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Even though this site doesn't use XHTML 2.0, it does show the importance, and the amazing things that can be done when content and presentation have properly been seperated.
CSS Zen Garden ... if you haven't seen it, check it out!!

CSS has numerous advantages over tables:

• the same HTML can be styled in vastly different ways just by switching the stylesheet
• CSS uses less bandwidth - tables have a lot more overhead in terms of markup.
  stylesheets are cached by browsers. A List Apart copied Slashdot's layout with CSS; apparently it would save about 14 GB a day.
  lower costs, better satisfied users
• CSS is easier
  OK, maybe this is subjective. I know that I would rather specify things directly than mess around with spacer GIFs

and then there's the stuff that isn't practically very important, but I certainly feel a lot less dirty when my data is marked up semantically. Seperation of content and layout is fun too.

CSS has numerous advantages over tables:

• the same HTML can be styled in vastly different ways just by switching the stylesheet
• CSS uses less bandwidth - tables have a lot more overhead in terms of markup.
  stylesheets are cached by browsers. A List Apart copied Slashdot's layout with CSS; apparently it would save about 14 GB a day.
  lower costs, better satisfied users
• CSS is easier
  OK, maybe this is subjective. I know that I would rather specify things directly than mess around with spacer GIFs

and then there's the stuff that isn't practically very important, but I certainly feel a lot less dirty when my data is marked up semantically. Seperation of content and layout is fun too.

CSS has numerous advantages over tables:

• the same HTML can be styled in vastly different ways just by switching the stylesheet
• CSS uses less bandwidth - tables have a lot more overhead in terms of markup.
  stylesheets are cached by browsers. A List Apart copied Slashdot's layout with CSS; apparently it would save about 14 GB a day.
  lower costs, better satisfied users
• CSS is easier
  OK, maybe this is subjective. I know that I would rather specify things directly than mess around with spacer GIFs

and then there's the stuff that isn't practically very important, but I certainly feel a lot less dirty when my data is marked up semantically. Seperation of content and layout is fun too.

Okay, first off, pointing to one particular page which isn't even standards compliant does not improve your argument.

Second, 100K easily fits into CPU cache let alone causing an issue for hundreds of megabytes of main memory. (And no, I don't think that's how CPU cache is effectively used. I just used it as a point of reference.)

Third, it compresses down to less than 20K using standard gzip compression. This equates to three seconds of download time on a 56Kbps modem connecting at 52Kbps. So yes, it could be more efficient, but come on.

Let's take a standards-compliant site like CSS Zen Garden or GeekSpeak.org. When someone actually bothers to reference the standards, you end up with a site with comparatively little markup. Both sites are less than 20K of markup and easily compress to less than 10K. Both are static pages, yes. But then again, so was your Spiegel reference.

With standards. Both are static pages, yes. But then again, so was your Spiegel reference.

What bloat do you see on those pages? How complex is the markup? How well do they stand up with accessibility? (Answer: very well) Both referenced sites are smaller than Spiegel's, but then Spiegel's is much older and established. Same story as with Amazon and eBay, inertia can be the biggest enemy no matter what direction you choose.

Oke, let's form some rebuttals here:

1. Browsers: What would be more perfect to you? I'm not saying you are wrong, but I doubt you would come up with a radical new approach that wouldn't immediately turn people off. Click to go to a new page based on content context. Click "back" to go back. URL autocompletion. Tabbed browsing. Mouse gestures. What exactly is so deficient, and more importantly, what is your proposed solution?

As for CSS, it wasn't meant to generate primitive shapes. That's what SVG was meant for. What's the alternative? Primitive shapes in CSS like triangles, circles, elipses, pentagons, hexagons, dodecahedrons, etc.? What is a basic shape to you? I guarantee that as soon as you decide, someone else will pop out of the woodwork and proclaim that it's not enough. Personally, I think the existing spec can handle quite a lot as it is.

Postscript is primarily a print format. CSS is not just for print publishing. For example, are there postscript directives specifically for text (aural) readers? Does postscript keep the content separate from the presentation or are they inextricably tied together? Apples and oranges in my opinion.

