlides turns an HTML document into presentation slides via Unobtrusive JavaScript. Readers without JavaScript will see one HTML page with content split up into headings and content. Readers with JavaScript can navigate the slides either via previous and next, the cursor up and cursor down keys ora table of contents. (published at domscripting.webstandards.org)
Complex Dynamic Lists: Your Order Please - 24th May 2005
This article describes how you can turn a nested list into a OSX styled finder navigation to help the visitor choose one item out of a complex hierarchy of items. (published at alistapart.com)
How to simulate CSS constants - 12th May 2005
One feature designers often wished they had with style sheets are constants - the chance to define something once and reuse it over and over in the style sheet document. This article shows some techniques for how to achieve that and discusses their pros and cons. (published at devarticles.com)
Easy as A,B,C - dynamic A to Z indexes - 30th March 2005
A welcome shortcut for visitors on text-heavy websites is an A to Z index of the services offered. Much like the sitemap, it offers a fast way to find what you need on the site. An index is even more user-focused. The sitemap reflects the structure of the site something that is only relevant to visitors when it is badly implemented in the navigation. This article describes how you can make A to Z indexes more interesting and easier to use. (published at devarticles.com)
Double Vision - giving browsers CSS they can digest - February 2005
Some but not all browsers support CSS2. You can deliberately code your website so that users of either kind of browser will see pages that are appropriate for what their browser can handle. Older browsers won't gag, but you will still be able to take advantage of what you can do with CSS2 in the newer browsers. (published at devarticles.com)
Dynamic Galleries with DOM and CSS - January 2005
This article shows how to use DOM and CSS to create a fully accessible dynamic gallery that shows images without page reloads for those who can and falls back to a linked thumbnail list for all others. Local copy without ads. (published at Devarticles.com)
Standards, baby, yeah! - July 2004
Illogically called "Standards Vs. Sensible Design", this article tries to explain why following and advocating standards is great, but not enough. It needs a shift in technical use and in design to make web development a more secure and respected job. If you want to, you can also read the original "director's cut" version with all special effects. (published at Sitepoint.com)
HTML, CSS and Tables - the beauty of Data - November 2004
This article shows you how to style tables with CSS and save a lot of trouble by sticking to the correct markup to create valid, accessible data tables. (published at devarticles.com)
Taming the select - November 2004
Originally meant for alistapart, this article show you how to safely style a select dropdown and how to create accessible selects without a go button. (published at devarticles.com)
Multi column displays in CSS - April 2004
An overview of the different techniques possible to achieve multi column displays in CSS with pros and cons for each of them. (published at onlinetools.org)
CSS Standards - March 2004
CSS development standards used internally to ensure validity and maintainability of stylesheets. (published at onlinetools.org)
Recommended books about CSS
Web Standards Solutions
Dan Cederholm's book is a hands-on example book showing you how to solve different design and markup problems with web standards. It does not rave on for hours about the importance of web standards, but shows how to use them. If you want to have a handy "how do I do that in HTML and CSS?" reference, this is it.
CSS - The Definitive Guide
Eric Meyer is one of the leading CSS experts, and this reference book, albeit a bit dated, is still a mandatory help for anyone who wants to use CSS seriously and not waste hours on end trying to find out why some colour or padding does not get applied.
