Learning CSS for layout
Out of context: Reply #20
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- runDMB0
CSS for layout is easier than you'd think. I started using it a year or so ago for page structure and it makes most things very simple.
It can actually be pixel perfect and cross-browser. It also makes it very easy to build dynamic sites.
Obviously it's a bonus if you can get away with targeting newish browsers as you don't have to employ so many hacks to hold things together. Firefox and IE6 handle most stuff pretty well (building your experience up will help you learn how to overcome the few oddities that they throw up in terms of how certain things are rendered).
The best thing is just how little code is required on the page to produce pretty complex layouts that can be tweaked and farted about with to your hearts content without clunking table cells all over the place. What a lot of people forget is that with a correctly structured page you can effectively completely redesign a site just by altering the style sheet.
For a great book I can heartily recommend the Zeldman book, "Designing with web standards" as a starting point. It's very easy to follow, particularly if you already use CSS aspects of your site other than layout.
Ultimately, it looks like browsers will increasingly adopt these standards in the future so if you get an understanding now, your sites are always going to work and (hopefully) look good in the future.
It'll take you a week or so to start doing some good stuff, maybe less.