2. Web Applications: Going beyond the page metaphor isn't hard with the DOM. As for removing the browser, Microsoft has been doing this for years with the componentization of their rendering widget. The Mozilla group have a toolkit based upon XUL and XPCOM. Multiple applications have taken Mozilla's rendering widget and made non-browser apps. Flash is showing great promise with their ActionScript and XML handling features (based on DOM by the way). The fact remains that application development is easier on a browser than just about anywhere else.

The issue I see isn't that Macromedia needs to produce a decent programming tool. The power of web applications is that the technologies are already used and practiced by hundreds of web developers around the world. This is the strength of Apple's Dashboard work. I see the issue more as one where developers at large haven't moved beyond the page metaphor, not that the technology hasn't.

Those of you who use Gmail can relate to me here. I very much believe that they're pushing past the page metaphor in impressive ways like expanding conversation threads without refreshing the browser window, checking spelling seamlessly, etc. It's to the credit of the Gmail team (among others) that they realized that the number of browsers that can functionally handle advanced scripting and use a standard set of APIs has finally hit critical mass.

As for ditching the browser, here is an interface that everyone knows and understands today. Here is a piece of software so ubiquitous, that it is more common than an email client on desktops and kiosks. Now you're saying we should drop this advantage and go backward to a time of greater balkanization because what we have doesn't solve even problem perfectly? That's the solution: dump it and get something new from scratch? If I click on a link and it opens a new browser window without the default navigation buttons or taskbar, how is this worse? How is this distinguishable to the general public from a "real" application on their computer? How would your ideal framework be fundamentally different from the same window only launched from a desktop icon instead of a hyperlink?

Yes, I can acknowledge things like local filesystem access. This is a need for a framework outside of the browser. Except...well...Mozilla, Microsoft, Macromedia et al have already solved it. Pick your flavor. They all work. In fact, they all work in much the same way: some markup, some scripting (usually accessing the DOM or a thin layer on top of it), and some external styling. However, this doesn't invalidate all browser application development. It just means that there is no single silver bullet.

I agree with you and others that browsers won't go away. In fact, I sincerely hope they don't.

Just wanted to say that I absolutely agree with you on this one. A good desiner's eye would make any site more usable. Fonts, colors, font spacing, paragraph spacing, paragraph width, etc etc all affect how usable the page is -- a nice looking page just makes the whole experience more pleasing. Heck, it's why people put art in their homes. It's why we have "interior decorators" and "landscape artists" -- yes, our home would be more functional if instead we spent all that money on useful things like changing around the lightswitches or buying new appliances, but in the end, the beauty of the home plays as large (if not larger) a role as the usability in the overall experience. I for one would absolutely hate to live in a house without plants, without good-looking furniture, without some art on the walls (even just my own photography) -- it would be bland and boring, regardless of how usable it is. The best homes I've seen balance utility and design incredibly -- the best web designers do the same thing to the same effect. Jacob Nielsen has only half the picture.

• glish
• Eric Meyer's CSS/edge
• Owen Brigg's Little Boxes
• Blue Robot's The Layout Reservoir
• CSS Zen Garden
• MezzoBlue

The logic of the site layout though, loads the ads first, then the site, so we appeared to be down.

In today's world (with CSS) the order of things in the layout is one thing, and the order of elements in the actual HTML is wholly another thing. You (meaning any webdesigner who reads this, not parent) should put the stuff into the markup in order of importance.

Here's a good site with CSS resources, and here's an example of what can be done with CSS.

IMHO, many or most of the web developers available today don't know how to develop web page with good compatibility and accessibility is because of their arrogance and ignorance, and partially, lack of good guidance of web developing.

However, we are all arrogant and ignorant, nobody can change this. So a good guide of web developing is the solution to the problem.

