HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, 6th Edition

Appendix H. Netscape Layout Extensions

From the start of their enterprise before the turn of the century, the developers at Netscape were at the forefront of browser design that addressed the needs of commercial interests. During those heady years, Netscape extended HTML to provide authors with far more sophisticated page-layout capabilities than otherwise available in any other browser. And they were very successful in that enterprise. Netscape Navigator was the dominant browser by far until the early 2000s with the advent of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and other standards. Microsoft finally caught on, too.

In this appendix, we document for historical purposes three features that were unique to Netscape versions 4 and earlier and no other browsers since then: spacers, multiple columns, and layers. These tags lure the designer with exciting page-layout capabilities. Play with them as you will, but we warn you: they won't ever become part of HTML/XHTML standards. They aren't even supported by the latest version of Netscape Navigator.

Creating Whitespace

One of the simplest elements in any page design is the empty space surrounding content. Empty space is often just as important to the look and feel of a page as the areas filled with text and images. Commonly known as whitespace, these empty areas shape and contain the content of your page.

Native HTML has no way to create empty space on your page, short of using a <pre> tag filled with blank lines or an empty image. In fact, browsers—acting ...