[thelist] Unreliable borders

[carl.myhill at ps.ge.com]

Having just got my site through the rigours of xhtml, css, bobby and bobby
508 validation/certification it was with some dismay that I discovered even
more problems with something as simple as borders.

Just in debugging I added a few borders around my DIVs. With Safari the
presence of the border made the DIV sit in the right place, but removing the
border caused the whole DIV to slip by 20 pixels or so.

After I had worked around that with some messing around, basically by giving
the DIV which wanted a border in order to stay in place, a bottom border.
Previously the DIV below had a top border so I removed it for Safari's sake
and relied on the bottom border of the above DIV. That all worked ok.

The I checked IE Win 5.5 and 6 - no bottom border displayed at all (there
should be a line above and below the breadcrumbs)! If I give it a bottom and
a right border it displays but the bottom border on its own will not
display.

That's a lot of waffle - just really wanted to ask whether there is any
comprehensive explanation of cross-browser problems with Borders anywhere?

If you want a peak it's here
http://www.impingtonswimmingclub.org.uk/index_css9.html

Style sheet is here http://www.impingtonswimmingclub.org.uk/isc.css


I think what I really want is a bomb proof, browser proof, valid xhtml,
template for putting a simple logo and heading at the top of the page with a
bit of breadcrumb navigation under there and a search box. Doesn't sound
such a wild goal, but has proved hard and there seem lots of ways to skin
the cat.  Some use floats, some absolute, some z-order. I've got Chris
Schmitt's book but lots of good ideas in there are not cross browser robust.
What's the best book for cross browser safe styling? NYPL guidelines? Meyer?
Costello et al?

Any advice welcome.

Carl