But the web was constructed in such a quick manner that most of the developers are not well trained. I bet, third of the web developers around the world don't know what or where is W3C. I also bet, fifth of the web developers around the world don't know ssh and scp, or even ftp. I can even bet tenth of the web developers of the world don't know the difference between Internet Explorer and Internet. And those well payed web developers are so well payed and pround of themselves that, I believe, half or two third of the web developers around the world don't show any respect to people with disabilities, like blindness and deafness.

Nonetheless, the bubble of web was broken so quickly that though some wise people saw the problem here, and provided the solutions like xhtml and css, nobody in the avalanch will care about it anymore. As the web has broken, who cares about the flaw of the web anymore.

Now everything has calmed down, and dawn of light arrived again. But these can not be a solution to the arrogant people. The solutions to that people could be a law that enforce them to show respect to the people with disability and improve the accessiblity of their products and fierce competetion.

As the new Internet Explorer, it may improve the CSS and XHTML support, but I am wondering what kind of trick they will play to keep web developers stupid and arrogant and happy and dreaming...

While not a 100% clone, it's cool because ALL the layout&look&feel is done in CSS. It's the exact same html as this, this, and even this wireless-device-friendly look

If slashcode adopted this approach, we could all use whatever look we wanted for whatever device we were using; just by having a user-specified style sheet!

While not a 100% clone, it's cool because ALL the layout&look&feel is done in CSS. It's the exact same html as this, this, and even this wireless-device-friendly look

If slashcode adopted this approach, we could all use whatever look we wanted for whatever device we were using; just by having a user-specified style sheet!

While not a 100% clone, it's cool because ALL the layout&look&feel is done in CSS. It's the exact same html as this, this, and even this wireless-device-friendly look

If slashcode adopted this approach, we could all use whatever look we wanted for whatever device we were using; just by having a user-specified style sheet!

While not a 100% clone, it's cool because ALL the layout&look&feel is done in CSS. It's the exact same html as this, this, and even this wireless-device-friendly look

If slashcode adopted this approach, we could all use whatever look we wanted for whatever device we were using; just by having a user-specified style sheet!

Well, the ones who develop using CSS for layout are usually very standards-aware, it's the other guys who are the problem.

The resolution I develop for is 100%, but one can make good fixed-width layouts, even ones that run off the viewport horizontally, which requires real talent (or good luck). See CSS Zen Garden.

Could you be more specific? Do you mean a veriably sized center area with boxes on either side or just a header, footer, and a content area in the middle? If it's the latter, why not specify the header and footer to be "display: block"? I have the distinct feeling that I'm misunderstanding you though...

I guess I'm coming from the point of view of CSS Zen Garden. I consider those to be complex and compelling layouts with CSS. My own site has fixed sizes where appropriate (raster images), but a mostly variable layout. Font resizing works to stretch things out. Resizing the browser opens the content area. What am I missing?

Do you have an example link?

You know, I forgot about this site, which also deserves mentioning:

1. css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design

Great, yet more web standards to learn.

I'm so sorry! Perhaps we should halt all further development on the web? It'd certainly make my life a great deal easier, although very, very dull.

I don't put a great deal of faith into Mozilla, whose w3c support history has been less than rosey.

In what way exactly has Mozilla's w3c support been less than "rosey"? Portable Network Graphics? CSS2-3? Ever heard of "MOSe" (Mozilla Opera Safari extensions)? They're the browsers that actually support the latest w3c standards - try doing alpha-blended PNGs on IE. Try doing CSS3 on IE. If you want to see just how rosy the MOSe future looks, check out the Zen Garden, and in the meantime consider this: what do the w3c use as their de facto reference browser? (hint: Mozilla)

I was under the impression XAML is to be used primarily for laying out winforms, rather than as an new alternative to the tag.

You were wrong. XAML is similar to XUL (XML UI Language), or, if you like, dotNET. Just as you can use UI elements in a dotNET Windows App, you can use the same (well, similar) UI elements in an ASP.NET (web) app.

Case in point that I don't know what I'm doing.
This is the relevant link.

The Dalai LLama
... but at least it will look good in all browsers...

The posts above are dead on when they say "get a good graphic designer on your team!" By the same token, that also means that you have to develop the entire site with this graphic designer in mind, who no doubt is NOT a programmer.

