[thelist] IE6 doesnt like spacer gifs?

[Simon Willison]

Hi Roger,

Tuesday, August 5, 2003, 12:34:26 AM, you wrote:
>> or, how about writing html that doesn't rely on so many little 1x1
>> spacer gifs?
> You have no idea how much firepower this has given me to really get the
> push to a table-less, all(or primarily)-CSS design going for our site.

CSS isn't an all-or-nothing thing. One of the greatest benefits of
learning how to use CSS for layout is that you suddenly understand how
it can be used on existing table based layouts. A great example is
padding; how many designs have you seen (or worked on) where nested
tables are used to add padding to a design, because setting
cellpadding on a table isn't flexible enough? With the CSS padding
property applied to a table cell you can lose a whole nested table,
and still be comfortable that your design will work in browsers all
the way back to Netscape 4.

I haven't used a spacer.gif in well over a year, and to be honest I've
more or less forgotten what I had to use them for in the first place,
but I'm certain that anything they are being used for in a traditional
table based layout could be achieved by adding a small amount of CSS
instead. I'd be happy to give examples if someone would post a few
classic uses for spacers - in fact, techniques for replacing spacer
gifs with CSS could make a good article for Evolt.

Cheers,

Simon
-- 
http://simon.incutio.com/