I am a big fan of CSS. It’s not a very difficult concept to pick up. I would say that the only frustrating side of implementing a pure CSS based layout is cross browser compatibility. If you have your own site and have changed or even created the skin/design you use then you’ll know yourself depending on the change requires looking at it with a variety of common web browsers. This will be done on a local testing environment or through an online service like BrowserCam.
For anyone not heard of BrowserCam this service takes screens shots of a url from a variety of different operating systems, browsers and now devices.
See your web design on any browser on any operating system. Check javascripts, DHTML, forms and other dynamic functionality on any platform. Not just yours. Use our bank of testing machines remotely to test your website.
How can we take the pain away from implementing a clean cross browser design? Why not start with using a CSS Framework as a building block?
CSS Frameworks
The way I look at any kind of framework is that its sole purpose is to reduce development time. The initial learning curve of any framework could discourage it’s use depending on it’s complexity but long term could help simplify the development process. What frameworks are out there?
- Yahoo! UI Library: Grids CSS
- Blueprint
- YAML ( yet another multicolumn layout )
- Logiccs
- Elements
- ESWAT
- CleverCSS
- Typogridphy
Quite a few out there each bringing there own uniqueness to the table. I suppose like any other framework it’s about finding one that you’re comfortable with and fulfills your requirements. In my previous post “5 post consistency, thoughts.” I received a couple of comments regarding CSS so I have decided that after my next funky house podcast post I will be doing 5 posts about CSS. First three I will be looking at one of the above frameworks ( and explaining why) to create a simple subtext skin, the fourth post will be about adding individual styles to each of your blogs categories (on post) and the final one will be based on any feedback.
I hope to try and make the posts transferable in the sense that you could use the basis of the markup with any other blogging engine may it be your own, wordpress or something else. If you have anything questions or suggestions for the last post please comment below or get in touch.
Update: CSS Frameworks – Looking at the contenders