My wife and I have done a number of collaborative projects with her on design and me on programming. The first time we did this, it was an unmitigated disaster because I had not taken into account the necessities of "plugging in" the design after the plumbing was done; think of this like putting down a lathe for all of the plaster to stick to after you have run the plumbing and electrical--without the lathe, the plaster won't stay up, and consequently everything looks like crap.

The next time around, we based ALL of the pages' formatting on CSS. By sitting down and spending an hour laying out what elements were going to use which tag, we saved ourselves a lot of trouble. That way, I got to completely ignore the design, and she was able to set up the look without us screwing each other up, and if a change needed to be made, it took a minute or two as opposed to an hour of fiddling.

Have a look at CSSZenGarden for some great examples of how this kind of design approach can really make life more beautiful.

Right. We're no longer in the world of the PC-based browser either. Most web-enabled devices in the world are now cell phones; and well designed html pages are perfectly visible on those devices.

You can no longer make assumptions that everyone has a large screen or an X86 or VB-script or Flash.

If anything, there are more devices unable to display Flash now that we're in teh post-lynx, post PC world.

IMNSHO, the web should be: - An easy way to access information

That is the entire point of seperating content from presentation. That is what XHTML & CSS is striving for.

- Simple, adhering to the lowest reasonable common denominator that works across all common browsers (HTML 4, limited CSS, etc.)

That is the entire point of seperating content from presentation - let the client deal with what it can deal with. Many modern authors/designers are learning how to design their css to present, ie. Nav4 with a plain, easy-to-access, no-frills page; IE with a nice look; and, for the rest, the best.

- Not filled with bloat and fluff that doesn't help me access information (such as flash intros, flash menus, Java menu crap, etc.)

If your XHTML/CSS sites are bloated compared to the same thing done with tables and *barf* font tags, you've done it wrong. Period. Tho, how you equate java menus/flash whatever with XHTML/CSS/SVG is a mystery to me. i don't know of any browser which uses a plug-in to render xhtml/css. SVG yes, but that'll be folded in soon enough. In any case, once again, the whole point is to seperate content from presentation. Yes, this really does make things more accessible. Maybe go back and have another look at what they actually are.

Many of the webmonkeys I've known in my company that complain about such things not working are the same people who couldn't do HTML by hand if they wanted to, insist that beauty should take priority over functionality, and develop IE-only pages because they never thought to test any other browser and then blame those browsers for not supporting the latest, greatest standard.

They're idiots, then. Fuck 'em.

Here's a tip: if you want people to use your stuff, you have to provide it in a format their tools can understand. You can't expect everyone to upgrade, so you have to work to your audience.

So, you side with the monkeys, then? What's the point you're trying to make here? Sorry, i didn't get your "tip". Thanks for trying though.

So I don't really concern myself with the new standards. Besides, for me, I have little to no use for them at the moment anyway.

Maybe you don't, but try doing this with gif image replacement., Oh, horrors - you need an SVG plug-in, So sorry. (just hit submit if you're not sure what you're looking at, btw). Do you think any of this would be possible without some standards?

So understand if I'm wary about any so called "improvements" to what already works pretty darn well and is just now starting to truly work the same (mostly) in most mainstream browsers.

This statement, more than any other, shows you are completely without clue here.

> The CSS standard is crap.

Statements like this illuminate a kind of ineptitude that is too revealing for a place like Slashdot. If you dislike CSS or you have had a hard time using it... if you are frustrated with it: ask for help, or just simply state that you are frustrated. Don't bash the standard because you have had a hard time with it.

The templates on csszengarden.com are all created by graphic artists who believe in CSS and what it can do. They don't spend months on each template. In fact, I find it easier to create fast, graphically appealing websites with XHTML/CSS than I have ever created with HTML and Microsoft-friendly tag attributes. It all comes down to compliance and follwing the rules. Maybe CSS needs some refinement, and that I won't debate, but to bash the whole standards seems rather uninformed.

