Comments on: The power of pure CSS

By: mmj

mmj — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

That puzzle is pretty cool. With no JS/Java/Flash, it's very quick on a 733MHz computer!

By: Ewout de Graaf

Ewout de Graaf — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Pure CSS is a nice thought – but considering all the problems it gives on various browsers i have gone back to tables on many websites.
Honestly, even Eric Meyers css tricks show up wrong on my browser, and i am using XP with IE 6 – together with about half the world.
What is the point using CSS if you have to hack your way through several box models just in order to make your page appear correct on different platforms?
CSS – only? In a few years maybe, when all the dust is settled. I just don’t have time for it now…

By: redux

redux — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

have a look at the advanced version of my csszengarden entry "door to my garden". should also degrade nicely, although i seem to remember netscape 6 still had problems with it...

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

To Ewout, who said: What is the point using CSS if you have to hack your way through several box models just in order to make your page appear correct on different platforms?
————
No matter how many hacks I end up having to put into a site (which usually isn’t very many), it’s still ten times easier than hacking together a table site was 4-5 years ago for me. The differences between IE and the modern browsers is often a little overblown in articles; for practical purposes it doesn’t take much to make everything work. The benefit is *forward* compatibility, more important and cost-effective IMO than backward, plus you get the benefit of being built with accessibility.

Sure, Stu Nicholls’ stuff is either non-compatible or very difficult, but not all of us have to be on the cutting edge, and I learned a lot of very interesting things from his site when I first stumbled onto it (like opacity, whose cross-browser implementation is fairly easy). Maintenance in the past year since I’ve been using CSS2 instead of tables has saved me big bucks and a ton of sanity– it’s not all hacking and cursing.

By: shawn

shawn — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

the problem with 'waiting until the dust settles' is that it never will as long as developers are scared to update their skillset.

start using it now, and vendors will either release products that work right or risk fading away.

By: dereko

dereko — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I have to agree with Ewout de Graaf. To a certain extent if you are designing with css in mind then it can be effective but if a designer gives you a design form a photoshop image and you need to replicate in html. It can be near on impossible to get it working in all browsers with css techniques. The fact that some wizz kid / expert can after 7 days of work is totaly conter productive. It should be easy to implement, but i guess it's no ones fault really just the browsers aren't consistent.

conclusion.. will have to wate a few years before the browers catch up.

By: Ned Collyer

Ned Collyer — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

The image gallery is impressive :)

I'm not a fan of some of the other aspects of Stu's site. It's really markup + css heavy.

Writing 10k of extra data to the markup is NOT cutting edge.

Its the equivalent of reproducing a photo using coloured table cells. Sure its possible, but its pretty obvious that its not appropriate.

The photo gallery is very nice :) Im not keen on all the images being fully downloaded.. but hey, it works well once its loaded.

CSS and standards are easy and cost effective if you practice and get good at them.
Of course its going to take time to do a design thats given to an inexperienced HTML + css dev.

For some reason people initially learn the incorrect methods for using HTML before they learn the right/enlightened way.

There is basically no transferable knowledge between the CSS + div, and table layout methods for creating web pages, so of course transisitioning will take time.

By: AlexW

AlexW — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Ned, Stu isn't necessarily trying to code best practice CSS here.

In the mid 60's some guys in the University of Illinois got a single plasma cell to glow on command. Not particularly useful, but the idea led to the million-cell Plasma TV's we have today.

Stu's stuff is the kind of laboratory madness that shows what is technically possible. Hopefully next time you're considering a real-world problem with, say, a navigation panel, you'll think "now if that guy got CSS to work like a maze game, I'm sure we can use a small part of his technique to get these dropdowns to work properly"

By: Ned Collyer

Ned Collyer — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

AlexW, I'm not convinced.

Its not about best practices, or even whats possible.. its about whats insane. Some of the stuff is great :).

Plasma cells to glow = AWESOME. There are possibilities with the plasma cell (as with Stu's image gallery) to do great things. I dont believe this to be the case with a lot of the other research.

Appropriateness is wot its about.

Eg, 1960s some guy decides he can generate inefficient cumbersome technique for making paint that has NO benefits over existing techniques.

I've been using CSS + tableless navs + layout for the best part of 2 years, and I shudder to think how horrible it would be reverse engineering one of those maze games to get my first CSS nav working.

By: moltar

moltar — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

The gallery looks nice, but there is no way to print it. It'd be much better if the image change was initiated not on :hover, but on :active, so that the image would stay changed after it was clicked and when the mouse was moved away.