So I’m still still quite new to CSS. Sure I’ve been using all the little things built into Dreamweaver. But it hasn’t been until recently that I really dove into learning the tricks and tips of the whole CSS thing. It really is quite powerful and has lots of advantages over Tables. However tables do carry the advantage when it comes to large amounts of raw data. I thought I’d write some tips and ideas if you’re new to CSS. Perhaps these will help you in your early quest into CSS.

Old School Versus New School:

1. So you may ask, why should I use a CSS class over a FONT tag?

   One of the major reasons for using a class is that you are removing the need to repeat the definition of a style over and over again. With a font tag, you have to define size, color, and other attributes every time you want a particular style. With a CSS class, you can make a class and call it over and over again.

   Not only can you call it over and over again but when you change the styles attributes, everything changes instantly. None of that tedious Find and Replace stuff.

2. You can use CSS also to have much greater control over your typography. I remember back say 7 years ago when I first started using HTML. There was no such thing as Leading, kerning, padding, or margins. With you CSS you can control everything. I mean everything.
3. Next reason is things just look sexy. With CSS you can style just about everything. From mouse overs to background colors. You don’t have to use an Image (JPG, GIF, PNG) to have decent looking text. You can style it in CSS. You can layer too! Now thats a nice advantage. Layering used to SUCK back when I was a kid.

Layouts

1. Some people may think the three column layout is easier to do in CSS. I’m not one of those. I still love my tables. However it is useful to learn how to do the threecolumn in CSS. WHy? Because every major app (Wordpress, osCommerce, Joomla, Drupal…) is layed out with CSS.
2. CSS however does let you tweak your site to the pixel. It also does a great job with percentages. Lets say you want your site to scale up and down with the size of the browser. Every class can scale with its parent class. Nice advantage.

How to Learn it:

• CSS Play - Lots of fun ideas for CSS - http://www.cssplay.co.uk/
  
• CSS Zen Garden - Shows off the true flexibility of using CSS for layouts - http://www.csszengarden.com/
• HOVER - a guide to styling your links in CSS - http://www.echoecho.com/csslinks.htm

Thats a start. Of course there is tons more to CSS than what I’ve outlined here. But those are some of my thoughts on it for now.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 10th, 2006 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Graphic Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.