Some CSS news

As many of you CSS designers have encountered are the different implementations across the different browsers. Well, this could come to an end. Not soon, unfortunately, but maybe by the end of 2009 we may not have to worry about that any more.

Well, IE 8 is about to be released and that will put it on par with the other recent versions of browsers like Firefox, Safari and Chrome.

Here is a link to an interesting article about CSS and how you can do table layouts without tables and without those fancy DIV tricks you have had to use:

Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong

Can't wait.

Summary of skills needed to produce a good web site

I have been giving some thought as to what a designer/developer needs to know in order to produce a good web site. Here is a summary of my thoughts.

PS: You are welcome to comment on this.

A. Static Content Site
(Often referred to as a Brochure or an HTML site.)

1. HTML/XHTML
2. CSS
3. Graphics manipulation and conversion
4. Graphics creation
5. Layout design
6. Writing for the Web utilizing keywords
7. SEO factors (make/keep pages search engine friendly)
8. Web site marketing (includes social networking and how to convert visitors to the web site)
9. JavaScript
10. Web hosting fundamentals and related Internet and environmental factors
11. Optional: XML
12. Optional: Flash
13. Optional: Silverlight
14. Imagination and bright ideas
15. Web authoring tool (Expression Web, Dreamweaver, etc.)

B. Dynamic Content Site
(Often, incorrectly, referred to as database site. Also referred to as an ASP or PHP site amongst other names.)

1. All of the above skills listed in Static Content Site, especially points 1, 2, 3, 10 and 11
2. Excellent programming ability
3. Logic (being able to work out the logical flow and sequence of events and things)
4. Understanding data and the relationships between data and types of data
5. Understanding the Web environment very well (e.g. the web programming is stateless – storage wiped out for each client – server – client round trip)
6. Know and understand the web platform technology (e.g. ASP.NET or PHP)
7. Know at least one programming language that can be used in the environment chosen (in ASP.NET choices are C#, VB and others)
8. Know Object Oriented Programming (OOP)
9. Optional but key: Know the appropriate IDE (Integrated Development Environment – in ASP.NET it is Visual Studio or Visual Web Developer)
10. Fundamentals of databases
11. SQL (Structured Query Language) and T-SQL if using SQL Server or equivalent
12. Database table design
13. XML and at least four related technologies like XSLT, DTDs, XPath, Schemas
14. Research ability
15. Advanced: Security issues and how to handle them
16. Advanced: Any feature that could be left out but would make for better performance, maintenance and stability
17. Regular Expressions
18. Project planning and management

Quite a list of diverse skills.

In some large companies specialists are employed to deal with specific skills. But, I know quite a few ASP.NET developers who know the whole gamut of skills presented here.

[TIP] CSS: How to center an element

CSS can be strange at times. Most of CSS makes logical sense, but some CSS techniques defy any logic.

Where this got highlighted for me was trying to teach one of staff CSS. She often gets confused when I demand more advanced CSS. So I concluded that some CSS just needs to be remembered and cannot logically be figured out like one does in a computer program. Ah Well!

Here is one such example:

Centering an element in CSS.

The HTML:

<div id="main">
<!-- content goes here -->
</div>

The CSS:

body {
text-align: center; /* Center main in IE */
}
#main {
width: 768px; height: 768px;
margin: 0px auto -1px auto;
/* Center main in other browsers */
}

Firstly there is a difference between IE and other browsers. The IE one is kinda obvious but seems not to be standards compliant. The use of the margin property is interesting. In case you didn't pick up on it it is the "auto" value that does the centering.

Hope this helps someone.