Layers Anyone?

[gwx03]

Dreamweaver includes a feature called Layers. This powerful tool can position your site elements accurate to a pixel.

What I do not know is whether it can be used in whole designs, as a replacement for tables...

Having no experience in CSS-P, I do not know if it is,in fact, an equivalent of CSS-P! Or even a variation of that.

I would like to know that, and also the compatibility of layers... whether what browsers can support them and all that.

[courtjester]

With my past experiences all browsers except IE didn't show layers very well. Usually my content lied about 10-20 pixels off of where it was suposed to be and made it look terrible. Unless I just did something wrong, I really really dont suggest layers for anything... Well I do for Flash pop-up windows, but not for anything else.

[Webforumz Staff]

Dreamweaver layers do use CSS to position content. The problem is that there's still some differences in how browsers interpret somthing things like layer width, margins, etc so you really have to go in by hand and know what you're doing (at least a little) to get them to work consistently.

[courtjester]

Well theres my problem.. I have no idea as to what I am doing.. I am just a NooB when it comes to Universal Designing. Well, as a matter of fact I am a NooB at just about everything I am doing. Ohh, and just to let you know, NooB is a term used in gaming.

[Webforumz Staff]

Noob's pretty universal :wink:

Anyway, check out the book Eric Meyer on CSS, it's real good and goes into cross-browser friendly CSS.

Try this as well: http://www.westciv.com/style_master/house/

[gwx03]

"What is true is that the process of trial and error which accompanies trying to make a style sheet work in all major browsers can be time consuming, and extremely frustrating. Again, though, as browsers like Internet Explorer 5 and 6 and Netscape Navigator 7 become more and more widely used, this becomes less and less of an issue."westciv.com/style_master/

That phrase really frightens me :wink:... "trial and error which accompanies trying to make a style sheet work in all major browsers can be time consumin and extremely frustrating "...

I wasn't even aware of Netscape 7 and have been using 6.1 for quite a long time...

"There is no such thing as a layer HTML element, rather, layer is a term for any HTML element that is positioned on a web page using CSS2." This is confusing! Does this mean that layer is NOT a HTML element? and that it is an HTML element ( any type ) positioned using CSS2...

Does that mean layers are indeed making use of CSS2 and not some out-of-the-world "standard" or a non-CSS way of doing stuff?

I don't know If I am talking crap. Don't forget I'm new in this area.

[courtjester]

you could always use <div> tags!!!

[Webforumz Staff]

I think in Dreamweaver speak a layer is actually a SPAN or DIV.

After reading the book I mentioned and some other things I decided that my next contract was going to be done with as much CSS as possible.

Needless to say it was far more trouble than I had hoped, and I resorted to tables for parts of it, and some CSS tricks in places. But I was able to get quite a bit of CSS working across different browsers and cleaner code in general.

[gwx03]

If you were to look at the source of layers after you created it in Dreamweaver , yes, it is in essence <div> and <span> tags. I tested it on the major platforms, netscape 4.7, IE 5.5, netscape 7 and it looks fine..

Do you know how to CENTER a layer to the center of the page when it is resized?

[courtjester]

really?? I used to hand code <div> tags.. never really got into the coding for layers with Dreamweaver.. I am sure that there is something in Dreamweaver that will convert the layers to CSS. ALmost posotive I read something about it... Ohh well, look into it.

[Webforumz Staff]

to center a layer give it a width and set margin-left and margin-right to auto.

IE has problems with that though and it'll only work in IE6 in strict mode. You can avoid that by wrapping your layer in a DIV or SPAN with text-align set to center.

[gwx03]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="geneva, verdana, arial" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Catalyst

to center a layer give it a width and set margin-left and margin-right to auto.

IE has problems with that though and it'll only work in IE6 in strict mode. You can avoid that by wrapping your layer in a DIV or SPAN with text-align set to center.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Wrapping layers in DIV or SPAN? I thought layers ARE DIV or SPAN!
Is it that <DIV><DIV>Content</DIV></DIV>

Umm... thats weird.

[Webforumz Staff]

Yeah, it's not unusual to nest them like that for layout purposes.

[gwx03]

ok then; as I said in another post, I'm joining the thinkquest web design thing so do you think I should design the entire site using layers or tables? I don't really wish to work with new, experimental or incompatible technology...

[Webforumz Staff]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="geneva, verdana, arial" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by gwx03

I don't really wish to work with new, experimental or incompatible technology...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Then haven't you answered your own question?

[gwx03]

I don't really need the power of layers though... but I thought it would be nice ? or a plus that I use new stuff?

In other words, I'm using layers for the sake of using it.