Just a few Q's

Flynn

hey,
I'm using Dreamweaver 8 and just a quick questions about layers. When u center an image it is alwayes displayed in the center of the browser window no matter what size it is but layers move all over the place when the browser window is shrunk or maximised or whatever.. why is this.. and see there is no option to centre a layer like an image.. or is there?

Also, what is the best way to get a customized jump to menu box.. those little drop down ones.. I want to change background colour of cells etc.. Is there an easier way than flash? CSS or java maybe?

Thanks, i'm sure i'll have plenty more q's.. just learned swap images yesterday - smashing... i'm self taught w/ tutorials so it's a slow process..

Anyway tanx for the help...

-flynn

Flynn

no takers eh?

is it that dumb a question? (probably) hmmm..

heggie

dont use layers they are nasty

Flynn

really? why? i just use them to place text in deifferent sections of the site with the layer colour the same as the page... still bad idea?

chabsey

heggie wrote:

dont use layers they are nasty

If by layers he means DIVs then not using them would be the wrong thing to do. Having a fairly decent understanding of CSS and CSS-P is more or less essential to anyone trying to design sites from now on. Not that you have to use them to the total exclusion of tables, but to ignore them would be a mistake.

Flynn

Is it better to use table to lace text than moving layers about ya?

chabsey

Flynn wrote:

Is it better to use table to lace text than moving layers about ya?

Lace text? Do you mean place text? If you do, then placing text is dead easy with CSS, try it and see. My advice would be to mess around with a CSS file, get a copy of TopStyle Lite (it's free) and play around with how CSS works.
At a basic level CSS is easy and can produce great results, at more complex levels (positioning etc) and fixing cross-browser issues, it can become difficult.

Try it and see.

Flynn

chabsey wrote:

Lace text? Do you mean place text? If you do, then placing text is dead easy with CSS, try it and see. My advice would be to mess around with a CSS file, get a copy of TopStyle Lite (it's free) and play around with how CSS works.
At a basic level CSS is easy and can produce great results, at more complex levels (positioning etc) and fixing cross-browser issues, it can become difficult.

Try it and see.

Ya i meant place text.. sorry!
Thanks, can i use that in conjunction w/ dreamweaver? sorry i still dont understand... whats wrong with putting layers everywhere to place different blocks of text on a page?

chabsey

Flynn wrote:

Ya i meant place text.. sorry!
Thanks, can i use that in conjunction w/ dreamweaver? sorry i still dont understand... whats wrong with putting layers everywhere to place different blocks of text on a page?

Yes, you can setup Dreamweaver so that TopStyle is it's default CSS editor (check under preferences, external editors). There's nothing wrong with using layers to place different blocks of text on a page, it's commonly done. However, actual CSS positioning (as in, using CSS to totally control the placement of an image, or a text block, or most anything else on a website is slightly more difficult than using CSS purely as a formatting tool.)

Your best bet is probably to use both tables and CSS at this stage, then slowly try and recreate a table-based design with pure CSS. My advice would be not to become obsessed with abandoning tables altogether, it can become frustrating on more complex designs.

Read some of the following to see what I'm talking about:

http://www.brainjar.com/css/positioning/

http://www.barelyfitz.com/screencast/html-training/css/positioning/


http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/stylesheets/csslayout.html