Re: H e l p ! ... with consistent display

> I got out of web design when CSS/DHTML came on the scene for exactly this
> reason... can someone help me get a more consistent display?
>
> I designed some pages using NN4.x on Mac, hoping that if I started with
the
> lowest common denominator, it would look similar on the newer browsers.  I
> also made sure it would work on non-CSS browsers as I built.

If this is your first CSS website, you did an excellent job.  I started with
one CSS tag to set one font size and it has been one long learning
experience for severa; years.  Cheer up, I think your site is almost there,
you have done a lot of good work and I am sure you will get lots of great
advice here.

Bear in mind I am using a PC with i.e. 5.5 which is one of the most .CSS
capable browsers out there, it will display just about anything it's told.
I am not too savy on what works and what doesn't on the Mac. - as far as CSS
is concerned.


Question 1  OK, lets start with which standard to use.  If you are like me
you paid by how much real work you accomplish.  Strict HTML is doable, but
takes more time because you have to come up with a lot of CSS ways to handle
the missing tags in the stricter versions.  Ideally of you wanted to go this
route you would want to use XHTML 1.1 which is the most recent.

For me the answer was easy.  I have two websites that are my responsibility
and each is over 1000 pages of HTML.  My boss wouldn't even discuss
converting all that to strict. I am stuck with a transitional version.  My
only concern is support for transitional in future browsers, but the way the
W3C and MicroSoft is, who knows where this will go in future.

Question 2.   Looking at your .css file I see that you have mixed font sizes
using pixels points and percentages.  That's a nightmare.  Browser support
for all three types in older browsers is very patchy.  We could discuss this
to death, but I have had the most success using only points as long as I
keep the size at least 10pts or larger.

You used one table for the whole page.  I find it easier to use 2 or 3
smaller tables because it makes it easier to lay out different parts of the
page.  In the old days one table was important because it took the browser
time to figure everything out and start displaying it.  With todays faster
computers thats not a problem anymore.

Words are right up against the left borders.  Adding a cellpadding of 5 to
10 in the table(s) would give you more room around the borders in the table
and make it much easier to read.

Having borders around the menus at left and the text at right might be a bit
distracting.  Have you considered buttons there?

On final thing, I would replace the Chicago font with Arial or at least add
Arial.  All PC's have Arial, even old ones.  Many folks have Geneva and
Verdana but you can't be 100% sure.

Good luck with your project.

Paul Wilson
webguroo(at)tampabay.rr.com

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