CSS: Where Little Things Mean a Lot
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You’ve heard of people talking about having a site made using CSS, otherwise known as Cascading Style Sheets. So you decide to have a look at this CSS stuff only to discover that it makes no sense. How can somebody make a site out of this? Well, to put it bluntly, they don’t make a site with CSS; rather they make the site just as they would any other site, using good old HTML and link their page(s) to a CSS file. This file holds all the information on how the page will look; from what color the background is, to what font the body of the site will use.
“So what?”, I hear you say. What if I told you that by using this one single file, you will essentially save yourself countless hours of coding time, and by changing this one file your entire site will change accordingly? Interested now? I thought so!
When I created my first few sites I had not heard of CSS. Finally the time came when I made a fairly large site; it contained over 50 pages, and although I had made the site with frames, which sort of lessened the work load a little, when I decided that I wasn’t happy with the look of the site and that I wanted to give it a makeover, one thought ran through my head: "Ouch!" I had over 50 files that needed changing, and they weren’t small changes, a lot of work was needed. So I decided to completely recreate the site. I changed from using static HTML, to using ASP and CSS. This was the best decision I have ever made as, since then, the site has had two makeovers, and each one involved the editing of only one file, the wonderful CSS file.
Let’s start out small with a simple page like this:
<html>
<head>
<title>My first page with CSS</title>
</head>
<body>
Examples 'R' Us
</body>
</html>
Now, if you created a HTML file with this code and opened it in your browser of choice, well, it would be pretty boring. Go on, and give it a try. You’ll see what I mean.
Next: On to CSS >>
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