SuzyUK - 10:57 am on Oct 6, 2008 (gmt 0)

if it's a portal, sketch or photoshop the entire portal layout and then build the individual sections of it as if they were independant divisions which is arguably what they are even on a portal site?

most CSS templates just take into account the 2/3 column header footer look, but what you find is the code behind the scenes is the same as you would use if you were e.g. trying to fit "those 2/3 columns" into your portal "grid"

it's really hard to visual without sketching the rough layout idea out first..

take this visual example (3) [w3.org] (ignore the actual module for now).. that is technically a three column layout, and the columns then have further columnar layouts inside them.. e.g. the four cars in the right column is a four column layout with header, it could be marked up as list of choices so it still makes sense if/when it degrades but then the <li> items can floated into a four column layout.

The "gridlines" being demonstrated in that page actually help visualise that the whole template is just a series of columns separated by margins/whitespace, I think anyway ;) - so perhaps even incorporating that into your sketch may help?

Absolute positioning would not work well at all for something like this, as getting the page to flow would not work.. floats all the way IMHO