Web designers settled for a handful of basic
typefaces and suffered ad nauseam the indignity of limited image control and substandard table layouts. Then came the
cascading stylesheets (CSS) specification - promising all the control of
advanced desktop packages with the benefits of a native Web technology.
That is, until you try using it. The
first few stabs at implementing the features of CSS in current browsers is enough to make a designer give up.
Most of us, anyway.
But Eric Meyer did something about it. He develops Web projects as the
hypermedia systems manager for Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and continuously faces the same problem: The power offered by stylesheets is
compelling, but only when they are implemented consistently and
ubiquitously.
While doing interface design for sites like his central campus Web server or The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Meyer was frustrated that he couldn't use CSS
across the different browsers he knew he had to support. Like many of us
developing on the Web, he built a series of examples to test the various
browsers - but his were really, really good. And he made them public.
Now, as a member of the CSS&FP Working Group - in the position of
invited expert in the area of browser conformance - he coordinates the CSS1
Test Suite - the W3C's first-ever test
suite.
I talked to Meyer about his project as well as
the current state of CSS on the Web.
next page»
