Assistance with CSS please

[Lesley Blakey]

Hi

I am putting together a web site that will prodominantley use CSS rather
than tables. Most of the page design works well and everything is in place.

The link to the test pages is http://www.les99.co.uk/nslcweb/index.php

The central main content block has a defined height and when the content of
the block exceeds the defined height the content flows as expected. The two
further boxes under this main content box, i.e. go to top and bottom menu
bar, are in absolute positions which is fine when the main content box does
not overflow. I reliase that the go to top and bottom menu bars should be
set as relative so that when the text exceeds the defined height in the main
central box the go to top and bottom menu bars will position themsleves
accordingly. However this does not seem to work.

You can see from the credits page that the main content box has overflowed
and at present the other two boxes are set to absolute, however when I
change them to relative they do not go into the correct position either.

I am using four different style sheets for the different text sizes and one
template for the whole of the site. I realise a work around would be not to
use a template and to use a different style sheet for every page but then
this would be cumbersome and defeat the purpose.

I am fairly new to web design and would appreciate any assistance available.

Many thanks

Lesley

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

I am using four different style sheets for the different text sizes

Why bother? Stop using font sizing at all, and set your main body font
to 100%, with minor changes for <hx> and legalese elements. Let your
users decide what is best for themselves.

body { font-size: 100%; }
h1 { font-size: 150%; }
h2 { font-size: 135%; }
h3 { font-size: 125%; }
..legalese { font-size: 85%; }

Sure eliminates a lot of the complexity, and may even fix the problem
you posted about.

http://k75s.home.att.net/fontsize.html

 

[Andy Dingley]

I am putting together a web site that will prodominantley use CSS rather
than tables.

So use CSS then, rather than the number of superfluous tables you're
still using.

Using DreamWeaver has probably been the culprit here. It's not a good
choice for good quality web design.

Most of the page design works well and everything is in place.

I certainly wouldn't say "works well". IMHO it's ugly, works badly, and
probably took more effort to achieve than doing it right. Find a good
CSS-based example site and borrow that (try glish.com, bluerobot,
alistapart and many others)

> The central main content block has a defined height and when the content of
the block exceeds the defined height the content flows as expected.

There's no content in your test page, so it's impossible to judge this.
Put some lorem ipsum in there, then see how it behaves.

I am using four different style sheets for the different text sizes

That's a terrible idea, stop it right now.

Use one style sheet, use em-based font sizing and let users manage
their own default text sixes. "Text only" stylesheets are a bogosity
too.

Also these font links do something funny to my Back button, which is an
annoyance.

You're also using (and mis-using) XHTML, so go back to HTML 4.01 Strict
(or else find a good reason to use XHTML, and learn to do it right).

 

[Lesley Blakey]

Many thanks for your advice. I still need to use the switcher for text size
rather than using IE View option, but I will try changing the text sizes to
% rather than pixels and see what happens !

The link was great, Have found lots of useful things by going to Mr Poley's
main page. A lot of reading ahead for me !

Thanks again
Lesley

 

[Lesley Blakey]

Hi Andy

Thanks for your advice, really appreciate the time everyone has taken to
have a look at the site and give their comments. As you can no doubt I'm
fairly new to web design. However trying to do the best I can within my
capabilities using Dreamweaver as this is all I know and even then I only
know the basics !

I wish I could use CSS only rather than the mix of tables and CSS but my
lack of knowledge does not allow me to. I wish I knew how, but hopefully I
will learn and in the future will be able to recify this.

Thanks for the links to the CSS websites. I will have a good browse around
not that I'll probably make much sense of it.

Don;t really know the difference between Xhtml and html 4.01, so not sure
how I would change what I already have done. Just using DW.

Regardless of all my other issues the one thing I really want to know how to
do is to put my "got to top" and my "bottom menu bar" in a footer as such,
so no matter how long the the content of the "maincontent box" is, the "go
to top" and "bottom menu bar" follow on say 10 px after. Hope that makes
sense. Have put extended text in the main content box to show you what I
mean.

Lesley

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Many thanks for your advice. I still need to use the switcher for
text size rather than using IE View option,

But why? If you set your page to use 100% for base content font size,
the visitors will see it in their preferred size. Why complicate matters
so much?

If a visitor is inexperienced enough to know how to change it, well,
there's no hope for them. <g> You could - if you must - put a blurb on
the page directing them to their menus where they may do it themselves.

Note too that different browsers use different methods to change fonts.
Firefox, for example, I just press Control-Plus once or twice when I
encounter a microfont site. In Opera, I click that little percentage
dropdown. However, if you use 100% you can dispense with the whole deal.

but I will try changing the text sizes to % rather than pixels and see
what happens !

