CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets is a language with the sole purpose of describing the formatting or looks of any document being written in markup languages. Most commonly it is being employed in styling of HTML or XHTML based web pages along with application in some other forms of XML based documents XUL, SUG and plain XML. CSS serves the important purpose of creating a distinction in between document’s presentation and document’s content for any document being written in markup language. Elements like font specifications, color and layout etc constitute the presentation of any document.
A number of advantages can be achieved by the distinction or separation of presentation and content some of which are listed:
- Content accessibility is improved.
- All the constituents of document presentation are handled with a lot more flexibility as well as improved control.
- Multiple pages can be made to share the same formatting.
- Allows with the flexibility to present a single markup page in different styles.
- Any repetition present in the structural content can be reduced along with minimizing complexity.
The hard work and research of designers never seems to get to an ending. Brilliant designs and implementations continue to arrive in every aspect of technology. Remarkable tools techniques continue to add up in CSS and there are a number of such attributes which are very much unknown but play important part in content presentation, typography and layouts. Some of these important techniques are discussed with a state of mind of providing guideline that these tools should be learnt and then apply the right one at right place.
These tips and tools are for CSS3 and CSS2.1.
1. Font Size Adjust: This is a very useful property which provides flexibility for using different aspect ratios without making them appear like too tiny or huge. It generates sparkling results when properly utilized.
2. White Space: Majority of beginners of CSS ignore this property of white space considering it unimportant. This perception is true but only up to a limited extent as one can go along without this using property for some time but once its importance being uncovered it becomes inevitable. It becomes an element of repeated use because it is very much handy.
3. CSS3 Gradients: Quite often there is a need of different sorts of patterns. Strips, multi-color stops, checkered patterns and a lot more exclusive background design patterns can be generated with the help of CSS3 gradients.
4. 3D Hologram: CSS can be used to achieve holographic effects. A new tool in this regard is the 3D hologram which changes perspective on the basis of device orientation.
5. Progress bars: A number of nice looking progress bars have been created with CSS3 fancies without images.
6. Pseudo Class: CSS stuff can be controlled much easily and effectively in different formats, places and states with pseudo classes without consuming much space.
7. Space Combinator: This is another overlooked attribute with even some professionals not aware about the full potential of this tool.
8. CSS Animations: This can be used as enhancement layer in designs.
9. Attribute Selector: It can perform element selection on the basis of “rel attribute†also.
10. CSS Selectors: Complex selectors can be used to keep the markup neat and semantic.
This list is by no means limited and importance of techniques can vary depending upon situation.