OOCSS is more than just a tool, it is a way of thinking. There are many advantages to adapting this concept. Primarily:

• It allows you to write fast, maintainable, standards-based front end code.
• It adds much needed predictability to CSS so that even beginners can participate in writing beautiful websites.

OOCSS is governed by two main principles:

1. Separate structure and skin
2. Separate container and content

Take time to check out the Object Oriented CSS presentation. There are 64 slides, but it is definitely worth going through. If the text is hard to read, try viewing in Full Screen mode.

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Designers would find it surprising that to know that you can now take your HTML and CSS skills and use it to create desktop applications. This now very much possible for anyone who is willing to explore the power of Adobe AIR. Andrew Tetlaw has a nice little article over at SitePoint entitled Take Your CSS to the Desktop with Adobe AIR!. It provides a good, short introduction to Adobe AIR and how easy it is to use your web development skills to create rich cross-platform desktop applications.

For further reading, you may wish to check out Akash Mehta’s winning article, Walk on AIR: Create a To-do List in Five Minutes.

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Those familiar with fluid / elastic layouts know that they can be a little more challenging to implement compared to fixed-width layouts. With the advent of wide-screen monitors, one of the biggest advantages of fluid-width layouts is the ability to maximize available space.

It was only a year ago when 1024×768 was still the dominant screen size. However, as of January 2009, 57% of the population are on desktops higher than 1024×768. The number of users still on 1024×768 has declined sharply from 48% of the previous year to a mere 36%. On the other than, the users on widescreen desktop are rapidly growing, thanks in part to marketing by HDTV makers.

Kayla Knight has written a very good article on the topic of building good websites with fluid layout.

She comes up with 6 techniques to do this, which can be summed up as follows:

1. Fluid Layout Using A Grid
2. Adaptive Content
3. Images In A Fluid Layout
4. jQuery Masonry
5. Smart Columns with jQuery & CSS
6. Text Zooming

She also provides helpful examples and links to all the necessary tools needed to achieve the perfect fluid / elastic layout. With this, designers are armed and ready for the next evolution in layout design.

Read the full article

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Adobe BrowserLab is an online service that allows web professionals to test their websites on popular browsers and operating systems. Screenshots of actual browser renderings are generated in real time, with multiple viewing options to help pinpoint issues. Adobe provides integration with Dreamweaver CS4, and the free preview is currently available only to a limited number of users.

Currently, BrowserLab supports the following web browsers and operating systems:

• Firefox 2.0 - Windows XP
• Firefox 3.0 - Windows XP
• Internet Explorer 6.0 - Windows XP
• Internet Explorer 7.0 - Windows XP
• Safari 3.0 - Macintosh OS X
• Firefox 2.0 - Macintosh OS X
• Firefox 3.0 - Macintosh OS X

The sad thing about BrowserLab is that it will eventually be released as a paid service. In the meanwhile, there are alternatives like Browsershots which remain free for low-priority usage.

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• 16px default main text size
• Partial 26px baseline grid
• Serif for Heading, sans-serif for the paragraphs
• Lower color text contrast
• Intensified paragraph division (new line + indent)
• Bigger leading (line-height) 1.625

The original idea came from Vladimir Carrer, who also came up with the library. In his post entitled How we read on web and how can we improve that he reveals that most of us who use computers to read news, blogs, and various sites end up scanning rather than reading. He then compares reading a book to reading on the monitor, and provides three reasons why it is harder to read on a computer screen:

1. We maintain the book standards (12pt) for font size on the web (12px). But the distance from the monitor is triple. Just put your newspaper to your monitor and try to read. Hell! Is hard!
2. Additionally the paper reflects the light and monitor emits the light. If you have old “cathode” monitor it’s like looking directly in a light bulb.
3. You also have distraction noise: strong colors, links, flash animation, banners , not defined site architecture, click here, digg me, follow me on twitter, by my products… it’s fucking jungle out there.

