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Dreamweaver Article

Julie Hallstrom
Technical Support Specialist
Dreamweaver
Macromedia

The World Wide Web Consortium, also referred to as the W3C, is a group that creates standards for web technologies. What does that mean? It means that since 1994, this group of people has shaped the way we design pages for the web using such standards as the various versions of HTML, protocols such as HTTP and FTP, and CSS (to name only a few of the many technologies with which they are involved). As web developers, we are guided to an extent by how browsers react to code, and the browsers differ in the way that they render standard code.

Standards
The HTML specification dictates to the browsers the code that they must support. However, since different browsers support the same code in different ways, web designers tend to design their web pages to conform to the browser's interpretation of the code instead of the specification. Hence, we find ourselves “designing for Netscape" or some other specific browser or platform. Of course, the ultimate dictator of the code that Dreamweaver produces is the HTML specification; Dreamweaver looks to the specification for guidance just as the browsers do.

You might be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with CSS and HTML styles?” To an extent, a discussion of CSS and HTML styles has to start with a discussion of specifications. It is easier to understand how to use styles when we understand the historical background of the web.

The first official recommendation for HTML was HTML 2.0. This specification was created by a group other than the W3C, by the way. This specification did not even allow for tables (therefore, browsers supporting this specification did not have to worry about rendering tables). Even more amazing, however, is that this specificication did not allow for a FONT tag. The only way you could designate a change in the appearance of text was by formatting a line of text with a certain heading value (H1 - H6 tags). Or, you could specify certain generic formatting, such as bold (B), code (CODE), and citation (CITE), to give a few examples.

The HTML 3.2 specification added almost all of the code elements that we are familiar with today. In addition, it fully supported most of the HTML 2.0 specifications, including, for instance, the headings and generic formatting elements. With the the new specifications came the ability to use FONT tags to specify the way we wanted certain textual elements to look.

However, as soon as we started using the FONT tag universally, the HTML 4.0 specification was released and the FONT tag was deprecated in favor of CSS style sheets. As a result, the FONT tag will have a relatively short lifetime. I consider this to be one of the primary differences between HTML style formatting and CSS. With HTML styles, a FONT tag is used to dictate the appearance of text, but the FONT tag is unnecessary when using CSS styles.

Deprecated? That sounds kind of ugly!
The W3C defines deprecated as follows: “A deprecated element or attribute is one that has been outdated by newer constructs. Deprecated elements are defined in the reference manual in appropriate locations, but are clearly marked as deprecated. Deprecated elements may become obsolete in future versions of HTML.”

Thus, the choice to deprecate something indicates two things:

1	The deprecated attribute must still be supported by browsers that support this version of HTML. This is why current browsers still support the FONT tag and why Dreamweaver will still allow users to create the FONT tag. This falls into the category of backwards compatibility.
2	The deprecated attribute may become obsolete in future versions of the HTML specification and no longer be supported. In that case, the browsers supporting that version of HTML would no longer be required to support or recognize the FONT tag.

Put simply, it means that web designers would be wise to begin shifting towards using CSS styles to dictate things such as text appearance. This also means that we should anticipate that our customers will begin to use CSS styles much more frequently.

But while the W3C recommends deprecating the FONT tag, the old standbys of heading tags and the old formatting choices are still supported. To understand why that would be true, we have to look a little more at the W3C's stated goals. The consortium has never been concerned about appearance for appearance's sake. Rather, their goal is “to lead the web to its full potential as a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding.” They feel that the elements that were introduced in HTML 2.0 provide an inherent structure to a web page. Audio readers depend on this structure, for example, to determine how elements are organized and to communicate that information appropriately. Therefore, the recommendation for the CSS specification is that, whenever possible, CSS styles should be combined with these inherent structural elements.

Resources

	TechNotes
		Creating embedded Cascading Style Sheets (TechNote 15231)
		How to create an external Cascading Style Sheet (TechNote 12922)
	CSS Style Specification
		Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 CSS 2 Specification: This is the full specification for the rules which govern CSS styles. This page is a great place to start for information about different CSS style settings.
	CSS in action
		W3C Core Styles: Here you can download some sample style sheets created by the specification gurus themselves (the W3C, that is). This may be a good place to start looking at different CSS style sheets.
		CSS1 Test Suite: This is cool because it provides a visual display of the different style properties.
	Various bits of CSS information
		Linking Style Sheets to HTML: This reference explains the different ways that styles can be used within HTML. Bear in mind that, while you can do any of these in the code in Dreamweaver, the interface will only easily allow linking to an external style sheet and embedding a style sheet.
		Assigning property values, Cascading and Inheritance: This is a good reference for users who would like to have an easy answer to how styles cascade. In short—there is no easy answer, but this is from the horse's mouth.
		Style Sheet Dependence: This is just my pet peeve -- a good article for users who insist that they want CSS styles to dictate an absolute appearance. This article explains why that is in opposition to CSS fundamentals.

About the author
Julie Hallstrom is a team lead for the Macromedia Dreamweaver Technical Support staff. Formerly a designer who hand-coded websites for small companies, she is now the number one fan of Dreamweaver. In addition to writing TechNotes, reviewing Dreamweaver documentation, and designing training materials for Macromedia, Julie has been a technical editor for several books on Dreamweaver and Fireworks.