CSS : Cascading Style Sheets Ann Dobbs Class: i385e

Presentation  CSS Defined  Advantages of Using CSS  Disadvantages of Using CSS  Advanced Uses  Other good sites for learning CSS  References

CSS Defined Wikipedia: “Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL.”

Stylesheets  Are text style & layout instructions that extend the HTML (or XHTML, XML, etc.) in web pages, giving greater control over content presentation, including typography, layout, and presentation on different media (print, screen, mobile, audio, etc.)

Cascading Stylesheets  Which style rules? Browser default External style sheet Internal style sheet (inside the tag) Inline style (inside an HTML element) ("Introduction to CSS," n.d.)

CSS vs. Inheritance  Cascading is not inheritance, though the two sometimes get confused.  Inheritance is related to the HTML document’s containment hierarchy   Each element will by default inherit the style of it’s parent element (.8 x.8 =.64)

Advantages of Using CSS  Separation of presentation of presentation & content  Less time and labor needed for site maintenance & revisions  Better accessibility  Better/faster data-driven websites  Better semantics  Improved graphic design possibilities (ex: Zen Garden site)

Advantages of Using CSS  Enables different presentations of same page for different media  Faster page load times

Disadvantages  Inconsistent browser support (decreasing problem at this point ) May need to design page for one browser, so be aware of what your users are using! Hacks to remedy browser differences can cause problems of their own. Most new browsers have quirks and strict modes to adjust their css interpretation for older css and css written for recent browsers

Disadvantages  User may override your css or it may not display at all  CSS has bugs, so crosscheck on browsers  Easy for beginners to get carried away  Use it when you need it  Validate! Make sure your HTML is semantically correct & CSS is good

Advanced Uses  Use with database-driven websites and templates  Provide different presentations to different media  Use it to provide both presentation layout and screenreader / text-only content organization

Other Good Sites  Maxdesign (  Westciv (  Holy CSS Zeldman! (

References  Cascading Style Sheets. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 2, 2006, from eets  Introduction to CSS. (n.d.). w3 School. Retrieved November 2, 2006, from gs/‌css_intro.asp.htm  Shea, D. (n.d.). CSS Zen Garden. Retrieved November 2, 2006, from s/