- From: Jason Weigle <soilsrus@yahoo.com>
- Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 08:32:33 -0400 (EDT)
- To: Steven Pemberton <Steven.Pemberton@cwi.nl>, David Shaw <davids@nwi.net>
- Cc: "'www-style'" <www-style@w3.org>
If I could just comment about something that Steven wrote. Be wary when using <span> to delineate sections to apply style to. <span> is a Netscape origninated tag, designed specifically for use in stylesheets and such. To my knowledge(and please correct me if I'm wrong), Internet Explorer's rendering of this tag is limited, if not non-existent. The reason that I wanted to comment on this was that I had to go back and change several sections of my websites from <span> to <div> in order to to get them to render properly on IE. It's just one more of those little things that make designing webpages so fun! :) FYI, Jason Weigle > The idea behind using style sheets is to separate > content from > presentation. So don't ask yourself "how do I > underline?", first ask > "what am I trying to represent?". > > If the answer is "defining instances of a word" then > code your HTML > like this: > > A <span class="define">programmer</span> is a > device for > turning coffee into programs. > > If you are underlining a sentence because it is > important, classify it > that way: > > <span class="important">Don't mention the > war!</span> > > and so on. > > Then use those classes in your style sheet: > > .important {text-decoration: underline} > .define {text-decoration: underline} > > This has a number of advantages: > > * If you change your mind about how it should look, > you only > have to change one place in your files > * You separate the different uses of underlining so > that you > can later distinguish between them > * The sight impaired can still understand what you > are trying > to represent in your HTML. > > By the way, some people prefer to use <strong> or > <em> instead of > <span> since the words then still show up > differently on CSS > deficient browsers. > > Steven Pemberton > > === Jason Weigle soilsrus@yahoo.com http://jlweigle.homepage.com ****************************** jlw211@psulias.psu.edu Staff Assistant IV Access Services, Penn State University Libraries _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Received on Tuesday, 20 July 1999 08:32:16 UTC