Follow-up [Re: Multi-column output]

Tamara, Bob, and HWG Techniques Listers,

Back in January, I posted a challenge to see if anyone could determine if it
was possible to create a multi-column output format for long runs of text.
The goal was to take a block of text and display it in two or three flowing
columns, regardless of screen res. No one, including my business partner who
does all the programming, could think of a viable way to do this, and it was
assumed to be impossible.

But I recently found that someone HAS done exactly this. I found this site
while reading an article link posted by someone else regarding screen
resolutions. The site that has accomplished this is www.iht.com -- click on
any of their stories and you'll see the multicolumn format (minimum res is
800x600 for multi-column output). While I've not fully tested this, it does
work in MSIE 5.x and N6. I have a pared-down copy of the required code and
supplementary files in ZIP format if anyone is interested.

My problem is that this site is pretty sophisticated -- beyond my abilities,
in fact -- and even though I've managed to reduce the unnecessary load, I'm
still stuck with six JavaScript files, an impressively large CSS file, and
the main HTML file. I'd like to pare this down to even fewer pieces,
removing stuff that is not used (some of the JS files are for specific
functionality for things that I've either managed to remove successfully or
at least "hide" for displaying -- one such example is their Cookie-based
Clippings Container) -- I am not good enough at JS programming to go much
further with the cutting, as I keep throwing errors when I do.

If anyone can figure out how to cut this down to just the necessary CSS
Styles, JS file, and graphics required to display ONLY what is visible on
the HTML page, and make it simple enough for beginner programmers like
myself to understand, I would be greatful.

Thanks in advance,
Kehvan M. Zydhek

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