Russian dolls, Onion skins and the purpose of existence
All boxes look the same, but are they the same? Suppose I have magic wand that with me, that lets me resize things and 100 boxes and if I need to fit all the boxes into a single box; all I had to do is pick two boxes, change the size of one to accommodate other, easily said. What about html mark-up? Well think of a trying to fit a coffin into a food container, sounds funny! The odd feeling is because of the fact that we try to relate containers with content. They have a purpose. Do we know the purpose of html containers?
Valid mark-up
God, created heaven and earth, and W3C dictates web standards. Learning the rational behind standards, helps better appreciation and usage. Two broad level box model types are Block and Inline. There are other finer classifications of course, for example six box models, which are: inline, inline-block, block, table, absolute, and float. W3C also has an html validator application, which notifies us of the violations. Doing early and frequent checks for compliance always helps. Anyone who has stacked up laundry for the weekend knows this.
A compliance, AA compliance, AAA compliance
Inaccessible web sites are politically incorrect, legally liable and may cause potential loss of revenue. Certain technologies are not yet deemed accessible (like flash). Just acknowledging the guidelines while designing the site, makes the developers’ life easier. One can always use this as an excuse for excluding fancy stuff of course! Accessible websites make developers more pragmatic, and avoid gloss.
This works perfectly fine on my machine – Unfortunate reality
Above is a typical complaint from a software developer – a myth – something to be frowned upon. At least I did use it once in my early life as a college pass out. Most of the time, a bad design decision or a weird environment issue causes this. Unfortunately, when it comes to web design, we have a number of variables that make us acknowledge this statement. Did the developer use CSS expressions, did the developer face this on Mac/Windows, what was the browser, what was the resolution, which version of the software is used …. did the butterfly flapped its’ wings, did Microsoft sneeze.
PNG, SVG, Flash
Not every browser is the same, ACID2 and ACID3 tests give more insight into this issue. How can we have standard code when we don’t have standard compliant user agents? - a million dollar question. The answer: is the whole reason why the client hired you. PNGs are not supported on IE, try using transparent shadow affects, you will know. So are several other technologies across several other browsers.
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