[thelist] how does XHTML/CSS separate content from design mor e than using nested tables and the like?

[Martin]

On Thursday, May 9, 2002, at 10:49  pm, Means, Eric D wrote:

>> and with regards to complex designs with CSS, are there any limitations
>> to the layouts possible? (i'd assume that the answer would be no.)
>> specifically, could a site like amazon.com be built using CSS only? or
>> any other such site as that? the reason i ask that is because except
>> for
>
> It could, but depending on how cross-browser and cross-platform it is,
> it
> may not look the same in every browser without incredible amounts of
> effort.

However, the key question is "how much does that matter?"

For Amazon, probably not that much:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html/t/002-7623209-3424838

For other companies where "the way it looks" is the most
important brand value (actually, studies show that the
creative is one of the least significant factors in adding
value), probably more so.

> Sadly, CSS is still somewhat buggy in many cases.

If you're being anal about your precious design, sure. But
in most cases, as long as the site is recognisably similar, it
really won't matter.

The biggest headache is where browsers (ie4.5/mac probably
the most common one) understand the @import syntax yet don't
understand enough CSS-P to render the results with any kind of
accuracy.

But this is solvable with a server-side solution where you put
browsers such as this on an exemption list.

Other than that, *all* browsers can get *all* content on a page
laid out with CSS-P.

I've just browsed my site with Lynx, and it makes 100% sense.
It would do the same in a screen-reader, or on a PDA.

Try that with a hard-coded table layout - you'd need to be über-careful,
and even then it wouldn't work in many cases.

Cheers
Martin
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