Why? Why!?! WHY!!!???!!!???

Why can't CSS be supported the same way on every browser? I mean, should the way a CSS box is displayed really be different on IE 5 for the Mac and IE 5 for Windows?

Sigh. My life would be so much easier if I could use CSS instead of nested tables to create a box with a border on each side except the top. (http://www.planebusiness.com/new-default.asp -- HTML tables used to create the left navigation.)

-jlb

AMEN TO THAT! Imagine how much nicer all platforms and browsers would play together if this were so.

Woo Hoo! I fixed it!

Using this hack: http://www.tantek.com/CSS/Examples/boxmodelhack.html

I was able to create this page: http://www.planebusiness.com/testcss/index.shtm completely in CSS -- not a single table on the page!

I also recommend http://www.alistapart.com/stories/practicalcss/ , http://www.alistapart.com/stories/journey/ , and http://www.glish.com/css/ for more grrreaaat CSS goodies.

-jlb

--
"Most hacker types don't go in for garish avatars, because they know it takes a lot more sophistication to render a realistic human face than a talking penis." -- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Thanks jlb,

Perhaps we can take a look at these and see if they can help us with some of our weird CSS issues we hear about. Mainly - 5.1 IE on the Mac. Some of our (site) pages are reading the style sheet correctly while other are not! Lo - to have a site that works 100% for all users on all browsers, on all platforms, with the same connection speed. Is that too much to ask?

Amanda

Hey jlb,

How did you locate that hack? I know you gave us the link.....I am just curious as to your methods..

Let's begin the css mind meld.

I started my CSS quest via an article in the April 2002 issue of MacWorld. Unfortunately, I can't find the article on their web site.

From there, I followed the author's suggested reading (several different web sites) and got bogged down in the first one and then designed the pages based on what I knew there.

Following the initial failure, I let it sit and stew in my mind for about a week... Then I went back to the other web sites the author listed. Particularly, the two A List Apart links I listed above were of great help. From there, I got in to the Glish site and somewhere along in there I found the link to the box hack.

Basically, I had tried to jump head first in to something I didn't fully understand yet... which, for some things is OK. For CSS, I don't recommend it.

Along the way, I learned that IE 5 for Mac was the first mainstream browser to support CSS-1 almost completely correctly. It took until IE 6 to get the same for Windows. I also found that users with version 4 browsers are pretty much out of luck. And, Dreamweaver 4 has the same issues.

And I learned that it's not a perfect system. Even after almost six years since CSS-1 was released to the masses, it's still not a fully embraced standard. Once CSS is fully standardized and compliant on all browsers, it will be a fantastic time saver for web designers and it really offers a lot of cool options.

Anyway, we haven't started using the new CSS pages yet because of... well... issues. Sigh.

-jlb