Love him or hate him, John C. Dvorak has written an article concerning the topic of this blog. John is bugged by CSS. The idea is great, it just falls apart in practice noting how Firefox displays CSS differently from Internet Explorer, which displays it differently from Opera he says.

"Everyone loses here, from users who can't under?stand why things look screwy, to developers who can't get CSS to do the job right, to baffled content providers.And what's being done about it? Nothing! Another fine mess from the standards bodies."

If we could get atleast two of the popular browsers on the same page, than we would be set. Imagine if IE and Firefox rendered code the same way. Every other browser would be forced to follow or die a slow and miserable death.

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While we're on the subject of new browsers...

• Firefox 2 beta 1 is now available as a developer preview, for testing purposes only. (I guess that's a little redundant, isn't it?) Its features include: support for Javacsript 1.7; inline spell checking in text boxes; and the ability to reopen accidentally-closed tabs (I definitely need that one, with my command-W-happy fingers).
• Opera 9 has been released, with a lot of cool new features. To name just a few, it boasts built-in BitTorrent, thumbnail site preview, and one-click ad blocking. And there's more, so much more!
• All the cool kids are talking about Flock, with its built-in blog integration and photobar. If that doesn't have "Web 2.0" written all over it, I don't know what does.

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Check out this Slashdot interview with H?kon Wium Lie, the originator of the CSS idea. (Can you believe it's been over 10 years since CSS was proposed? Time flies when you're coding with tables!) Lie currently serves as CTO of Opera Software.

In the interview, Lie suggests that before releasing IE 7, Microsoft should ensure that the browser passes the Acid2 test and supports TrueType downloadable fonts. He also discusses XML, microformats, Ajax, and (of course) the future of CSS. Read the interview and watch him effortlessly knock down all suggestions that CSS is somehow lacking in capabilities.

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Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 has been announced and is now available for download. Features include tabbed browsing, RSS integration, multiple search engines via the built-in search box, and more. Sure, these are all features that Firefox, Safari, etc. have had for a quite some time, but as the old saying goes, better late than pregnant. There are no new CSS features, however; Microsoft has stayed true to their promise that, for better or for worse, as of this March IE 7 was "layout complete."

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In his article "HTML's a Tag Too," Bryan Veloso discusses the benefits of applying styles to the element. He argues that by making more effective use of , developers could eliminate the need for a wrapper div. Everything would effectively be "moved up" a level - apply global styles to instead of , and then can serve the same purpose as the wrapper div would have. Bryan points out that this can be particularly handy in XHTML 1.1, in which the no longer stretches the entire length of the page.

It's a neat idea, but for many developers - particularly those of us who work on large, enterprise-level sites - it is simply impractical. On large sites, rarely would you want to declare a global background image, for example. Or, you may not be able to access certain elements of a page at all, due to CMS limitations or other restrictions. However, for a small-scale site, styling could be a good way to reduce divitis, as long as you're mindful of scalability issues.

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WebdesignFromScratch.com recently gave sunhome.biz a slick re-design and they documented there thoughts and motivations so everyone can learn. The original design was drab with a large white space in the middle of the page. Also, the original design doesn't consider the needs of its target audience, senior citizens. The new design is much easier to follow and more pleasing to the eye. Give the article a read to learn the specifics of what they changed and why they did what they did, which is the best way to learn good design.

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Analytic services provide valuable stats to web site owners and can be the only way of determining if a design is really working or not with real users. ClickTale hopes to up the ante by recording user actions so you can see every mouse movement, every click, and every scroll. Then the service lets you, the owner, see exactly what the user did. Perfect for testing usability. Currently ClickTale is a closed beta but you can sign up for updates by email. A web 2.0 site that is plum purple? I like it.

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Designers love to "ooo" and "aahh" at fresh designs that seem to sprout up daily.? How can one keep track of the oh-so-many repositories that are out there?? CSS Galleries, that's how.? As your one-stop shop to CSS nirvana, CSS Galleries indexes 22 galleries and displays the most recent additions on their front page.? You can even filter out sites that appear in 2-3 galleries or 4+ galleries to help you avoid duplicates.? An RSS feed is also available.

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A few weeks ago, I mentioned the nominees and categories for the CSS World Awards, presented by CSS Mania. Well, the winners have been announced! They were selected by a panel of judges made up of industry experts such as Molly Holzschlag and Andy Budd; so you can bet these web sites are truly the cream of this year's CSS crop.

