Cascading Style Sheets - Is it worth it?

[Synozeer]

I've managed to avoid learning much about CSS because of the incompatibility issues between browsers. However, using it would make some things so darn easy.

My question is, is there enough worthwhile CSS that is usable by most browsers, or should I wait another few years before bothering with it?

[Bane]

Using CSS is really a personal choice IMHO at this time. With Netcapes spotty support it can get stressfull from time to time.

The advantages however are wonderous. I save tons of time playing with markup. Changing things is a breeze. If you run a small site maybe not, but if you have a site with many pages then SSI and CSS are really going to be close friends as soon as you meet them

On an additional note, Things are moving towards XML/XHTML and CSS is a neccessity there.

[aspen]

CSS is definitely not an option. Even if there are support issues it degrades well and 99% of people will have a browser with some kind of css support.

And then of that 99% 90% have IE 4+

[Nicky]

CSS is certainly an issue. With XML requiring some form of Style Sheet markup to control presentation there will be a need to learn it. However, Netscape 6 has very poor support for CSS. Although as mentioned before they do degrade very well indeed.

Aspen, don't make numbers up

[BC]

LOL @ Nicky

Latest stats on percentage of browser usage : http://websnapshot.mycomputer.com/in...sig=2098891861

[Nicky]

Hey - nice resource site!

[Nordan]

thaz goin in my bookmarks

now i can prove to all those netscape heads that even if it did perform better than IE like they say.. IE holds the majority of users by far.

[aspen]

These are todays stats from my site. The red ones are all IE 4+

MSIE v5.x 34.90% 5331
AOL's Browser v6.x 16.85% 2574
AOL's Browser v5.x 12.56% 1918
Other Agents 10.74% 1641
Netscape v4.7 7.61% 1162
MSIE v4.x 4.27% 652
Netscape v4.0 3.88% 593
AOL's Browser v4.x 3.63% 555
Netscape v4.5 1.91% 292
Netscape v4.6 1.90% 290
Netscape v3.x 0.42% 64
Cache/Proxy server 0.39% 59
Netscape v5.x 0.37% 57
Border Manager 0.15% 23
AOL's Browser v3.x 0.14% 22
WebTV 0.10% 15
Lynx 0.09% 13
MSIE v3.x 0.07% 11
MSIE v2.x 0.01% 1

[BC]

Mileage will vary around the world (for example, here in Australia the percentage of Netscape users (and on Macintoshes) is a little bit higher) but it gives a pretty decent snapshot. CNet reported about 2 months ago the figure was around 80/20 in favor of IE too.

[lynlimz]

Well, Been saying this for many times.

I encourage you to use CSS. Simply because what Netscpae doesn't support isn't enough to make you keep away from CSS.
There are many workarounds for Netscape's incompatibility with certain CSS elements.

Let me explain a bit.
If you're designing a site now, you gotta use CSS.
If you alreayd know, Netspcae 6 is based upon Mozilla builds. And it suports CSS 1 very well. If you were to plan for the future, using CSS would mean compatibility with Netscape 6, IE4 +, and NS4+

Just my piece of advice. Ultimately, the choice is yours

[westmich]

Originally posted by Nicky
CSS is certainly an issue. With XML requiring some form of Style Sheet markup to control presentation there will be a need to learn it. However, Netscape 6 has very poor support for CSS. Although as mentioned before they do degrade very well indeed.

Aspen, don't make numbers up

How are defining 'poor support'? I thought Netscape 6 100% compliance with W3C CSS Level 1?

[Nordan]

yes they are but not level 2

[lynlimz]

netspcae 6 supports a few elemnts from CSS2

[Bane]

Since CSS2 is a recomendation at current I dont see the problem. IE and Opera dont fully support CSS2 either, unless my knowledge of the subject is outdated.

[lynlimz]

Of cause when using CSS, stick to CSS1

Thats more then enough to format your pages

[BC]

Originally posted by Bane
Since CSS2 is a recomendation at current I dont see the problem. IE and Opera dont fully support CSS2 either, unless my knowledge of the subject is outdated.

That is correct.

[Nicky]

Yes ditto!

If you are going to use CSS then be it CSS1!