Once you understand how it works, I think you will see that your
'sizing' gadgets aren't necessary.

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

But why? If you set your page to use 100% for base content font size,
the visitors will see it in their preferred size. Why complicate matters
so much?

Quite. I know one soi-disant accessibility site which offers text in
three sizes - what I would call "microscopic", "too small", and
"almost big enough", as seen on my display (desktop or lap). On
initial entry to the site, the default text size is "microscopic".

How on Earth is a visitor who needs text much larger than what is
needed by mainstream users, ever going to find the microscopic
instructions for doing so? Easy: one way is by overriding the
author's font sizing in favour of the reader's choice. The menu with
the three (why only three? Even MesSIE offers five!) then shows all
three sizes the same, does nothing, and therefore becomes a pointless
nuisance, trying, on every page, to lure the reader away from the tool
which really works. (They failed HTML validation, CSS too, but you'd
probably expect that).

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Beauregard T. Shagnasty replied to hisself:

If a visitor is inexperienced enough to know how to change it

If a visitor is inexperienced enough to NOT know how to change it

 

[dorayme]

Quite.

Not quite. Because, though I am not saying it is not a good idea
to set base to 100%, it is a complicated matter. For a start,
visitors do not see fonts set to 100% in their preferred size
because the notion of a visitors "preferred size" is not a simple
matter. I have banged on before about this. But I don't blame
anyone for not noticing. However, there is a small price to pay,
you miss a pearl of my wisdom. It is a pity because I have not
too many of these in my bag.

Naturally I would prefer you not to agree with people on alt.html
before checking my writings on the matter. But what can I do?

 

[Andy Mabbett]

In message <[email protected]>,

I know one soi-disant accessibility site which offers text in three
sizes - what I would call "microscopic", "too small", and "almost big
enough" [...]
They failed HTML validation, CSS too, but you'd probably expect that

Name and shame!

 

[Andy Mabbett]

In message

Naturally I would prefer you not to agree with people on alt.html
before checking my writings on the matter. But what can I do?

Include their URL in your posts. HTH, HAND.

 

[dorayme]

In message


Include their URL in your posts. HTH, HAND.

Ah, yes, but I am not such a big fan of my own writings that I
remember where they all are. But it is outrageous that you lot
should not know of them. (btw, what do the last words in capitals
mean?)

 

[Andy Mabbett]

In message

(btw, what do the last words in capitals mean?)

They're not words. HTH, HAND.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

(btw, what do the last words in capitals mean?)

http://acronymfinder.com/

HTH.

 

[Sally Thompson]

Ah, yes, but I am not such a big fan of my own writings that I
remember where they all are. But it is outrageous that you lot
should not know of them. (btw, what do the last words in capitals
mean?)

Are you serious? Hope This Helps, Have A Nice Day

<http://www.acronymfinder.com/>
HTH<g>

 

[dorayme]

In message



They're not words. HTH, HAND.

OK, I will change my question: why are you shouting at me?

 

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

OK, I will change my question: why are you shouting at me?

It would only be shouting if they _were_ words.

(Though I would disagree with that assessment of them. Capitalizing
words for emphasis is perfectly acceptable; I don't know why it has
such a bad rep on Usenet. Capitalizing entire sentences could be
considered shouting, but the main reason against it is that it is
hard to read.)

 

[dorayme]

Are you serious? Hope This Helps, Have A Nice Day

<http://www.acronymfinder.com/>
HTH<g>

I am serious about the problem of font size. I do believe we
should all be using 100% for main body text and not much smaller
than .85em for other things. But the impression that is given at
alt.html is, imo, a naive one. Using 100% size does call for some
special attention to overall design because such a size often
appears quite big to viewers who themselves (and their browsers)
are conditioned by majority practice. It looks like a sort of
arms race. When just a few people are doing the right thing, they
are the ones that look odd man out, peculiar, gauche. Seems to me
that people or their browsers are mostly set to see the average
bunch of websites which use less than 100% - seemingly stupidly -
as a matter of course. So, given that almost no one knows how to
change the font size (isn't it just a mouse thing in IE Win, at
least in FF there are easy key combos), and given that it would
be nice that they do not have to, it is a slightly complicated
matter in delivering websites, in this respect.

 

[dorayme]

OK, I will change my question: why are you shouting at me?

It would only be shouting if they _were_ words.[/QUOTE]

But you have to admit that there is a raised volume implied in
the capitalization of Harmonic Assessment of Negative Dialogue.

 

[Andy Mabbett]

In message

OK, I will change my question: why are you shouting at me?

I'm not. TTFN.