[thelist] Multiple Templates vs Multiple Style Sheets

Stephen Rider evolt_org at striderweb.com
Wed Mar 16 10:32:41 CST 2005


On Mar 15, 2005, at 10:30 AM, Chris Heilmann wrote:

>> Give the <body> of each page a class, depending on what section it is
>> in.  <body class="domaine"> and so forth.
>>
>> Then in the (one!) stylesheet you set the submenus visible or 
>> invisible
>> depending on whether the ID of the submenu matched the class of the
>> body
>
> This only applies to users of browsers with your style sheet enabled. 
> Just
> because you don't see things they are not gone. Other visitors might 
> get a
> menu they don't need and just confuses them. In the worst case they 
> have
> to tab through a lot of links or hear them.
>
> The above trick of a class on the body is great for colour schemes and
> positioning, but should not be abused for a problem that clearly is a
> structural issue, not a visual one.

Are you against using entire navigation lists in general, or are you 
put off by the fact that I left it as a bunch of DIVs instead of 
putting it in a UL?  I understand what you are saying, but it seems 
pretty common to structurally have the entire navigation, and tinker 
with CSS to hide/display parts of it as needed.  Do you consider 
Suckerfish menus a bad idea as well?

I left it as DIVs mainly because I was (perhaps inappropriately) trying 
to keep it very simple and focus on the specific technique I was 
describing.

A few skip links stuck in there would probably bypass the issue you 
describe (which is a legitimate concern), but I'm not sure why you see 
this as a bad idea overall.



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