:: Site about CSS and Web Standards ::
Welcome and thanks to stay here
This English version for my site HP tells what my main goal concerning this work is and it intended to say something about myself too. The navigation column is dynamic generated and in portugese. There is not an English version for the rest of the site, but if you are curious try one automated inline translator. Thanks again and feedback is welcome.
CSS - Definition
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a simple mechanism for adding style (e.g.fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents.
The above definition opens the W3C CSS homepage.
This site was created in August, 2003 by Maurício Samy Silva, and it is dedicated to and was designed with CSS - Cascading Style Sheet. I created and update this site alone and by myself for the love that I have for education. I am a 60- year- old retired engineer and I was a teacher and during these thirty years I have learned as much as I taught.
I am sure that the development with CSS is the future already present in the world wide web, and my focus is to motivate the begginners and those that do not know CSS.
The translations that I make of tutorials and articles, aim at making it possible the access to documentation by those that have difficulties with English.
A work of this range developed for one person alone, without a team for revisions and suggestions, fatally is not free of errors. I do not have the pretension to even dictate rules on the subject because as I teacher, much is learned from the students.
To those who come to the site to learn, I repeat what I always transmitted to my pupils: more important than accept concepts is to understand them and to know their reasons.
To those come to the site and find imperfections, I invite them to participate in my effort. Please, contact me, point out the imperfections, be my partners.
The site discloses information for free. All the costs are paid by me and nothing is sponsored even the cost to mantain it, since inserting a strange code from the host in the XHTML of the documents, destroys the validation. Thus, be my partner, don't omit, Participate!
And feel free to send your tutorial or CSS article. It will be my pleasure to publish it.
I would like to thank you on behalf of my visitors and readers, the ones who benefited with your revisions, suggestions and contribution.
Purpose
My main motivation when designing this site was to share the result of my studies with my visitors and researches on the subject, acquired from internet sources and books, mainly in English.
I am a self-learning student in this subject and I am still researching and studying it. Thus, I also have the aim to open a communication channel for exchange experiences and information on the subject, since the available sources in Portuguese language are very restrict. The techniques of webdesign using CSS - Cascading Style Sheet obligatorily must be mastered by those that want to design the "Web of the Future".
Structure of the site
This site does not use Tables to define its layout!
CSS techniques only require the use of tables for presentation of tabular data. Thus, the use of tables to make layouts, to divide a page in columns and lines or to locate elements is a practice that should be abandoned by the modern webdesigner.
Tags of the HTML, table, th, tr, td, etc..., are not present in the source code of CSS pages for the purpose of structure construction and tend to have its use restricted to the presentation of tabular data in websites.
Why CSS ?
The great advantage of CSS is to separate HTML markup from the "visual" presentation of the site. In other words, the HTML is used solely to make the structure and to mark the content while CSS takes care of the presentation.
Thus, HTML marks and structure, texts, heading, paragraphs, links, buttons, forms, images, etc, while CSS defines colors, positioning on the screen, styles of lines, edges, i.e. the document presentation.
This combination results in multiple advantages and benefits that are not obtained with the use of a concept based on tables, today widely employed, for construction of websites.
Imagine, to design a site navigable in both a 1280x1024 monitor and in a PDA's 320x240 tinny screen, using the same HTML marking. It is fantastic and it is possible. You just need to tell CSS to accomodate the content in the screen!
Some restrictions (to the time of this writing - 2003) still hinder the general and unrestricted full use of CSS in the Web. The restrictions are due to the incapacity of some browsers to give full support to CSS. As time goes by, the trend is that browsers that don't fully support CSS fall in disuse. Standartisation being implemented by W3C and the wish of manufacturers to design browsers in accordance with those standards is another point favorable to CSS. It is just a matter of time!
The power of the CSS
I recommend you to visit the Zen-Garden to have an idea of the power of the CSS in the control of the layout of a webpage. Zen-Garden is a section of a site, dedicated to CSS where experts of the entire world display their creativity with Style Sheets.
There you can make a download of a standard HTML marking what cannot be modified and create your Cascade Style Sheet, defining your own layout, colors, images, and all the applicable visual aspects of the supplied standard codification.
Visit the site and surf in some works that are in exhibition. I guarantee that you will be amazed!
The maujor's Zen-Garden — Closed in 2006-01-12 — Relaunched in 2006-12-31
I created a Zen-Garden in this site, so you can exercise your knowledge of CSS.
Download the HTML and CSS source of a standard website and design your own layout.
This exercise, based on the idea of the Zen-Garden website, is authorized by the creator of its concept, Dave Shea.
Note: All the works sent go well in IE 5.5+. Some present "bugs" in other browsers. I publish them as a way of incentive and gratefulness to their authors, and hope one day in future when they improve their CSS knowledge will send me the "hacks"
Visit the Maujor's Zen-Garden and you are invited to participate.
Material contained in the site
This site, as said above, is inspired in material and ideas from books and the web, with adaptations and translations made by me. Thus, the sources and general ideas had not always been integrally created by me. It's not wise to reinvent the wheel
, but I consider impolite and senseless to assume other people's creations as being mine.
Thus, I always try to give the references from where I got inspiration for this site, when apropriated. However if you detect some subject, code or any information for which I did not give the correct credit, please, contact me, so I will mention the source from where I got it or remove the material from the site if necessary.
Update: 2007-01-03
