A Padded Cell - CSS

Complete Guide to Pre-Installed Fonts in Linux, Mac, and Windows

Megan McDermott — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:01:04 +0000

Web fonts are gaining in popularity now, but they can still be a bit of a challenge to use. Copyright issues often require the use of a third-party font service, which can be risky and expensive.The good news is that all major operating systems come with a variety of fonts that you can use to create your font stacks.

CSS3 selectors simplified, Part 1: Simple selectors and attribute selectors

Megan McDermott — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:55:32 +0000

CSS 3 has introduced a variety of new selectors that can be used to access elements in a web page. While some of these were available in CSS 2.1, the range of new options can be confusing. How can you make sense of it all? Read on!

Divitis: What it is and how to avoid it (Updated!)

Megan McDermott — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:38:40 +0000

When developing your website in HTML, you might be tempted to use the <div> tag to sovle problems. Things not lining up in every browser? Maybe another containing <div> would help. Don't know how to select that particular element? Wrap a <div> around it!

CSS fundamentals: Data types (colours, lengths, URLs)

Megan McDermott — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:52:03 +0000

All CSS properties have a specified type of value they can accept. Values may be keywords, lengths, colours, numbers, or url's. This article will explain some of the specifics of CSS values, including how colours are specified, what units of measurement are allowed, and how URL are specified.

CSS fundamentals: Selectors

Megan McDermott — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:50:37 +0000

In CSS, Selectors are used to select HTML elements for styling. There are many different ways to select elements. This article will cover the most basic types of selectors: element selectors, classes, and ID's as well as the concepts of grouping and descendent selectors.

CSS fundamentals: The absolute basics

Megan McDermott — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:01:11 +0000

This article will begin a series on CSS fundamentals. To begin, we need to understand what CSS is and how to use it. This article will include a definition of CSS, an overview of what a CSS rule looks like, and a summary of the methods available to use CSS in your web pages.

Choosing your web building software

Megan McDermott — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:29:15 +0000

To build a website you need several types of software: a code editor, an FTP client, a graphics editor, and a selection of web browsers are the basics. This article will describe these tools and suggest popular software to try. In most cases, there are many alternatives available. It's a good idea to try several of them and see what works best for you.

How to create a multi-column, widgitized footer for Wordpress

Megan McDermott — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:14:32 +0000

Multi-column footers are a big trend in web design these days. It's a great way to provide more information and links to visitors without cluttering up the top part of your layout. On content pages, this information appears just when the user has finished reading your article, leading them to find more great content on your site and other ways to interact. This article will show you how to make a 3- 4- or more-column, widgitized footer in Wordpress.

21 ways to streamline your CSS

Megan McDermott — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:57:18 +0000

These days, CSS development is a complex process. You may be working on sites with large CSS files, multiple developers ,and long development timelines. The more complex your CSS files become, the more difficult it is to work with them. This article will present some tips and tricks for keeping your CSS files organized and easy to work with.

3 Ways to Highlight Links to the Current Page with CSS

Megan McDermott — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:44:11 +0000

Good usability suggests that you should always indicate links to the page the user is currently on. In fact, in an ideal case you wouldn’t link to the current page at all. On the other hand, in order to build a site that’s consistent and easy to maintain, navigation menus need to be either included with a separate html file or generated with a scripting language.

What is a Div?

Liam McDermott — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 18:32:28 +0000

Web designers use it nearly every day, but not many actually know what the div tag means and where it should be used. This article aims to de-mystify the div tag, explain when and where it should be used and compare it with the similar span tag.

Using Web Standards to Reduce Cost

Liam McDermott — Sat, 12 May 2007 06:10:08 +0000

The advantages of Web standards have been listed in this series of articles. These advantages can also reduce the cost of a project, which is what this article aims to show.

Creating a semantic FAQ page with definition lists and advanced CSS, Part 2

Megan McDermott — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 19:39:11 +0000

In Part 1 of this series, we created a semantic FAQ page using definition lists and made it look pretty with CSS. Now it's time to work on some more functionality.

Creating a semantic FAQ page with definition lists and advanced CSS, Part 1

Megan McDermott — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 16:34:12 +0000

Most websites have FAQ pages, but few put much effort into creating an attractive and usable interface. This article will explain one method of creating a nice FAQ page

Future Proofing Using Standards

Liam McDermott — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:37:34 +0000

When creating sites it is important to realise the code might not be changed for years. This article shows how Web standards can be used to ensure a Web site still looks good, and functions well, years after it's creation.

Ensuring People with Disabilities have Equal Access

Liam McDermott — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:23:01 +0000

Continuing the ‘Web Standards for Everyone’ series, this article discusses the use of Web standards to ensure the disabled have equal access to Web sites.

11 Practical Reasons to use CSS for Layout

Megan McDermott — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:10:27 +0000

In this article I'm not going to talk about semantics, ‘proper’ coding, or the W3C. You've probably heard all of that already (and if you haven't, you can check out Why Tables for Layout is Stupid: problems defined, solutions offered by Bill Merikallio and Adam Pratt). Instead of preaching about standards, I am going to present some real world, results–oriented reasons to use CSS instead of tables for web page layout. Let's get started right away.

Web Standards for Everyone

Liam McDermott — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:30:46 +0000

There are many tutorials explaining how to use Web Standards ^[1], what seems to be missing are reasons to use Web Standards. This series of articles aims to remedy that.

Internet Explorer Unable to Count to 100

Liam McDermott — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:43:29 +0000

This article demonstrates the difficulties Internet Explorer has when calculating percentage widths in CSS-based layouts.