[thelist] Re: Css Site Questions

[Diane Soini]

On Friday, January 21, 2005, at 12:30 PM, 
thelist-request at lists.evolt.org wrote:

I seek advice on ways to bette rbuild this if anyone can provide
> suggestions I would appreciate it!!!
>
> http://www.constructweb.com/css/russ/
>
> 1) if anyone has any betters way to approach this almost tableless
> design I would love to hear it
>
> 2) the blue background is Just there to see the problem -- why is the
> height so big ----??? I cant figure it out---
>
> 3) the 6 reasons section has a box model problem - i believe which I
> think I can fix - (look at it in firefox)
>
> 4) notice I relatively positioned the boxes - in a "boxcontent" div -
> yet they are different in IE and firefox--- there's a hack to correct
> this right?
>

I'm not clear what you are asking. I don't do Windows (at home) so I'm 
not sure what the problem you have is in that department

Anyway, I did notice this line of code over and over:
<table id="formnav" cellspacing=5  cellpadding align="center">

You have no value for cellpadding, and the id="formnav" is used many 
times. You can have only one instance of formnav if the selector is an 
id.

Here's another:
<span style="font: bold 10px 'Trebuchet MS',Arial, Helvetica, 
sans-serif; color:black; margin-left: 10px; margin-top: 330px;">Privacy 
Policy</span>
This isn't much better than using a font tag.

Here's another:
<ol>
<li><span class="listtext">Quote forms are
short and simple</span></li>
etc...

Why add the span with the class?

Here's how I understand how a CSS layout is done:
You define regions of the page, usually with a <div 
id="meaningful-label">.
Then you can define the children of that container like so:
#meaningful-label ol li { ... }
#meaningful-label table td { ... }
#meaningful-label p.whatever {...}
etc....
And you leave ALL the presentational attributes out of the HTML 
completely. (Such as cellpadding and <span style="..."> etc.)

Keep working at it. I suggest looking for a good book or web site that 
explains not just hacks for how to get things to look how you want, but 
that actually explains semantic mark-up and the separation of 
presentation, content and behavior. It may seem like veering off into a 
different direction, but once you understand that, the CSS is MUCH 
easier to do.