Why CSS? I don't get it!

[TheChill_com]

"span.heading { font-weight : bold; font : 12px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; color : #000000; }

done.
now, specify it in your page.
<span class="heading">Heading Text</span> "


I am just starting to implement CSS and only know basics but I have a question. I leave mine none specific--for example instead of span.heading I would have just .heading Is there something wrong with that? So when I go to implement it I can just call <e class=heading>Whatever</e> or use any other single letter. That makes for less work rather then "span". Is there something wrong with doing that? is there a reason to use "span" or is it just what people decided to use? if even if you used <font class=heading>whatever</font>. Just wondering if it matters what you put there in front if you leave it blank

[duckie]

Nothing wrong with not specifying any tags to go along with the class.

There are situations where you might want to, say, have both td.nav and a.nav, and that they should do different things. Then you should do them seperately.

[lynlimz]

The reason why I use span.XXX is my style sheets are very complex. as in...it has alot of style spseicfied.

so if i were to specify span.heading, i can use the text 'heading' for other purposes.

say i have my heading text in a table.
I want the table black and my span text white.

so i do this

td.heading { background-color : #000000; }
span.heading { font-weight : bold; }

get what i mean now?

[cd]

hey heavy,
you took the words out of my mouth, when I first stumbled upon css, i said the same thing. why go to all that trouble of recoding my site to incorporate css style sheet hrefs.... when is already a masterpiece in basic html?
because css is awesome! stay with it, keep digging deeper and you will see the advantages.
for example: you want to make ALL the horizontal rules on ONLY the 25 black pages of your 70 page site, red in color and 50% in size.
instead of spending hours recoding EVERY black page, all you have to do is insert the appropriate tag in your style sheet and every horizontal rule, on every black page will be size-50% color-red. takes 5 seconds to make it happen!
this is just a very basic example, you can do so much more with all tags.

if you are still learning and want to find out more, check out this freebie 15 day trial download to get some ideas:
http://www.westciv.com/style_master/

it was very helpful to me, to take the tutorial... instead of just 'using' the program. for me, it's better to understand what i am doing, rather than letting the program do it for me.

good luck! i bet you'll soon be addicted to style sheets, as i am.

chris

[ladybracknell]

Up to now I've tried to fool myself into hiding under the table with style sheets - on the grounds that I only started this sitebuilding malarkey a couple of months ago. I've hidden under the table (and behind them!) but the arguments are persuasive. Just how many browsers don't support them?

[Jeremy W.]

Browser support charts (for IE and NS) for each feature can be found at www.studiococo.com/index.asp?reference

Beyond that, I don't know how opera, MSN Explorer, AOL, etc support individual properties.

[pony]

Lot's of great points made here. Especially on what CSS can do for you the designer right now.
But, CSS and its scary big brother XSL will also become more and more important in the future.
We're not quite there yet but web-based content will increasingly be delivered to any number of devices. If you can separate style from content it means with a bit of forethought you can have one piece of content that can be pushed through any number of styles to fit with any number of devices, any number of user preferences as well.
It also means, in conjunction with XML, content can be seamlessly shifted from one site to another and appear correct wherever it ends up. Why's that good? Well, one example could be a site like sitepoint selling on some of its content into other sites, intranets, web tv applications, etc.
So it is definitely worth getting your head around this stuff now.

[samtha25]

Isn't it necessary to still use tables for layouts to support Navigator 4.x browsers for anything but a very straightforward, simple page?

[Jeremy W.]

NS supports positioning as detailed in www.studiococo.com/index.asp?reference ... I'm not just doing this to push my site, but even I () can't memorize all of this, so it's great to have it spelled out.

[Adam P.]

I started a thread like this only about a month ago asking almost the same exact question (I think it was in the Web Design Forum).

Anyways, I got some great replies from people at the Forums, and I have learned to love CSS. It provides great little tricks to make a page look nicer, and it makes redesign so much easier, I couldn't even explain. I hope you decide to use it.

P.S. Be open minded!