How to Build a Basic CSS Layout

Designing without tables by using CSS layouts is fastbecoming the new standard on the Web because of thebenefits mentioned in my previous article. Web browsersused these days are now able to render web pagesproficiently. In this article I will endeavor to create abasic 2 column CSS layout which you can use for futuredesign projects.

Web Page: http://www.isitebuild.com/css/css-layout.htmlStyle Sheet: http://www.isitebuild.com/css/stylesheet.htm

1. Divide your page into sections - the div id tagsallows you to create distinct divisions on your web page.They are identified with a unique id. You can then add astyle (css selector) that specifically applies to the divof that id. Remember to include the DOCTYPE (to render yourpage accurately in the browsers) and meta tags (enablessearch engines to spider your pages).

wrapper: is the div that wraps around all the other divslike a container for the page elements.header: defines the top banner of the pagemain: defines the main content of the pagenav: defines the navigation of the pagefooter: defines the footer and sub-navigation of the page

2. Create the CSS code - the CSS code styles the page as a centered 2 column CSS layout with a navigation bar and a footer. The div#wrapper style creates the centered box which acts as a container for the rest of the page content. The width: 80% rule sets the width of the div. The background-color:#FFFFFF rule creates a white background for the div. The margin-top: 50px andmargin-bottom: 50px rules create a space of 50 pixels forthe top and bottom margins for the div itself.

The proper way to center a block-level element with CSS isto set margin-left: auto and margin-right: auto. Thisinstructs the browser to automatically calculate equalmargins for both sides, thus centering the div. The border:thin solid #000000 rule adds a border around the outer div.The rest of the CSS code styles the divs for the header,footer, nav, and main content.

The div#header and div#footer styles set margins andpadding for those divs. In addition, div#header includesthe text-align: center rule to center the header text, anddiv#footer includes the border-top: thin solid #000000 ruleto create a border along the top edge of the div to replacethe horizontal rule above the footer in the table-basedlayout.

The div#nav and div#main styles create the two columns inthe middle of the centered box. In the div#nav style, thefloat: left rule pushes the div to the left side of itsparent element (the wrapper div), and the width: 25% rulesets the div's width to 25 percent of the parent element.With the nav div floated to the left and limited to a setwidth, it leaves room for the main div to move up to theright of the nav div, thus creating the two-column effect.The div#main style includes the margin-left: 30% rule tokeep the main text aligned in a neat column instead ofspreading out below the nav column. The main div's leftmargin is set to a value slightly larger than the width ofthe nav div.

Style Sheethttp://www.isitebuild.com/css/stylesheet.htm

If links are placed elsewhere on the page they will inheritthe same properties as above..a blue link that hovers tored. What if you wish to create another set of links thatare a different color and on passing your mouse over themthey are underlined.

4. Create the bottom navigation - to include this in the section of the page, I use div#footer andcode each link accordingly. To make the list gohorizontally I use: display: inline;

Now that I have finished creating my style sheet I want toshorten the code on page by linking it to my external stylesheet. Here's how:

4. Create an external style sheet - copy and paste all thecss code (without these tags: ) into notepad and label it something like"style sheet". Place this style sheet between the head tagsof your web page.

This will reduce the code on your page so it will load fastplus the search engines can more easily spider your webpage.

4. Add content to your page - after you have got your pagelooking correctly, you can add more content to it.Adjustments can easily be made to any style on the page (oryour whole site) by simply editing one style sheet.

5. Upload your files - be sure to upload your web pages andstyle sheet to the root directory of your server.

6. Validate your code - be sure to validate your xhtmlcode: http://validator.w3.org/ and css code:http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ and make correctionswhere necessary.

7. Check browser compatibility and screen resolution -check that your page renders well in the popular browsers(IE6, NN7, Firefox)

If you are beginning with CSS layouts, implement thenslowly by making small changes to your pages i.e. creatinga style sheet for your main headers and fonts only. As youbecome more familiar with CSS you may eventually build allyour future sites with CSS layouts.

Resources:

Basic CSS layout
http://www.isitebuild.com/css/css-layout.html

CSS Style Sheet
http://www.isitebuild.com/css/stylesheet.htm

Benefits of CSS
http://www.isitebuild.com/css/index.htm

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com AffordableWeb Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original articles.mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. You can read more of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles