Slashdot Mirror
CSS for the LDP?
Saqib Ali asks: "Over at The Linux Documentation Project there is a lengthy discussion going on about whether to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to improve the presentation of the documents. I support the use of CSS to improve the image/formatting of the document, and improve readability. I understand that content is more important than the presentation, but it can't hurt to improve both. There are others who think we should not get involved the presentation layer, and mainly concentrate on the content. Since, most Slashdot readers are Linux users, and might have visited the LDP once or twice, I would like to poll them on what they think about implementing and using nice CSS for the documents on the Linux Document Project website. I've written a CSS for this purpose that is available here, and some sample documents available in this weblog. Any thoughts? Any pros and cons on using CSS to improve presentation?"
How about some CSS for Slashdot? Seriously.
Obviously content is the most important thing, but what possible reason could there be for not improving the presentation as well? Unless it somehow cuts into the time needed to prepare content (which is certainly shouldn't), it only makes sense to make things pretty.
I fully support the idea. It's not a matter of "getting involved in the presentation layer," as opposed to the content. That's, after all, the whole point of CSS... To separate these concepts, and make them independently manageable.
It would be simple for a team to develop CSS files in concert with those who are already doing a great job developing consistent, predictable content. This project lends itself easily to improvements with CSS.
I'd only recommend that multiple CSS files be created, and people be allowed to choose one that suits them, or none at all.
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.
There's nothing wrong with making the pages more visually appealing, just don't overdo it.
I suppose if you provided a standard stylesheet that every document used, and each document author only had to worry about content and didn't have to bother with how it would look (since that's all handled with one good stylesheet forced on everybody), then it could work. Just don't, for the love of god, force each author to come up with their own stylesheet for everything. There should just be one standard one, and that should do it for everybody.
Unless they can make even easier to use, it seems like a waste of time to me. I could change the look of things on my end if I really needed to.
Why one CSS? Allow user to pick which stylesheet they want to view all documents with (as in CSS Zen Garden). As long as each document has the proper tags, it would be easy to make them all appear consistent under a stylesheet. This would also make it easy for distros to distribute their own custom distro-themed stylesheets for the documentation.
It should be trivial to generate proper classes of tags from the source documents because LDP uses something similar to Docbook (or maybe they actually use Docbook now? They didn't quite last time I checked) so all the context information is already there.
I agree. Gentoo's docs are good.
As a webmaster, I'd love to see more major sites embrace CSS sitewide. Getting browsers up to date on the standard is long overdue. If people start visiting CNN, for example, and having problems, they'll be more likely to update their browsers.
I'm still doing transitional, but the next iteration of my site will probably be in XHTML 1.0 strict -- if I can convince management to go that route.
Non compliant browsers be damned!
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
Sure, use CSS! But if you're short of time/expertise, don't reinvent the wheel! Use the W3C Core Styles.
And if none of those style sheets quite tickles your fancy, you can use one as a base to modify.
CSS is the way to go. It makes it much easier to maintain pages, it means the document authors don't have to be the style managers, and it means less to download. With care CSS can be used to make pages that look very nice in a graphical browser and still function well in lynx.
Another advantage is the ability to have styles based on media. Display ads (if necessary) on the viewed pages but hide them on the printed (saves paper and ink/toner).
I use CSS so that I don't have a lot of formatting to get around when I want to update my web pages, or to make the programming easier.
<p align="center"><font size="4">My big centered paragraph</font></p> is amuch messier than <p class="parcent">My big centered paragraph</p>
Sig is on vacation