molly.com

Wednesday 20 April 2005

Molly Article Update

TRYING TO UPDATE MY SITE, I added a list of my reasonably recent articles from InformIT to the articles page, and figured it might be helpful to post them here, too, in case you’ve not had a chance to read them.

inform IT

I do apologize in advance for all the ads at InformIT, a trick for some is to read the print versions. The publication pays their authors, though, which these days is rare enough, so it’s a trade-off of course. And, they have some fantastic resources in general, including the Safari Bookshelf, which is invaluable.

  • The Meaning of Semantics (Take I). Nearly every web designer, including myself, has been guilty of forcing line breaks, creating tables that don’t hold tabular data, and a host of other egregious HTML sins. Now that CSS is around, I explore the move to paying attention to each element’s content and purpose, not its looks.
  • Untold Mysteries of CSS. Three untold CSS mysteries you might not know about include the universal selector, !important keywords, and multi-classes. Look behind the curtain with me to find out how these under-described aspects of CSS can be put to use to assist with diagnostics during development, savvy global styling, out-and-out hacks, better design flexibility, and accessibility.
  • Position This! CSS Positioning Demystified. Looking for the right position? Look no further. This article examines the four true positioning schemes in CSS, clarifies the confusion between absolute and relative positioning, and explains that although floats are often great for use in layouts, they should not be confused as an actual part of CSS positioning.
  • Seven Deadly Markup Sins. HTML or XHTML? If you’re in Web design and development, you’re using something to mark up your pages. And, if you’ve been in the industry awhile, no doubt you’ve learned some standards-based techniques. But despite all our growth and knowledge, some nagging problems remain. In this article, I help you hone in on the most common markup mistakes and show you how to repair them with ease.
  • Strategies for Long-Term CSS Hack Management. Using CSS in a contemporary browser? You’ll probably need to use a variety of CSS hacks to accomplish the best possible cross-browser compatibility. In this article, I help you determine if you need hacks, how to manage them effectively if so, and which hacks you can employ to solve a range of common compatibility problems.

Enjoy!

Filed under:   general
Posted by:   Molly | 00:35 | Comments (6)

Comments (6)

  1. Thanks! Now I have a few more resources to point at those guys who want to dive into markup and CSS. What I saw rarelly explained is CSS positioning and here you have it. Again, nice articles.

  2. A sad commentary on the InformIT site is that it doesnt display properly in Opera 8. 🙁
    Ah well, I’ll have to go and read the articles in Firefox I suppose. 🙂

  3. These look great–especially the semantics one–, I’ll look forward to reading them.

    As for Safari, I’ve been a subscriber for almost a year now, and it rocks. I’ve hardly needed to buy a book since!

    (Note: I subscribe to the O’Reilly version, not the InformIT version.)

  4. Pingback: 2020 Hindsight » Molly on CSS and other web stuff

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