[thelist] Total separation of content and presentation

Dan Eastwell danieleastwell at onetel.com
Tue Dec 21 10:14:50 CST 2004


Hi Ellen,

I think that's something I've attempted at www.rainbow.uk.net. I've 
tried to use as few containing divs as is at all possible, and to have a 
content that would be resizable without losing the form and would work 
in as many browsers as possible with as few hacks as is possible in the 
code.

I keep attempting to get this holy grail of divorced styling and 
structure, but it's currently more or less impossible, if you want 
complete backwards compatibility and cross browser compatibility.  I've 
tended to need to tweak code for various browsers  and add classes 
accordingly. It doesn't make for pretty reading! (see 
http://test.danieleastwell.co.uk)

I would have to say that a search for a completely independent structure 
is not overwhelmingly possible, if you look at things like, say, the CSS 
zen garden, where the HTML marked up with a lot of divs, classes etc, 
leading to acceptable, but not very realistic markup, but allowing for 
any number of designs, with no need to worry about ordering.

There's lots needed to bear in mind with a three column fluid layout, 
especially in terms of having certain columns with fixed width for, say 
readability (e.g. a ten word per line rule). IE6 has a tendency to 
'wrap' the third column. I've found that consistent use of ems for 
sizing and a wrapper div (although not really semantic) does the job.

Hopefully this is the kind of thing you are looking for and I'm not 
covering ground you've looked at already...

Thanks,

Dan.

Ellen Kanner wrote:

> We are looking to use <divs>, most definitely.
>
> What we're trying to accomplish is a page laid out in the CSS, 
> independent of the order/structure it appears in the HTML.  <divs> 
> that are independent of one another and could be relocated, within the 
> CSS, without having to go into the HTML.  Not using container <divs>, 
> if it's possible.
> We're trying to establish our 'perma-code', so should a new design 
> come down the pike, we could modify the style sheets in a few 
> locations, rather than go in to thousands of HTML pages and do the 
> restructuring there. Anyone done tests without container <divs> and 
> hacks? Our layout will be three fluid columns, any length, with 
> flexible vertical sizing on divs so text can be resized.
>
> We'd like to talk with anyone who has experience with this...
>
> : )  ellen
>
>
>
> On Dec 21, 2004, at 9:34 AM, Tony Crockford wrote:
>
> At 14:01 on Tuesday, 21 Dec 2004, Ellen Kanner wrote:
>
>> We've been searching far and wide without (complete) success, and it 
>> may not be possible. But, before we give in and use divs instead of 
>> tables, we thought we'd ask if anyone has worked on this.
>>
>> Can you help?
>
>
> CSS can only position elements on a page.  usually you group a number 
> of paragraph elements in a div and position that.
>
> I'm not sure I'm clear on how you plan to position groups of elements 
> without using divs.  I'm also unclear as to why you'd want to do this?
>
> a simply structured html document:
>
> <div id="header"></div>
> <div id="nav"></div>
> <div id="content"></div>
> <div id="footer"></div>
>
> makes more sense than trying to layout individual paragraphs, links 
> and lists.
>
> perhaps you could explain in more detail what you hope to acheive?
>
> ;o)



-- 
Daniel Eastwell

http://www.thoughtballoon.co.uk



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