> A good example of the futility of working with the CSS standard is Jeffrey Zeldman's site www.zeldman.com. This site has been through so many redesigns yet inevitably each new redesign breaks in some major browser or other.

Maybe he's redesigned it so many times because it's fast and easy to do so? Part of the problem with many standards is when designers try to take it too far. They should all just keep it simple and the results will be better; there will be less trouble. The web is for information distribution, and therefore it's quite possible to create an appealing website that doesn't break browsers.

The trouble with standards, starts and stops with the browsers that try to change the standards to support some kind of corporate domination theory. When browsers support standards, the way they were meant to be supported, browsers wouldn't break when reading sites designed with standards.

#pageHeader {position:absolute;left:1px;top:1px;width:222px;}

<div id="container">
<div id="pageHeader">Blah</div>
</div>

I don't think there is a need to get XHTML and CSS all gooped full of new features, so I hope it doesn't go in that direction. I know Microsoft will try and take it in that direction to compliment their overcomplicated Long Horn. In my opinion as a user of XHTML and CSS with PHP, I believe that what is required is simlification so that everyday users will want to use XHTML with CSS. Products could provide this but I still think the best way to code websites is by hand. XHTML and CSS are quite satisfactory at this point, but perhaps they may require some refinement. Please no more crazy features, because you can save that for DHTML and Flash (yuck, but good for some). Take a look at CSSzengarden.com if you are not yet convinced in XHTML with CSS is artistically pleasing enough for you. It's a better standard than many websites around.

I used to agree. Tables were the only way to go for positioning. There is however one site which gave so many impressive examples of using ONLY css for positioning (even different positioning using the same html page) I was blown away. Perhaps you might find something new digging through the css that you didn't know before.... I sure did

On the site, check out the links on the right, they switch stylesheet but not the html page

http://www.csszengarden.com/

Try resizing the text in this one. It's the most perfect example of why it will sometimes never work - even with tables.
The main one, this, and this work fine.
But, why don't this, this, this, this, this, or this work? They look like they should, and I'm positive they could if tables were used instead.

Try resizing the text in this one. It's the most perfect example of why it will sometimes never work - even with tables.
The main one, this, and this work fine.
But, why don't this, this, this, this, this, or this work? They look like they should, and I'm positive they could if tables were used instead.

Try resizing the text in this one. It's the most perfect example of why it will sometimes never work - even with tables.
The main one, this, and this work fine.
But, why don't this, this, this, this, this, or this work? They look like they should, and I'm positive they could if tables were used instead.

Try resizing the text in this one. It's the most perfect example of why it will sometimes never work - even with tables.
The main one, this, and this work fine.
But, why don't this, this, this, this, this, or this work? They look like they should, and I'm positive they could if tables were used instead.

Try resizing the text in this one. It's the most perfect example of why it will sometimes never work - even with tables.
The main one, this, and this work fine.
But, why don't this, this, this, this, this, or this work? They look like they should, and I'm positive they could if tables were used instead.

Try resizing the text in this one. It's the most perfect example of why it will sometimes never work - even with tables.
The main one, this, and this work fine.
But, why don't this, this, this, this, this, or this work? They look like they should, and I'm positive they could if tables were used instead.

Try resizing the text in this one. It's the most perfect example of why it will sometimes never work - even with tables.
The main one, this, and this work fine.
But, why don't this, this, this, this, this, or this work? They look like they should, and I'm positive they could if tables were used instead.

Try resizing the text in this one. It's the most perfect example of why it will sometimes never work - even with tables.
The main one, this, and this work fine.
But, why don't this, this, this, this, this, or this work? They look like they should, and I'm positive they could if tables were used instead.

Try resizing the text in this one. It's the most perfect example of why it will sometimes never work - even with tables.
The main one, this, and this work fine.
But, why don't this, this, this, this, this, or this work? They look like they should, and I'm positive they could if tables were used instead.

not so long ago I would have agreed with you... but not anymore:

CSS Zen Garden is a good start.

