Kevin J Pledger wrote: > I have read extensively articles, looked at code and looked at the > websites others are building who are on this list. I am used to > doing everything in tables, but CSS looks more interesting but so > much to learn for a newbie.
CSS has a pretty steep learning curve compared to HTML tables. > Guess I am trying to walk before I crawl in the CSS world. Guess that's a natural human reaction. Happens all the time :-) It is impossible to make <www.oneyed.com/mt> look like <www.oneyed.com/mt/LayoutGala07.html> without changing both the CSS and source-code radically. Two different methods are used. For a start: the former is based on 'absolute positioning' and the the latter is based on 'float'. 'A:P' layout-methods pretty much excludes 'float' as layout-methods in such a case. > How can I using the present code specify a minimum height for the > left / right content area's. The minimum height would be 100% of the tallest column, for all columns. That's easy with CSS in all browsers that supports 'CSS tables'... <http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/tables.html> ...but someone forgot to tell MSIE about that part of CSS - so we have to fake it one way or another... <http://www.gunlaug.no/tos/moa_11.html> <http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/onetruelayout/> <http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fauxcolumns/> > I still don't quite understand the difference between wrapper / > container and the use of float in the code. I try to experiment and > get frustrated. The built-in flexibility/complexity of CSS based layouts compared to 'HTML table', may be frustrating. HTML tables behave and appears one way - with only a few variations, while CSS can make most element-combinations behave and appear in a multitude of ways - and can also simulate HTML tables to perfection when needed. The only real limitation with CSS design is lack of support in browsers, where especially IE (all versions) is weak. In <www.oneyed.com/mt/LayoutGala07.html> #wrapper and #container are just IDs they've used on two different container-divs, since they style them to do different things. That's the flexibility of CSS again. - The 'float' property makes #wrapper expand (stretch in height) to contain #content and the two side-floats; #navigation and #extra. That's in part how the 'equal height columns' appearance is created in that layout. Floats and normal in-flow elements can be contained this way, but 'absolute positioned' elements, like you use in your page, can not. > What would be a good book for me to go and buy to use as reference > and online references, besides this list. I can't recommend any books on CSS since I haven't read any - yet. I _can_ recommend the 'CSS 2.1' specification... <http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/> ...and especially the 'Visual formatting model'... <http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visuren.html> ...since everything anyone needs to know about CSS - in order to start designing with it, is contained there. 'Web Design References' with 'Cascading Style Sheets' and all the other stuff, may also help... <http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/> regards Georg -- http://www.gunlaug.no ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d IE7 information -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=IE7 List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
