| The Rewards of Using CSS to Style your Website | | | | screen, regardless of the resolution they use - in |
| Instead of other Older and Primitive Technologies | | | | fact, it can even be used to make images resize to |
| Soon after the very invention of the Internet, the | | | | fit on a viewers screen. That's 100% Javascript free |
| true purpose of the world wide web had been lost in | | | | - just one line of code, under twenty characters. No |
| the midst of a swamp of tables and images. Many | | | | messy code, and no broken website if a viewer has |
| web designers were concentrating on design above | | | | Javascript turned off or are on a browser which |
| content and websites started displaying differently in | | | | doesn't support Javascript. |
| different browsers and resolutions. Tables broke, and | | | | Cutting out all of that useless table, frame and |
| content was strewn meaninglessly across pages of | | | | Javascript markup from your site not only boosts |
| clashing colors and tacky images taking minutes to | | | | loading times monumentally, but reduces the load on |
| load on our beloved 56k modems. | | | | your web host, saving bandwidth and, therefore, |
| CSS is a relatively modern web design technology, | | | | precious money. |
| but even in its infancy it is clear that it is the key to | | | | You can already see why using CSS instead of |
| creating an Internet that is better for everyone. CSS | | | | tables, frames and Javascript is the best thing you |
| holds many advantages for both the web developer | | | | can do to make your website load quickly (yup, even |
| and the end user that older, and much more primitive | | | | more so than that new web hosting package you |
| methods could either not support or, if they did, only | | | | were looking at the other day). But what about |
| extremely erratically. CSS is used to style a websites | | | | those of us who know a website should look great |
| layout, fonts and coloring, and tells the browser how | | | | as well as function great (we are web designers, |
| to render the elements in a page on screen. | | | | after all) - well, CSS doesn't cease to impress when it |
| Standing for 'cascading style sheets' and invented by | | | | comes to this matter. The fact is that CSS actually |
| Norwegian software developer Hakon Wium-Lie in | | | | gives designers more control over a page than ever |
| the October of 1994, CSS slashes loading times and | | | | before - from the font family, to line spacing, the |
| can be accurately interpreted cross platform. Hakon | | | | style of bullet points in a list to how the page should |
| Wium-Lie invented CSS for one main reason - that | | | | look when it is printed; CSS does it all. |
| being to separate content from design. All CSS rules | | | | CSS gives designers a level of control that has never |
| should be kept in an individual file, and these rules are | | | | been possible before, it loads faster than ever before |
| called to each X/HTML page so that changes made in | | | | and uses less server resources. If your website uses |
| one file have affects across a whole website - thus | | | | tables, frames or excessive JavaScript for tasks that |
| making modification of designs an extremely simple | | | | have much smaller and faster solutions then your |
| task. | | | | website just isn't cut out for the Internet of the 21st |
| Working cross platform means that your website | | | | Century. |
| which looks great in Internet Explorer 6 on Windows | | | | If you are looking for a web design company that will |
| will look just as good on Safari on OSX or Firefox on | | | | design and build your new or existing website using |
| that obscure distribution of Linux that that potential | | | | CSS, why not contact Strawberrysoup - a dedicated |
| client of yours uses. CSS isn't only brilliant cross | | | | website design business focused on standards |
| platform, but 'cross resolution', too. It can be used to | | | | compliance and accessible websites? |
| make layouts automatically resize to fit on a viewers | | | | |