CSS3 For Dummies

Chapter 17

Ten Quick Ways to Produce a Great Layout

This book discusses a lot of CSS-related techniques and tactics — but when you consider everything that CSS is used for today, it still comes down to a matter of layout. Creating a layout that helps the user navigate the site and actually see the content you’re trying to present is essential. When you look online, you see that there are many kinds of layouts used to present information — some work better than others do.

The precise layout you create depends on just how fancy you want to get — and whether the content will be used on multiple devices (such as a combination of PCs and smartphones). However, most people will want either a fixed or a fluid (also called a liquid) layout. That’s because most business sites online use one of these two layouts to good effect. The layout type defines the reaction of the page to client characteristics, such as the size of the screen, but doesn’t determine issues such as the number of columns. Designers commonly group these layouts into two major and six minor layout types:

Classic layouts:

• Absolute: Each element is placed at a specific location on the page, no matter how much space is available.

• Fixed-width: The content consumes a fixed amount of space on the page, no matter how much ...