He then comes up with a set of standards and rules that would allow for better and easier on-screen reading, and packages it as a CSS library. The resulting text is beautiful and pleasing to the eyes. One such example can be seen in the screen shot below. You should notice how your eyes would easily glide through the text:

You can head over to the project homepage, or click on the links below to view the library in action:

• Typography
• Absinthes to Go Mad Over - NY Times
• An American Prayer - The Doors
• Critique of Pure Reason - Immanuel Kant
• Excerpt from No Way To Paradise - Charles Bukowski
• How To Sniff Out A Liar - Forbes
• Hubble - Ars Technica
• One Day in Spring - Rabindranath Tagore
• Shaman’s Blues - The Doors
• Tarantino - NY Times
• The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
• The Last Question - Isaac Asimov
• The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe
• Viva Las Vegas - Elvis Presley

You can also head over and download the full library here.

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The Peeling Page is an effect is normally used by advertisers to show advertisements that would otherwise occupy space that is larger than what is available on a page. It is very slick, and is normally implemented in Flash. This script on Flashden costs $4, though there is a free tutorial available. The thing about the Flash version is that it uses both JavaScript and Flash, which may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

This is where Soh Tanaka’s jQuery + CSS idea comes in. It uses simple CSS and jQuery to mimic the Flash version, which can possibly translate to faster development and maybe even faster loading pages. The tradeoff is the absence of any extensive banner animation — something that can only be done in Flash. However, I believe this solution is worthy of a look, at least for those in need of a quick peeling page component for their project.

Simple Page Peel Effect with jQuery & CSS

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As self-proclaimed CSS experts, we must live, eat and breathe CSS - 25 hours a day. What better way to do this than by using a CSS + HTML calendar! Lovingly hand-crafted(tm) by Vladimir Carrer, the Grid Calendar is inspired by the Best of Calendar Design, and can be downloaded for free (can you believe it?)

This reminds me a lot of the designs posted on the 2007 elzr Infodesign challenge, as well as Adam Sporka’s Thumb Calendar which I am personally very fond of.

Perhaps there’s a designer out there with uber talent a lot of spare time who could take the Grid Calendar to the next level. It certainly could use a little more color, and those white spaces between the grids are making the nerve endings of my eyes do the polka dance. While we’re at it, let’s throw in a bunch of AJAX to turn our simple calendar into a leet app. Or maybe not.

Read the full article.

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If you are looking for a good pure CSS footer solution, look no further. CSS Sticky Footer works for over 50 Windows, Linux, and Mac-based browsers. Included in this list are the latest releases of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer.

CSS Sticky Footer is developed by Steve Hatcher, and is based on the Exploring Footers article from A List Apart, and takes suggestions from Cameron Adams’ footerStickAlt, and The Pure CSS Footer example from lwis.net. It applies a clear fix hack to keep the footer in place in Google Chrome and other browsers where the footer would float up when you resized the window. The clearfix also fixes problems that might occur if you are using floats to create two or three column layouts.

Far from being perfect, it does have its share of issues. The first one deals with margins, which can easily be solved by changing margins to padding instead. The second one deals with the use of relative font sizes such as % or em, something which many of the more advanced CSS gurus like me are very much fond of. The author suggests using px instead, which many find unacceptable.

To get started, check out the HowTo page for details on how to implement the CSS Sticky Footer.

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Back in 2007, the staff of A List Apart and An Event Apart conducted a survey and presented 37 questions to 33,000 web professionals, providing “the first data ever collected on the business of web design and development as practiced in the U.S. and worldwide” (ALA 2007 results). The results were compiled into a downloadable PDF file.

In 2008 they did it again, the results of the 2008 Survey For People Who Make Websites are now out for public consumption. The survey had less respondents compared to the one held in 2007 down to 30,055. Data analysis is provided by Alan Brickman and Larry Yu. The results speak can be overwhelming for some. Thankfully the findings are presented in a friendly, easy to read article with clear and beautiful CSS Charts.

ALA has generously shared the raw data with the community, which is available as tabbed text, CSV, and Excel spreadsheet. RAW data is a powerful thing, and I just have a couple of suggestions how it can be used:

• AJAX application that allows visitors to enter their own responses, and generates a graph that shows where the respondent is in relation to others
• Quick summary that shows the highest and lowest result per question
• AJAX application that allows visitors to filter, sort, and sift through the data
• Side-by-side comparison of 2008 and 2007 data

All in all, big props to the ALA team for the tremendous effort spent on this endeavor. It is a great contribution to the web community. Looking forward to the 2009 survey!

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