Scarf*oo

Now that IE6 is practically dead and gone, we can embrace the power that comes with CSS 2.1 selectors. Hurray! Forgotten CSS selectors | 456 Berea Street.

How about putting both log-in and register forms into one? A nice informative read.

Log in or sign up? – Leah Culvers Blog.

If you haven’t decided to drop IE6 support, this might be the right time to do it. The article CSS Differences in Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 over at Smashing Magazine is a great reference to CSS differences between various IE versions when handling advanced CSS rules. Looks like versions 7 and up already support the vast majority of rules you throw at them, so if you want to take advantage of advanced CSS selectors to ease styles development, go on, I don’t believe many will be hurt in the process.

Let’s face it, navigating and maintaining large CSS files is no fun. As long as the site is small or if you happen to be in the early stages of development, the CSS file looks manageable, but once you hit the 2k+ line mark, finding what you are looking for can take a while. Not to mention how your team is going to pollute your style.css if the file structure is overly complicated.
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David Berlow of The Font Bureau has proposed a Permissions Table for OpenType that can be implemented immediately to turn raw fonts into web fonts without any wrappers or other nonsense. If adopted, it will enable type designers to license their work for web use, and web designers to create pages that use real fonts via the CSS @font-face standard.

via Web Fonts Now, for real – Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report.

Looks like the guys over at Typekit have found a way to legally provide us with a large library of fonts and a simple way of integrating them in our web pages. If this proves to be the truth and not a scam, I’m really wanting to know the details. As the authors put it:

As a Typekit user, you’ll have access to our library of high-quality fonts. Just add a line of JavaScript to your markup, tell us what fonts you want to use, and then craft your pages the way you always have. Except now you’ll be able to use real fonts. This really is going to change web design.

via Introducing Typekit « The Typekit Blog.

Too bad that there are still many clients running and demanding your product to run on IE6. At least in my case, 80% of the clients are of the aforementioned sort and I am in no position to change that. It’s a sad sad thing really.

Someone should really write a conditionally included universal CSS file to handle IE6 bugs and just be off with it. On the other hand, there are other approaches such as providing a universal readable and pleasant style just for IE6 users and hoping the clients will be happy with it.

Check the proposed style in question at Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS | For A Beautiful Web.

Interview with Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML 5 specification. – The Web Standards Project. A lengthy interview on HTML5 and accessibility – well worth reading.

An interesting short article on the pitfalls of using CSS to hide page elements: Hiding with CSS: Problems and solutions | 456 Berea Street.

Personally, for elements where accessibility matters, like navigation menus, etc. I prefer hiding those elements with a short javascript statement I put right after the element I want to hide. This way the user does not notice the element getting closed and best of all, it remains accessible to all.

Welcome to the second part of the Back to The Basics series of articles here on Scarf*oo. Back to The Basics focuses – in simple terms – on the basic stuff every web developer should be familiar with. In the first Back to The Basics article we covered the shorthand CSS notation. Today, we’ll be looking at the obscure box model and what does it mean to us and how can we manipulate it.

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