You can view the full list of winners at the CSS World Awards site, but a few noteworthy selections include:

• Site of the Year, 3rd place and Media, 3rd place: Vitamin. This new resource for developers combines information about web development, graphic design, server-side programming, and more into one tasty info-morsel. It's been around for only a few months, but I've already consulted it more times than I can count. (Not surprisingly, I think it should've won 1st place, but...)
• Blogging, 1st place and Web Design (Companies and Portfolios), 1st place: Simplebits. The list of Dan Cederholm's contributions to the web design and development community just keeps getting longer (and his blog has been a mainstay in my RSS reader for a long time). This award is well-deserved.
• Portal, 1st place: CSS Beauty. Finally, a site that centralizes job openings for CSS geeks! Oh, but that's not all they've got. Here's a tip: whenever things get slow 'round here, head over to CSS Beauty for a while. You won't be disappointed.

Now it's time for everyone to get cracking on their best CSS kung-fu, in preparation for next year's awards.

Got opinions about the outcome of the 1st annual CSS World Awards? Share 'em here!

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Check out the latest edition of A List Apart, featuring a fascinating article on automatic magazine layout of images. The technique?utilizes server-side technology to calculate where the images should be placed, but of course, CSS had to be used for positioning within the rendered page. The potential for IE-related problems seemed to loom hugely on the horizon as I read the article, but once I got to the section that explained the CSS, I saw that Harvey Kane's solution is beautifully simple and effective.

Oh, and while you're at A List Apart? Bid a fond farewell to the element.

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If you live in or near Sydney, Australia, try to take advantage of the Billy Blue CSS Workshops (presented by maxdesign) being offered there. These are 2-day workshops that cover CSS in-depth, from the fundamentals straight through to creating complex layouts and dealing with browser bugs.

Not sure if it's for you? Attend one of the free info nights and learn more. The next info night will be next Tuesday, July 4th. And they provide caffeinated beverages.

Now, I just have to figure out a way to justify a trip to Australia to my employer...

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Tom Lee has a rather hairy - but workable - solution for mimicking max-width in IE. It involves the use of Microsoft's Dynamic Properties.

The first time I tried this, it crashed my browser. A friend had the same result. Next time I tried it, all was well - but I still feel like I must tread lightly with this code, and routinely whisper sweet nothings in its ear.

While reading the MSDN page about Dynamic Properties, I had to wonder... why did they bother with all that nonsense, when they could've just followed the CSS spec?

Of course, with IE 7, that's exactly what they've done (to a point), so this proprietary hodgepodge will soon be moot. But in the meantime - and for several years to come, because let's be honest, few sites are going to cut off support for IE 6 right away - this is your solution. That is, unless it crashes your browser.

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Lynda.com has released a new video-based tutorial, CSS for Designers, led by Molly Holzschlag and Andy Clarke. This is an important tutorial, because it focuses on CSS from a designer's point of view rather than a developer's.

Molly and Andy work well together and play off each other's specialties. They don't waste a lot of time with introductory material, but get to the meat of the standards-oriented design issue right away. At the same time, they explain things in a clear and easy to understand manner. And, personally, I like that Molly covers the history of the web in the first chapter; this is very important information that is, more often than not, left out of web design and development tutorials.

The first chapter of CSS for Designers is available as a free preview in Quicktime format. The full tutorial is accessible with a Lynda.com premium membership, or available for purchase on a CD-ROM.

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Are you ever bugged by superscript elements messing with the line height of your text? No? Well, honestly, it's not really the kind of thing one would spend a lot of time thinking about - that is, until one encounters the problem oneself.

It's an arguably minor problem that can cause major headaches, especially when a client or designer is resolute about having the entire page, text included, look exactly like the mock-up. But fortunately, there is a fix! Mzajac of Wikipedia explains how to force the element down ever so slightly, using relative positioning and the oft-overlooked vertical-align: baseline.

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I know I used the "Now Hiring" image in the previous post, but what can I say - when it rains, it pours! Weblogs, Inc. - the company that handles the nuts and bolts behind this and many other fine blogs - is looking for two full-time standards-happy web designers. (Don't worry if you don't live in New York City; this is a work-from-home position.) The complete job description is posted at Brian Alvey's blog; if you're interested, you can contact him via his comments.

May the best two web geeks win!

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