Advanced CSS - How to tame

There is no doubt that CSS is one of the most powerful tools available in the hands of the designers or the coders to change the simple look of a site into magnificent one! And it is fact that the evolution is on and the CSS has become more advanced than it used to be in its beginning days! However, here we are trying to know how we can tame the advanced CSS! Actually with the advancements of the browser compatibility, the CSS validation matter, use of new CSS selectors, the floating effect with positioning matters and even the device independent designs are some of the issues the designers or the coders need to know very well to produce the best CSS effects in a webpage.

Now we may try to note down a few things that sometimes the intermediate designers forget to care about. At Infowaylive, a web design company and PHP developer India, we come across several such cases in which customers request us to re-design their layouts with advanced CSS effects! We feel really happy to resolve the issues but we feel it is our duty to notify the readers (or people who want to design a website for their business) about the factors that may prevent their initiatives to get the best CSS effects. Let’s see:

• It is found that a few effects of advanced CSS are not properly displayed. It is simply for the browser rendition of the CSS. If we include the “doc type” in the header of the html then there will not be any issue. And applying the validation of the CSS through the W3C helps always to keep the rendition of the style properly. So whatever is the situation the validation is a must.
• With the use of advanced CSS we are seeing that the web pages are not showing the applied CSS effects as it should be. The older browsers or the browser versions (Netscape or the IE) creating the maximum troubles. But these can be solved if there is simply a notification: the site best viewed in upper IE 5 and upper version.

• There are always some problems with the effects of advanced CSS selectors. The selectors (whether child of selectors, adjacent sibling selector or universal selectors) have to be properly used to get the effects. Due to inexperience of the coders the selectors are not properly handled and the results are unsatisfactory.
• When using the advanced CSS effects and the process is to give the floating effects or the positioning of the CSS elements the coders need to be careful. Due to inexperience the float element (text or the images) some times take with them few blank white space and those look odd or due to bigger size of the float element the total design gets a broken look. So it is necessary that the positioning (relative, absolute etc.) have to be properly mentioned to get the desired effects.
• While using advanced CSS, always remember what type of images (PNG. GIF, JPG) you are using and what are the problems they may carry. Actually you should use the image type according to your need. When using the GIF remember it will use low number of colors and have the better transparency for the text. On the other hand the JPG, it will produce non exact reproduction of the images. However in case of the PNG 32 bits per pixel is used with 8 bits per color and provides the best transparency. As in production of the images (complete photo or text based) you should choose the right image type.
• There are always some situations in advanced CSS when the design has to be fluid type or display-device independent. In case of fluid design mind the font size, the height and width of the page layout or the display of the fluid design (full screen design). In case of the device independent design the media values have to be properly used to show the style properly.

Hope you have understood what the factors that come as a bar against getting the nice effects of the advanced CSS! This is only a try to show off some hints that you (whether designer or customers) need to know primarily to get the best advanced CSS effects. But eventually we see the things are not always that way easy to produce. As it is already mentioned the above are only few factors (leaving aside issues like shadow, color map, several properties and etc.)as a client you must ask the designers to produce their works where they have used the advanced CSS effects. Then you can understand if you should offer the job to the particular designer or the coder. Hope you remember the points and get the best design effects with advanced CSS in application!