[thelist] [HW] Re: <spacer>

Mark Gallagher mark at cyberfuddle.com
Thu May 30 20:44:06 CDT 2002


Daniel Fascia writes:
>>> tag rather then the (bad) practise of using transparent graphics to
>>> space elements out.
>>
>>A little judgmental perhaps...it wasn't _always_ considered a bad practice.
>
> There is absolutely nothing wrong with using transparent gifs to align elements. And for anybody is about to argue that one should be using CSS these days, then my
> reply is simple... CSS doesnt consistently work throughout browsers, transparent gifs DO!

Um, wrong on all counts.  Well, sort of.

Transparent GIFs means extra rendering time, and the potential screwing-up
of text-based browsers (I've observed that those who are most likely to use
the transparent GIF hack are the ones who are also most likely to be too
stupid to use ALT text).  Also, from a purist's point of view, it's wrong
because you're using markup for presentation.

CSS is the "sort of".  You see, it's true that CSS doesn't consistently work
on all browsers, but it's also true that *this doesn't matter*.  If it looks
good, and works (as CSS, in theory, will), who cares if it looks slightly
different between IE6 and IE5.5?  Who cares if Opera and Mozilla render it
slightly differently?  Who cares if Dillo can't see it?  Your presentation
is important, but it's not *that* important.

Finally transparent GIFs *don't* work consistently across all browsers.
Consider Lynx, Links, and any browser with images turned off.  Consider w3m.
Consider those who use "ordinary" browsers but have a different window size
 - how will that affect your text?

I'd go on, but I think you see my point.

--
Mark Gallagher
http://cyberfuddle.com/infinitebabble/



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