It seems that Microsoft has reversed their previous decision to make Internet Explorer 8 crippled by default. They will be enabling the standards compliant mode by default in IE8, and webmasters will have to use the X-UA-Compatible header to force it into IE7 mode, for sites that can’t be updated immediately. Huzzah for progress!
And on that note, I’ll mention that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is available for download. [...]
Internet Explorer 8 passes the Acid2 test. Huzzah!
But waitaminnit… What’s this stuff about forward compatibility by adding some new X-UA-Compatible header to my pages or my server? Am I reading this right? Are you telling me that in order for IE8 to use its fully compliant rendering, we have to add something new to our pages? And that if we don’t, it will fall back to rendering pages just like IE7? Is that what this means?
That’s just dumb.
Screw their stupid “don’t break the web” motto. [...]
The Sandbox Designs Competition is over, and the results are in. The overall winner was the Sandpress theme. That theme was one of my favorites. When I get a few minutes to back through them again, I’ll try to write up my list of favorites, and what I like and dislike about each theme.
All in all, there were some very nice designs in the competition. I could tell that the designers all put a lot of work into their designs. . [...]
I’ve mentioned the Sandbox theme for WordPress a couple of times before, but I’ve neglected to point out the Sandbox Designs Competition that is going on right now. A few weeks ago, the total prize money stood at over $1600, with 1st prize netting $750.
Sandbox has a really good structure, with lots of semantic classes (and microformats) added at key points. [...]
When I’m putting a new web site together, one thing that sometimes bugs me is choosing which fonts to use. I’ll typically throw together a list of fonts that I like, decide to use this set of serif fonts for these page elements, and that set of sans-serif fonts for those other elements, select some fallback choices for my stylesheet, and let it go at that. Obviously, I’m no designer — or I’d be saying ‘typeface’ instead of ‘font’ — but I’d like to be able to make ‘better’ choices for my fonts.
I’ve done a little bit of searching, but I haven’t found what I’m looking for. [...]
Co-worker Stephen Touset has described what he calls the Browsenberg Uncertainty Principle:
As one increases the layout precision of a section on a webpage, all other sections of the page have their layouts perturbed by a proportional amount.
And its corollary:
The more precisely one specifies positioning and layout for a page in one browser, the less accurately every other browser will render it.
Make sure you follow the link and also read his example of a typical exchange between a customer and a web designer. [...]
It’s been a long time coming, but my wife, Susan, finally has a WordPress blog. You can check it out at DigitalDivas.net. As you’ll see when you get there, It’s Pink! Susan spent a lot of time adapting some CSS techniques for her site, and I helped her turn her html code into a WP theme.
I’m sure she’ll be posting on a variety of topics, from web design and technology, to current events, to family matters. [...]
I had recently been using Alex Robinson’s 3-column CSS technique called “ordered columns, float-margin/float-margin” for some website designs. But he has superceded that with the One True Layout. OTL combines methods for source-ordered columns, techniques for equal-height columns, and “vertical grids” to provide a flexible method of creating complex page layouts, while maintaining a minimum of markup clutter. [...]
As mentioned previously here and elsewhere, Microsoft is working on Internet Explorer 7, which will have greatly improved CSS support. The IE7 team has posted an article about the demise of CSS hacks and broken pages, warning that the hacks often used to target CSS specifically to work around old IE bugs may be unnecessary under IE7 when in strict mode. [...]
The new CSS-powered version of Slashdot (mentioned previously) has gone live
After 8 years of my nasty, crufty, hodge podged together HTML, last night we finally switched over to clean HTML 4.01 with a full complement of CSS. [...]
