Lloyd Hassell — Sat, 15 Jul 2000 16:38:14 +0000

CSS is very handy and will continue to improve as time passes. CSS will become an even more important part of web design in the future. The only thing that holds it back at the moment is browser compatibility issues. I read somewhere that the tag is going to be removed. W3C favours text control with CSS rather than tags.

Speaking of which...

TheGraphicsExperience — Fri, 14 Jul 2000 03:12:56 +0000

I'm dearly sad that the Consortium hasn't standardised the filter function. I use it exponentially in my sites, too.

Maverick — Fri, 14 Jul 2000 02:32:08 +0000

CSS 3 is consigned to the same fate as CSS 1 and CSS 2. The W3C can ponder standards from now until doomsday, but it doesn't mean a thing if it gets implemented poorly in the major browsers. Despite nebulous promises to support internet standards, neither Netscape nor Microsoft truly does it. They merely use their own views on the specs, so things look a bit different from browser to browser in the best case scenario and in the worst case sometimes the same code produces results that are not even recognizable as being related to each other.

CSS 3 looks great on the surface, but will it ever be that good in the real world? I'd bet that it won't. Some parts of the final CSS 3 spec will make it into the pipeline and achieve widespread usage (and I have high hopes for SVG), but other parts are just going to be more trouble than they're worth. Until Netscape and MS prove that they can get along and play nicely with each other, I'm going to keep using tables, invisible gifs and included files to control my layout and appearance rather than relying heavily on style sheets. At least I know that method works with a reasonable degree of backwards compatability without needing to design 2 different sites to accomodate the differences in browser page rendering.

temis — Thu, 13 Jul 2000 20:48:02 +0000

Cheers all,

I am glad I ran across this post - I haven't been keeping up with the W3C.

I will express my opinion, if I may...

I dont think that CSS is becoming pointless. The web continues to grow, and the standards grow accordingly. CSS 3 is taking the technology a step further with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)

Quote:
The advantages of style sheets in terms of presentational control, flexibility, faster download and improved maintenance are now generally accepted, certainly for use with text. SVG extends this control to the realm of graphics.

The combination of scripting, DOM and CSS is often termed "Dynamic HTML" and is widely used for animation, interactivity and presentational effects. SVG allows the same script-based manipulation of the document tree and the style sheet.

Flexibility is what the web screams for nom with all the data driven sites. We have all, I am sure, said many times: separate appearance from content! This is being done very well with CSS 1 and CSS 2, but I can see why CSS 3 is being developed:

Quote:
To be scalable means to increase or decrease uniformly. In terms of graphics, scalable means not being limited to a single, fixed, pixel size. On the Web, scalable means that that a particular technology can grow to a large number of files, a large number of users, a wide variety of applications. SVG, being a graphics technology for the Web, is scalable in both senses of the word.

SVG graphics are scalable to different display resolutions, so that for example printed output uses the full resolution of the printer and can be displayed at the same size on screens of different resolutions. The same SVG graphic can be placed at different sizes on the same Web page, and re-used at different sizes on different pages. SVG graphics can be magnified to see fine detail, or to aid those with low vision.

SVG graphics are scalable because they can be referenced or included inside other SVG graphics, allowing a complex illustration to be built up in parts, perhaps by several people. The symbol, marker and font capabilities promote re-use of graphical components, maximise the advantages of HTTP cacheing and avoid the need for a centralised registry of approved symbols.

Think about this: not having to worry about resolutions and website accessibility? Create complex animations with a script? Soon we will not be so much computer-screen oriented, but we'll be designing for hand-helds and TV's and other types of devices (some of us are already). When you go into TV screens - what happens to your graphics? What resolution should we work for? SVG seems to be close to solving the problem - graphics are actually resizable.

BTW- are any of the browsers on the market SVG enabled?

[Edited by temis on 07-13-2000 at 05:37 PM]

Vincent Puglia — Thu, 13 Jul 2000 19:00:32 +0000

Hi Mike,

Not having seen the proposal, I can't really say. However, based upon the history of computers, the tendencies of people, and the pace of technology -- the envelope will be pushed and pushed again. How much of that envelope pushing you want to take part in is entirely up to you (at least up until a point). For example, I don't see the need for better graphics (other than for photographs) and sound (if I want to hear a song, I use a stereo, not my PC), but there are many sites that cannot do without either.
Finally, if you decide not to follow CSS-3, when it becomes a standard, and need help making some page or effect forward compatible, someone will ask why you didn't upgrade or 'get with it'.

Vinny
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All things that go around, come around
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