cascading style sheets - CSS
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, it allows you to use a
set of code to control the look of your text, tables, style
instead of multiple font tags. The benefits? You can, and in some
cases greatly, reduce the overall size of your page - you have
no idea what a WYSIWYG editor can do if you've never viewed the
source. You can also save yourself a ton of time making changes
to the look and feel of your site. Say your site is a blue/Gary
kinda theme and one day you get sick of it.. you think a lime
green background would be better but in order to make this change
you need to open and edit .. oh.. 80 pages, daunting task huh.
Not with CSS. If you use an externally linked style sheet it's
as easy as opening one file, making the appropriate code change,
saving it and uploading it to your server.. darn - lime green
not as great as you thought it would be? No problem, just change
the file back and re-upload it.. It's really that easy. Changing
an established site may seem .. well.. frightening but it's well
worth the time and effort down the line.
recommended off site links
Glish.com :: Eric Costello
presents not only an amazing wealth of info regarding CSS, but
he also provides free site templates for basic, validated, site
design using compliant CSS. Great for learning. I used this one
the most.
w3 ::
w3 has the handiest (IMHO) CSS tutorials I've ever seen. Easy
to read and follow. Great for quick checks on code you don't use
often and provides live examples. Their quiz is fun to check yourself
- I take it every so often just to see where I stand :) I did
rather bad the first couple times but now I average only 1-2 wrong.
Good thing it doesn't go on my permanent record!
HTMLgoodies
:: another useful tutorial and how-to site for CSS. Some of their
info may seem a bit dated (poking around I found one article dated
97) the info really hasn't changed much - just been added to.
WebMonkey
:: a quick little 5 part intro how-to type article. Good place
if you really don't know where to begin.
well, so much for my promises eh? I last touched this here page
in Aug '02 - moving right along...
1/03 :: added initial paragraph about CSS, w3 - htmlgoodies and
webmonkey links and text.
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