The efficiencies of Cascading Style Sheet technology are implemented to the max. CSS allows the construction of an ultralight interface, with no use of graphics for navigation.
The code is supported by Internet Explorer 5+, Mozilla/Firefox, Opera 8, and Safari 2.0.
CSS effectively drapes the sparse HTML while a small script
handles the various forms of linking and display synchronization.
The structural code validates but the DOCTYPE is not consistent
across pages. Most content validates XHTML except when IE conditional
comment tags are used. These are used to show a little content to the advantage of Mozilla/Firefox.
HTML 4.01 deprecated tags are anathema and no tables are used for layout.
Use of the accesskey attribute or focus()
method to optimize keyboard navigation worked perfectly in IE but
Netscape pooped so I had to back off on that. Tabbing within sidebar
links should work cross-browser.
Most text content is styled in relative units and may be resized using browser controls, although IE and Netscape have serious flaws in relation to text resizing. In general, I have made navigation elements less flexible.
IE's bugs greatly hinder creating a
truly fluid layout. These bugs include reserving unneeded width for
scrollbars, unstable implementation of % units, and inappropriate font
display after dynamic resizing. The most important new bugs introduced by IE6
are usually related to the poor implementation of the DOCTYPE switch
which determines the rendering mode. The IE6 "quirks"
mode is often preferable to the multiple display bugs in standards mode. For
that reason I sometimes used the XML declaration prefix to put IE in quirks mode while
allowing Mozilla-based browsers to continue to apply standards rendering.
This feature was added to facilitate my own experiments. It will not write cookies to your machine. Although the script works in Mozilla 1.0+, it does not work in Netscape 6. Note that only IE needs a scripted style switcher — most browsers have a native mechanism to do that.
The visual elements have rounded edges in Mozilla/Firefox, styles not supported by IE. Neither does IE support the advanced features of PNG graphics used here for the shadowing.