Flutterby™! : CSS woes

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CSS woes

2002-02-24 05:12:29+01 by Dan Lyke 8 comments

Argh! So I've been playing with a new look for Flutterby, attempting to use CSS. I'm trying to make a 32 pixel high button bar, and I'd like to put the search text entry field in the middle of that button bar. Trivial with tables. I think I might be able to figure a way to make this work with CSS, but after hours of screwing with it I've decided it'll degrade nicer with tables. And render faster. Sigh. I guess that the CSS tutorial site I was looking at did this with tables should have been a clue.

[ related topics: Web development ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment made: 2002-02-24 06:37:23+01 by: mkelley

No offence Dan, but I don't see how it can render faster with tables. The browser has to wait until the tables render and then load the content of the tables. With CSS, the page loads and then a CSS file does. I'm not that big of a CSS geek, just been coding my fingers off for the past few weeks in it.

I'm still faster with tables, but CSS is getting there. I have two sites going live, here and here. One is CSS and the other tables. I did a CSS version of the tables-based site here. The CSS seems to load faster, but is missing a couple of javascripts and might be the reason.

#Comment made: 2002-02-24 07:16:15+01 by: Dan Lyke

I don't know either, but with Opera 6.0TP3 it does. It may be the anti-flicker thing, actually, it needs to load the CSS page before it'll display, but I'll have to watch a CPU meter while it's rendering to see.

I think I'll just have to do 4.0/transitional, force user input data to 4.0/strict (which Todd will hate 'cause he won't be able to do his funky colored links any more... [evil grin]), and keep a few things in tables.

#Comment made: 2002-02-24 15:09:17+01 by: meuon

And the rant begins. CSS is a partially useful tool, poorly supported across browsers and with lots and lots of issues. I have used them, I do use them, but only in an absolutely minimal manner. I find they work best in the header of the actual web pages, or through a server side include, that way if they are not there or munged the pages still work.

#Comment made: 2002-02-24 17:33:54+01 by: DaveP

For the CSS rendering being slow, make sure you're not seeing the Flash of Unstyled Content.

#Comment made: 2002-02-24 20:09:31+01 by: Dan Lyke

That's what I meant about the "anti-flicker thing". It's loading off of local disk, I'll have to turn on the "let everything flash" buttons and see how it changes. Of course I also have to go check with IE (pronounced: "aaaeeeee", as in what one screams when falling off a cliff)...

#Comment made: 2002-02-24 21:47:21+01 by: meuon

I ma using Netscape on Linux, as well as Mozilla on Linux, and when I 'changed my preferences' I really don't see a style change. What's broke?

#Comment made: 2002-02-24 23:01:46+01 by: Dan Lyke

Nothing's changed on the Flutterby changes yet, I'm just playing with ideas.

#Comment made: 2002-02-25 05:30:00+01 by: meuon

OK.. I changed my settings with MSIE and it worked.. It's now a porn site (white text on black..) LOL..