liquid design - where to find good guides?

liquid design tutorials where to find

[WebDeveL]

can anyone point me in the way of a good def. / tut of liquid design, specifically for Dreamweaver MX
thanx

[tedster]

I don't think that Dreamweaver would enter into it very much -- it's how you use your authoring software that makes the difference, not which software.

The main principle you need is that part of your page must be free of a specifc width resitriction so that it fills whatever screen real estate is left after the fixed-width elements are placed. So you are using percentages for width (or nothing at all) rather than pixel dimensions.

The decisions involved are quite specific to each layout, because they are much more aesthetic than technical. In general, I've found that simpler layouts look much better as liquid, rather than complex and "highly controlled" print-like layouts.

One good way to wade into this territory is to find a liquid page that you like (just resize the window and see what happens) and then view the source code.

I also don't worry about screen widths over 1024, except to put a max-width attribute in there which I know IE will ignore for now. However, some day... Really wide lines of type are very hard to read. So I usually consider liquid layout to mean it accommodates windows from 680px wide to 1024. I will go as low as 680 at times to serve the 800x600 with a hotlist open.

[brdwlsh]

CSS is the way to go. i've been using style sheets for about two weeks and i'm kicking myself for taking so long to embrace them.

i started here:
[createwebmagic.com...]

then moved on to here:
[webmasterworld.com...]

now i reference here:
[w3.org...]

good luck, and may the schwartz be with you.

[mep00]

CSS is the way to go. i've been using style sheets for about two weeks and i'm kicking myself for taking so long to embrace them.

I remember that feeling, but I recommend against kicking yourself--couldn't sit for a week. ;)

Here's a site I just found worth checking out: [glish.com ]