Suitcase Fusion 3 User Guide for Mac OS - Extensis
Suitcase Fusion 3 User Guide for Mac OS - Extensis
Suitcase Fusion 3 User Guide for Mac OS - Extensis
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Tips & Techniques<br />
There are many websites, book chapters, and blogs devoted to identifying “best practices” <strong>for</strong> using CSS. These<br />
are somewhat subjective and of course can change over time as browsers evolve and new technologies like<br />
WebINK become available.<br />
Instead of best practices here are some ideas, tips, and techniques that you can investigate <strong>for</strong> using in your<br />
own websites. Some will be fairly obvious and long-lasting, while others may only be valid <strong>for</strong> certain people or<br />
situations. We suggest that you review them, investigate those that sound promising, modify as necessary, and<br />
implement them as your own best practices. But don’t <strong>for</strong>get to try new techniques and revise your strategies.<br />
Tried and True<br />
These tips won’t steer you wrong.<br />
• Use external style sheets.<br />
External style sheets give you the most flexibility in applying <strong>for</strong>matting across your website. Internal and<br />
inline style sheets can quickly become unmanageable when you go to make changes.<br />
• Use classes and IDs.<br />
You get greater flexibility in structuring your pages and styling your text when you implement these.<br />
• Learn about media types.<br />
CSS lets you define selectors differently depending on the device that the HTML content is output to.<br />
Using the @media rule, you can change the way your content is <strong>for</strong>matted <strong>for</strong> the printed page, and can<br />
also make it easier <strong>for</strong> a screen reader (a program that reads screen content aloud) to describe your page<br />
accurately.<br />
CSS Formatting<br />
You might think that, once you’ve got your CSS typed into a text file and deployed, you are done with it. But<br />
when you want to (or need to!) go back and modify it, you will want it to be well-organized, easy to navigate, and<br />
self-descriptive.<br />
• Use comments.<br />
A CSS comment is any text that starts with the two characters /* and ends with the two characters */.<br />
You can use these to describe what your CSS is doing, set off sections of your CSS, or to temporarily<br />
“disable” some definitions.<br />
• Organize your style sheets in a consistent manner.<br />
Break your stylesheet into sections, such as General, Special Formatting, and Layout. Identify each<br />
section with a comment line.<br />
• Use CSS shorthand.<br />
Many properties can be grouped together. For example, instead of the rule p {font-size: 12px;<br />
font-style: italic; font-family: Arial, sans-serif} you can use p {font: italic<br />
12px Arial, sans-serif;}. While this can keep your definition compact, you do need to be aware of<br />
the order that you place the properties.<br />
• Combine rules.<br />
When rules share identical properties, you can combine those properties into one definition, then include<br />
other definitions to include the unique properties <strong>for</strong> each selector. You combine definitions by separating<br />
selectors with a comma: h1, h2, h3 {font-family: Arial Black, sans-serif; color:<br />
darkgray; }.<br />
• Use multi-line definitions as needed.<br />
Some designers like to put their definitions all on one line, and others like to spread them out with one<br />
property per line <strong>for</strong> readability. However you choose to write your rules, be consistent. Always define<br />
properties in the same order so you can find them at a glance.<br />
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