CSS aint what it promises

Standards? Easier? HA!

[GuanoLad]

I thought CSS was meant to be a good thing as it is cross-browser compliant, and will do things for you that affect the whole site.

But no. Browsers to not hold to standards. Things that should work do not. Things that make no sense seem to affect design in significant ways.

I have just discovered that, because the colours of the links were not working universally (even though they should've) I had to alter my CSS code in such a way that -aaaaaaargh - now prevents Mozilla users from using particular PHP code!

Which means I now have to assign an individual class to every single individual link through the entire site!

This is what is more commonly known as SUCK!

*sigh*

I shall calm down now and present to you my problem more clearly.

My site has many different sections that are the same in design, but have different coloured backgrounds and fonts etc to represent the section you're in.

For some reason, my Anchor codes were not changing to their section colours, they were instead staying the same colours as the main section. Until I removed the 'A' at the beginning, and just had:

:link { color:#666600; }
:visited { color:#333300; }
:hover { color:#663300; }
:active { color:#FFFFFF; }

on each of the stylesheets.

This, for some reason that God only knows, causes some critical PHP code to not work in Mozilla. Our programmer has asked me to therefore specify a class for every single link on the whole site so it no longer would be written as above, and therefore not interfere with Mozilla users.

Does anybody have a better or easier answer than that?

Like ask the Mozilla users to upgrade or something?

[mavherick]

causes some critical PHP code to not work in Mozilla

Can you elaborate on this? I have trouble grasping what's happening since PHP is server side and is therefore not browser dependent... I got to admit I'm tired so maybe I just don't get what's going on.

thanks

mavherick

[SethCall]

yeah im confused as well. doesn't all php processing occur before the page is sent to the user? (well aside from the delaying you can do.. but even that takes place independant of what the user does, right?)

you dont mean javascript do u?

[GuanoLad]

I don't know anything about PHP, all I know is this, from the programmer:

Problem: The "VIEW GALLERY BY" select box does not work.

I've managed to track down what is causing these problems and believe it or not its our CSS includes! If you load up for example the include mainstyle.css and scroll through to the following four lines:

:link { color:#666600; }
:visited { color:#333300; }
:hover { color:#663300; }
:active { color:#FFFFFF; }

Remove these and it works fine.

So whatever that means, that's the problem I have to work around.

[Nick_W]

PHP is server-side. Whatever is causing your PHP problems is a programming issue not a CSS issue. It can't be, by definition.

Nick

[piskie]

GuanoLad - What is your man meaning by "our CSS includes!"

[GuanoLad]

(Forget the PHP thing - it's apparently just a Mozilla / dropdown box problem)

He means that he's never really been happy with my insistence that I use CSS for the formatting.

I'm reasonably new to CSS, really, and since we were re-programming the site for a database, I figured I'd use the opportunity to replace a lot of the standard HTML formatting with CSS, and I'm learning a lot about what they can do as I go.

Ever since then, he's complained that they get in the way of a lot of cross-browser compatability with the stuff he's trying to implement. So he gets a little animated about them sometimes.

Generally his beef with them is the same reason I've been reluctant to use them before now - they aren't as universally standard as they would like to claim, and it's not getting a whole lot better when new browser versions keep emerging. So every time the CSS gets in the way of something he does, he (and I) just get frustrated by it all.

[Nick_W]

they aren't as universally standard as they would like to claim

Where does it claim that? - Browser inconsistency is a given with a lot of the more complex CSS properties. It's getting better, but this has always been the case.

The cure? - A deep understanding of the technology and it's imposed limitations.

Nick

[GuanoLad]

Well, you'd think that if any browser claims it has CSS compatability, they'd at least, by this stage, be talking about CSS1, but even that isn't universal. It's pretty ridiculous.

The more you try to make CSS an easier better option, the more complicated you have to make it. It goes against the original intention, in some ways, of it being better. More powerful is not necessarily better if the amount of work involved fior it to be useful is triple that of not using it at all.

[Khael]

Heh, but you are new to css. Believe me, when you get a little better understanding, it sure is hella easier.

Having a grumpy programmer who hates css is not making it easier for you though :(

Good luck.

[Nick_W]

Hi Khael Welcome to WebmasterWorld! [webmasterworld.com]

I agree. Wholeheartedly.

CSS is far more intuitive than dinasoar code ;) and although it takes some fairly deep knowledge to do more than just style your text, it's well worth the effort.

Nick