Tag: layouts
HTML/CSS newbie FAQs
After spending a while on web development forums, you start to see the same questions being asked regularly. So here I’m going to answer some of these common beginner questions and hopefully save me typing answers out repeatedly in the future because I can just refer the poster to here or copy it myself. 
New article on Search-This
I’ve just written an article on a technique which can be used with column layouts which has been published on Search-This: Two Column Layout With A Twist.
I’ve been a subscriber to the site for a while (a lot of its contributors and readers also frequent Sitepoint) and a regular commenter, but this is my first published article. Search-This also publishes a range of articles dealing with the spectrum of web development topics, so it’s worth checking out.
Why does my content flow outside its box?
Usually this question is accompanied by: “It looks fine in Internet Explorer but not Firefox”
and it’s usually because a height has been specified on the element in question.
Elastic layouts
Prompted by a comment from Mike Cherim of Accessites in answer to my post on Zoom Layouts, this post is to list Elastic Layouts.
Zoom layouts
I came across an article today on A List Apart written by Joe Clark: Big, Stark & Chunky (it is 18 months old - I know, I should read ALA more often) which was aimed at promoting the use of ‘zoom layouts’, which are those designed for people with low or impaired vision.
How do I centre my layout?
To centre a CSS layout horizontally, you need to add margin: 0 auto; to either the body or a containing element More on How do I centre my layout?
My floated layout won’t work!
Usually when people have trouble with floating columns it’s because they’ve specified a width where there doesn’t always need to be one.
Why does my layout look wrong in IE?
If your site looks right in a browser like Firefox, Opera or Mozilla, but not in Internet Explorer, it’s highly likely you’re being affected by one of IE’s numerous bugs.
Fortunately, most of these have been well-documented at Position is Everything.
Why won’t faux columns work?
One of the easiest methods of giving your site the appearance of the columns being the same height is to used the Faux Columns technique as first outlined by Dan Cederholm on A List Apart.
While the method is simple, unfortunately, many newcomers to CSS have trouble getting it right at first. More on Why won’t faux columns work?
Absolute positioning pitfalls
This article first appeared on CSS Creator Forum and was written in response to the common requests for help from people new to CSS who were encountering problems whilst trying to use absolute positioning to create layouts (seemingly as a result of using Dreamweaver in ‘design view’ mode).