Well, the designs do work and most browsers, but many of them rely on various hacks and workarounds to display correctly on all browsers, and even the most standards compliant browsers on the market have bugs. This means that developing cross-platform CSS is a lot more work than it should be.

But the CSS Zen Garden is definitely an amazing ressource, and discovering it was what helped me kick the tables-for-layout habit.

Okay. Here's a couple:
AOL.com - go ahead and laugh, but their site is classy and the layout is table-free.
Sprint.com - ditto. They use tables, for tabular data, like their stock quote info, but that's what tables are *for*.

Commercial sites, especially big ones, are deep and take a lot of work to redesign and recode. Most of those probably aren't being torn down and rebuilt with CSS because there isn't an enormous return in doing it yet. This doesn't mean it cannot be done, nor does it mean that if you're starting a new site, or re-doing an existing one, that CSS can't do the job.

In fact, I'll bet it can. See the Zen Garden for a hundred or so examples of what can be done with only CSS.

csszengarden.com is a great example of CSS can be rich, powerful and compliant.

I would have been the first to tell you about Plone, but I was in bed and apparently others beat me to it:)

Plone is extremely flexible, and fast to production. I have now tested and have in production many instances, and have developed installation, backup rotation, and restoration scripts. The system virtually runs itself when set up, and users find it very intuitive.. Additionally it has very granular user/group control, allowing you to control who publishes what with very little effort.

Sharepoint might be good or not, but on the reason of licensing costs alone, I would choose Plone. You will pay zero dollars for world class CMS/knowledge base solution.

Plone has bunches of modules (products) and features you may find useful. Trouble ticketing system, news section, RSS feeds and RSS publishing, mailing lists production, galleries, forums for discussion, among others. In addition to many levels of undo so that you can correct any action taken if need be.

Another plus is you can cluster (again at no dollars) instances using Zeo, if you need robustness.

Plone looks professional, clean and slick. Plus it's super customizable. Take a look at csszengarden.com and the various looks on the right, to get an idea of what can be acheived with CSS... and look at zopezen.org to see a real simple look that can be acheived on the skin. There's a lot you can do under the hood, or you can just leave it alone. It can easily be administered remotely. And I front end it with Apache and SSL, for a secure access solution.

The Plone community is friendly and responsive, but comprised of some serious Python hackers who probably expect you to come well versed up to a certain level.. Therefore I must second the idea mentioned before of engaging a professional to help you identify your needs now and going forward, and also you capabilities to narrow it down to the right solution for your company.

While all of the CSS stylesheets are downloaded, Firefox doesn't necessarily download all of the referenced images at the same time. Firefox must load all of the stylesheets so that when you switch the stylesheets, you are actually switching to something. If a particular CSS request returns a "404: Not found", that stylesheet is removed from your list of available styles.

As an exercise, go to CSS Zen Garden, and flip through the skins. After a new page has fully loaded (no more throbber activity), scroll down quickly to the bottom. You'll notice that some images fill in after you scroll to them. It's called lazy loading. It's just for people like you.

As for "massive bandwidth", I think you overstate the issue. A massive CSS document is 30KB. Mine are usually 10KB or less. Most images in the HTML are bigger than this. Remember that CSS is probably being served directly from the filesystem and therefore the server gives a Last-Modified header. If the CSS on the server isn't newer than the cached copy, the browser doesn't download it again -- just like any other static files. (Google for the HTTP header "If-Modified-Since") Also, if the server sets an Expires header, the browser won't even try the request until the expiry timestamp is passed by.

With HTTP 1.1 persistent connections (used by default by all of the major browsers and servers), and there's only ever one connection with multiple GETs. Coupled with mod_gzip or mod_deflate (or equivalent) on your server, you get very small items going over the wire. My 7,281 byte base CSS file compresses down to 1,779 bytes with standard gzip compression.

And finally note that without CSS, your HTML is full of tables, font tags, bold tags, italic tags, center tags, bgcolor attributes, spacer GIFs, etc. That's where massive bandwidth usage comes from. At least the CSS stylesheet can be reused. <b> tags only replicate.

