Layout — Page 2

So, prompted by such

March 9, 2001 by Michael Boyle

pleasant folks as Zeldman, eric costello, and Owen Briggs, I’ve been experimenting extensively with CSS-only layouts. I started working on a new project, but decided that since it wasn’t “fixed” it was too easy just to change what I wanted to do if I couldn’t get something to go just how I wanted.

So I started converting this yellow monstrosity instead. With a model to work to, it brought a lot more discipline. In any case, I got the whole thing converted in no time flat (thanks to the people that are following this stuff closely and writing about it) – except for one thing – I can’t seem to pin the right hand yellow panel to the side of the browser window. As well, the three columns just end when they end – I can’t extend the left and right to the bottom of the browser window. I’ve tried every combination of margin: 0px and whatnot I can think of.

When I do get it together I think I’m going to move to the new style of code for this site. It’s much simpler, much smaller, more fluid and easier to work with. Even if NS 4 people can’t participate on an equal footing – I’m 90% sure it’s worth it.

Comments?

Earlier tonight I finished

March 8, 2001 by Michael Boyle

the initial run at a new layout I’m doing for another project (you can see it soon, don’t worry). It’s pretty simple, really, but it does rely on positioning a minimum number of things exactly in the right spot. If they’re not there the whole idea breaks down. Anyhow – even though I did it in plain old tables, same as always, it still took a while to get it right – and it’s still not perfect in NS 4.7x. So it occurs to me that I could do the site entirely in CSS, perhaps – make the best of a learning opportunity. Lo and behold, Eric Costello has been following the work people are doing in this regard very closely! So I’m going to give it a try. The problem I foresee is that all of the layouts/designs I’ve seen are very airy and light. That’s great – but for this project it’s not exactly the vibe I’m after. So it’ll be a bit of a different kind of challenge, I think. Chunkier.

With the big mess

November 10, 2000 by Michael Boyle

down in Florida going on now and our election coming up, I’ve had occasion to check out the Elections Canada website. Elections Canada is the commission that runs all federal elections here, and I was surprised to see that their website is quite lovely and very well organized. It features excellent use of rollovers in the main menu structure, and generally a really clean layout. No sample ballot that I could find though.

I found this link

November 8, 2000 by Michael Boyle

to the Palm Beach County ballot through Meg Hourihan‘s site, Megnut. It is pretty obvious that it’s extremely confusing, which is just crazy. Not much can be done about it now, but I was a little surprised that such an issue is there in the first place. Shouldn’t all ballots (at least in a state) be identical in design and layout?

Ooops.

June 6, 2000 by Michael Boyle

I received some great help with that problem I was having with the layout, but when I went through it myself I found a quite basic, and quite silly, thing that I think was causing the problem. And which I believe I have now corrected.