March 11, 2004

Un-fixing your layout, fixing your CSS

Medi­aSavvy brings up two points about fixed-​width lay­outs:

  1. Fixed-​width lay­outs should be flush left: I’m not so sure about this one. When I’m going to a new site I don’t expect any of that sites UI ele­ments to be in sim­i­lar places as the last site I visited.

    It can be a bit jar­ring, I guess, to see the con­tent move to the center. That said, if you’ve got to be fixed width, I say center your design, the white space will be bal­anced which is more eye-​pleasing and har­mo­nious than the giant backwards-L you get with a flush-​left design.

  2. Elim­i­nat­ing fixed-​width lay­outs is also better because they give design­ers the illu­sion of more con­trol of pre­sen­ta­tion than they really have. Preach on! Say it with me now folks… the Web is not print, the Web is not print. They are dif­fer­ent medi­ums, they are dif­fer­ent medi­ums. There now, have a coffee, and go design for the Web, and every­thing will be OK.

Mez­zoblue has some great tips about debug­ging your CSS. These are all prac­tices I’ve fol­lowed in my own CSS debug­ging and are worth bookmarking.

He also raises a good point about skills you should be look­ing for in a modern Web designer:

…the most valu­able skill to pos­sess in the mad­den­ingly com­plex mine­field of today’s browser land­scape isn’t, in fact, know­ing which browsers do what to which prop­er­ties. It’s problem-​solving.

Listen to the man, he knows what he’s saying.

One final, Mez­zoblue related, note. For a project at work (soon to be launched, I promise), I used Mezzoblue’s RSS tip to create an XSLT sheet to trans­form the RSS into HTML for users who inad­ver­tently click on the link (expect­ing some­thing other than XML code). Seeing an XML file trans­formed to styled HTML before your eyes is pretty damn cool.

Filed under: Web design

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