CSS or bog standard HTML? - UK Web Hosting | Dedicated Server Windows and Linux VPS Forum

**Richard** · #1 (**permalink**) 30-11-2005, 10:49

My original website hostings didn't use CSS. I've taken over one that does and implemented CSS on another. i'm not convinced.

My website hostings have to be compatible with browsers that don't support CSS ao the HTML has to stand on its own. There is little that can usefully be added with CSS. Using position:absolute for layout is obviously ruled out. Tables for layout may be deprecated but they work.

The biggest fault with many website hostings is setting background colours in html and foreground (text) colours in css, or vice-versa, with the result that you get zero contrast between the text and background. In other words the website hosting is unreadable on some browsers.

As for maintaining the website hosting I can't see the advantage of CSS. True, you can change a style and it affects all the pages using that style, but on the other hand that means you have to check through the whole website hosting for unintended consequences. When you're updating a single page you need to check all the style sheets to see what styles are available or whether you need to create new ones. With plain html you just do what you want to do on that page and you can test it in isolation.

**Eskew** · #2 (**permalink**) 30-11-2005, 10:55

I find CSS useful for themes, I run my website hostings using a theme style. I never really thought about the whole compitable with all browsers thing. But I would like to do a tableless layout using CSS.
Might try it soon, heard it is very effective.

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**Richard** · #3 (**permalink**) 30-11-2005, 10:58

I find that with website hostings that use CSS for layout I just get everything strung out down the left-hand side of the browser window.

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**Eskew** · #4 (**permalink**) 30-11-2005, 11:01

Well without tables, it doesn't leave much options.

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**Matthew** · #5 (**permalink**) 30-11-2005, 12:26

I only use CSS for text formatting. I find that cuts down on the size of HTML files. I have heard about this css method of putting pages together but I am not convinced. I will be sticking to conventional tables in HTML and a bit of JAVA.

ATB, M

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**Jester** · #6 (**permalink**) 30-11-2005, 12:41

CSS is great.

On my website hostings before I used CSS, I used to use Background="imagefile.gif" in each cell of the table to create a dynamic cell that can be overlaid with text.

That pretty much break every rule in the book for web compatibility..

using CSS, I can do that the same, but by putting the image in a class and assigning it to the cell. The W3c HTML checker doesn't throw a fit anymore when I do a validation check. woohoo!

My next step is to learn some proper advanced CSS - when I get the time.

**pukington** · #7 (**permalink**) 30-11-2005, 12:57

my latest website hosting is 100% css, not a table in website hosting, all those div's, its great, its fast, its smooth and it doesn't have a hard time in any browsers that i use (the mainstream ones). Its so much nicer than having tables in tables and all that garb code, a whole page html can go down to about ten/fifteen lines!

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**Richard** · #8 (**permalink**) 30-11-2005, 19:28

That parenthesis is the problem. You can easily assume that everyone can jut go and download the latest version of IE, Firefox, Opera or whatever, which might not be the case.

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**Ian** · #9 (**permalink**) 30-11-2005, 19:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matthew

I only use CSS for text formatting.

Me aswell thats all i use it for.

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**Eskew** · #10 (**permalink**) 30-11-2005, 22:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by pukington

my latest website hosting is 100% css, not a table in website hosting, all those div's, its great, its fast, its smooth and it doesn't have a hard time in any browsers that i use (the mainstream ones). Its so much nicer than having tables in tables and all that garb code, a whole page html can go down to about ten/fifteen lines!

Care to provide a link? I would love to see it.

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**tomythius** · #11 (**permalink**) 01-12-2005, 00:03

Why I use CSS...
Some of my website hostings have to be accessible to screen readers. This is much easier to implement with CSS.
CSS reduces bandwidth by only being DLed once, compared with style settings on each file.
Tables take longer to render. This is because they are hierarchial. Layers are not and can load asyncronously (sp?) meaning that any multithread browser (find one that isn't) can render layers together, reducing loading time for the user.
CSS is an excellent way of maintaining a style across a whole website hosting, you only ever need to change one file.
Finally with CSS tags it is often easier to predict the outcome on different browsers as it is generally more consistent.
(End of lecture!

)

**faceh** · #12 (**permalink**) 02-12-2005, 03:02

css can be both a blessing and a curse in my experience. I love to use CSS for style settings, since it makes display of fonts, colour patterns, tables etc so easy - however as for actually modelling the layout of the page with a CSS sheet - that is too complicated for me.

so i guess i only partially use css, just for defining global themes for my website hosting.

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**Matthew** · #13 (**permalink**) 07-12-2005, 17:08

CSS is great and I know that it could make my html files much smaller but I just can't be bummed learning how to do the stuff I already do well in tables in a different way.

I am so lazy

ATB Matt