CSS is not your enemy.

I like using a lot of div tags and css styles. 1.7b is better with several bugs fixed. But this bug:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2041 93

This one still makes me go back to IE. With the wrong setup, you can't access links for form controls. While the bug is marked as fixed in 1.7b, the test case I put in still fails.

Go to CSS Zen Garden for learning by example on stylesheets. My pages mostly just have div tags any more, and the style sheet does the rest.

(And why does Mozilla prevent links to it via Slashdot? If I create a link it says "Ook! Sorry, links to Bugzilla from Slashdot are disabled.")

Set up / define standard tag attributes and ask everybody involved to use them from now on. It should be more than 20 or 30 css classes. Keep the classes empty. Then let the designers lose on the styles.
Don't, I repeat: DON'T waste a single second on CSS design. There are people who can to that better than any OSS admin. Trust me on that one.

I personally think it would be cool to have a set of styles to switch. Imagine LDP docs fitting your desktop theme. Which would be no problem if I had a set of classes I knew I could trust to be applied allready.:-)

Bottom line:
If you use CSS as it is intended, this will be no problem whatsoever. I actually don't quite understand why you're asking the question anyway.

CSS, properly used, can and will degrade gracefully. Just take a look at the Css Zen Garden for example. The fault is not the technology but the fact that there are way too many clueless people running around calling themselves "webdesigners", when all they can is creating a template in Frontpage and make it look pretty.

No, this is an incorrect view. CSS is about separating CONTENT and PRESENTATION. That means no font, bold, or italic tags. This is all done in the style sheet. Additionally, font tags, etc always take precidence over style sheets.

By using proper XHTML (or HTML 4.0) and sticking to valid tags (heading tags, emphasis, lists) the page will automatically degrade nicely and be viewable in ALL BROWSERS. This includes lynx and other text only browsers.

The browsers that support CSS will use it, and it will look prettier for them, and browsers that do not support it will still display the content perfectly even though fonts, etc could be wrong.

Also note that by using CSS, the site will be easier to maintain. The removal of font, bold, italic, and underline tags will also make the site lighter and faster. Note that CSS is cached by the browser, so that file only has to be downloaded once.

Please look at The CSS Vault and CSS Zen Garden as great examples and references. CSS Vault has page after page that justify the use of CSS and valid XHTML. Also notice that if the browser cannot use CSS, the site still renders all the content properly.

An important additonal note: By using proper XHTML and CSS, the disabled will have access to the site in a much easier fashion due to the lack of tables being used for markup (tables only for data!), and the simpler code. This is for special screen reading browsers.

The best examples online are still probably this and this and even and slashdot style

Note that all those pages had the exact same html. Only the css changed. In their site (read the page) they have styles for all sorts of displays including wireless friendly ones.

The best examples online are still probably this and this and even and slashdot style

Note that all those pages had the exact same html. Only the css changed. In their site (read the page) they have styles for all sorts of displays including wireless friendly ones.

The best examples online are still probably this and this and even and slashdot style

Note that all those pages had the exact same html. Only the css changed. In their site (read the page) they have styles for all sorts of displays including wireless friendly ones.

Don't forget the CSSZenGarden

>Rather than fixing IE, how about using the same method to make Mozilla render pages designed for IE correctly?

There's one big problem with this idea: if you emulate IE's bugs, you simply give up on forcing people to upgrade their websites to be W3C compliant. You also have to make sure you emulate the bugs to be exactly like IE's which can be wishful thinking at best (MS-Word file format, anyone?)

Also, if a website isn't W3C-compliant, most modern browsers *already* go into "legacy mode", which emulates old browsers. However some webpages might declare to be standards-compliant but aren't at all, which might throw off the legacy mode... I'm not sure what happens in those cases.

The point is, don't try to copy the leader if he's crappy, try to push him out of the way.

It's also possible to write CSS-compliant websites (see CSS Zen Garden), you just can't use *ALL* CSS tags because of broken support in ALL browsers (yes, that includes your dear Gecko engine).