Top 10 CSS Authoring Tips

1) Validate your code--both CSS and HTML. Even the most seasoned Web authors can make mistakes with their styles, and one of the fastest ways to mangle styles is to have badly malformed HTML. You should make sure both are clean and free of errors. There are two main sources for validation: the W3C and the Web Design Group. The latter offers validators with vaguely friendly error messages, so it's a good place to start. Look under "Tools" for the HTML Validator and CSScheck. By making sure your code passes the validator, you can avoid the need to memorize many of the tips in this list.

2) You can't have total control over the page. CSS allows authors (and readers) to make suggestions about how a page should be presented. It is not a pixel-precise way to ensure that every person sees the page in exactly the same way. Nor could it be: How can you make a palmtop computer display a page the same as it appears on a flatscreen monitor forty inches wide? Given the incredibly wide range of browsing environments, it simply isn't possible to ensure total consistency in page appearance. CSS permits you to make suggestions--strong ones, perhaps, but still suggestions.

3) Avoid changing the default (BODY) font size. It stands to reason that a user will set their browser to display text in a size which is most comfortable for them. If you change the default size, you are by definition making your page less comfortable for everyone to read. You can certainly make some text bigger or smaller than "ordinary" text (headings and footnotes are examples) but the majority of text should not be sized by the author. If you feel you absolutely must change the default size for some reason, then use ems or percentages to do it.

4) Make sure you use units, and that they aren't separated. A common mistake is to write something like this:

H1 {font-size: 2 em;}
IMG.exam {width: 200;}

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The first line is wrong because the unit and the number are separated by a space. There should never be a space between the number and its unit. The second line is a little more subtle. The assumption is that the image should be 200 pixels wide, but how do you know? It could be 200 centimeters, or furlongs, or parsecs, or angstroms. The problem is compounded by the fact that some browsers interpret numbers without units as being pixels, while others rightly ignore these numbers. So you'll want to do something more like this:

H1 {font-size: 2em;}
IMG.exam {width: 200px;}

5) Specific styles always override inherited styles. It's possible to set a color for the entire document like this:

BODY {color: red;}

However, this will not carry over to things like hyperlinks. Why not? Because of the browser's style rule of A:link {color: blue;} (assuming the browser is set to color links blue). Since there is a rule which explicitly assigns a color to hyperlinks, it overrides the inherited color red. One of the most common authorial errors is to forget this fact, and wonder why their styles aren't being inherited. It's also something that validators won't catch, because nothing is wrong--it's just not quite what the author really wants.

6) Shorthand properties can obliterate previous styles. It's not uncommon to try to do something like this:

H1 {background-image: url(bg42.gif);}
H1, H2, H3 {background: yellow;}

You might expect that H1 elements would have a yellow background over which an image is tiled (assume the image has transparent bits so that the yellow would be visible). This is not the case. The declaration background: yellow will cause the unspecified values (for background image, background position, background repeat, and background attachment) to revert to their defaults. Since the default value for a background image is none, there will be no image in the background of H1 elements. On the other hand, you can reverse the rules:

H1, H2, H3 {background: yellow;}
H1 {background-image: url(bg42.gif);}

This will work as expected, with the image being tiled over the yellow background. That's because the default image value of noneassigned in the first rule will be overridden by the value in the second rule.

7) Borders without style don't exist. Since the default border-style is none, if you don't explicitly declare a border-style for a border then it will have no existence at all, and therefore zero width. After all, something can have width only if it exists. If you want extra space to appear around an element such as an image, use margins, not a border width.

8) Be careful with color. It is often recommended that any color assignment should be accompanied by a background color assignment. Consider that a user may have a personal stylesheet which sets pages to be displayed as yellow text on a black background. Now assume that you declare the following styles for your page:

BODY {color: black;}

It is now possible that some (or all) or your page will feature black text on a black background. This makes it somewhat difficult to read. You'd be better off doing one of two things: either make sure you include a background color to go with that foreground color, or try not to mess with the colors at all. Remember that users set their browsers to the display which is most comfortable for them. That includes color combinations as well as font sizes.

9) Navigator 4 requires Javascript to display CSS. In the early days of Web-specific stylesheet proposals, Netscape advanced an idea called Javascript Stylesheets (JSSS), which was similar to CSS but had deep ties into Javascript. This was implemented in Navigator 4 to some extent. Unfortunately, one side effect is that disabling Javascript also disables stylesheets. Mozilla and the Netscape 6 preview releases do not suffer from this problem, nor do browsers provided by other companies.

10) Validate your code. It can't be said often enough, really. Running your HTML and CSS through validators will quickly teach you a lot about good authoring practices. There is no faster way to learn than to experiment a lot, and pay heed to the validator warnings you get.

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