Bates WebGuide

What are Cascading Stylesheets (CSS)?

According to its creators at W3C, Cascading Style Sheets “is a simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents.” It's possible to use CSS to specify all sorts of formatting options, including spacing, positioning, borders, and more. However, at Bates, we currently use CSS to specify font formatting and <A> link characteristics.

How do I link to the Bates CSS?

All pages should link to the default CSS. It should also include the Javascript which tests the browser type and loads the NS4/PC stylesheet when necessary. The code is below:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.bates.edu/StyleSheets/CSS/stylesheet-generic.css" type="text/css"> <!-- JAVASCRIPT TO USE SPECIAL CSS STYLESHEET FOR WINDOWS NS4 USERS ONLY --> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> <xsl:comment> <![CDATA[//> browser_version = parseInt(navigator.appVersion); browser_type = navigator.appName; browser_OS = parseInt(navigator.platform); if ( browser_type == "Netscape" && (browser_OS == "Win32") && (browser_version == 4)) { document.write("<link REL='stylesheet' HREF='StyleSheets/CSS/stylesheet-ns4.css' TYPE='text/css'>"); } ]]> //</xsl:comment> </SCRIPT> <!-- END OF JAVASCRIPT -->

In addition, you may create a CSS stylesheet that is unique for your page type. You may use your own CSS stylesheet to override styles defined by the default stylesheet; just make sure to put the code for yours last. View the current version of stylesheet-generic.css which includes a brief explanation of some of the CSS tags in use at Bates College.

Where can I learn more about CSS?

Websites:

Basics	Web Monkey
	CSS School
Advanced	A List Apart
	The Daily Report: by CSS guru Jeffrey Zeldman
	Browser-targeted CSS using Javascript
Reference	CSS compatibility chart
	CSS validator

Books:

Cascading Style Sheets, the Definive Guide by Eric A. Meyer, O'Reilly Press Amazon link O'Reilly link QA 76.76 M47 2000