Working together for standards The Web Standards Project

Buzz Archives: CSS

WaSP Microsoft Task Force Update: Upcoming Products, XAML, Acid2, SXSW, and IE7 Revealed

The WaSP Microsoft Task Force held another face-to-face meeting with available members on Tuesday. We met in a Starbucks along the waterfront in rainy Seattle. While the setting might have been a bit predictable, the conversation was unique and at times, very encouraging. WaSPs at the meeting were DL Byron ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | November 2nd, 2005

IEBlog: Clean up your CSS hacks

The IEBlog today issued a call to action, asking developers to help "clean up" CSS hacks that are failing in strict mode in IE7. Whether you're interested in helping the IE development team or not, consider this: a review of your code could help to clean out some bad CSS ...

By Kimberly Blessing | October 13th, 2005

Slashdot Goes CSS: Help Beta Test

After 8 years. That's EIGHT years, the infamous Slashdot is finally working with CSS. They are asking folks to look at their CSS and report bugs. And don't blame me if you can't connect. We're talking Slashdot after all.

By Molly E. Holzschlag | September 6th, 2005

Inspiration for Tables

Do you ever find yourself longing for inspiration where it comes to designing tables? Finding examples of good CSS-based tables is not easy - inevitably you'll have to post to a discussion list and see what people recommend. Now, finding inspiration should be a little easier with the CSS Table ...

By Ian Lloyd | September 2nd, 2005

Calling all CSS-Savvy Designers

Kevin Lawver, AOL's representative to the CSS Working Group, is making a plea to the design community to give the Working Group feedback on the CSS3 Borders and Backgrounds module. It isn't often one gets the opportunity to help define the tools you'll be using in your job, and this is ...

By Chris Kaminski | July 21st, 2005

Image Previews with DOM and CSS (and a dash of PHP)

Sometimes it might be a good idea to give visitors an insight of what is lurking behind a link. Normally this is achieved via a thumbnail, but what about inline links?

By Christian Heilmann | July 20th, 2005

Global Style

CSS Zen Garden has been the inspiration for similar projects in other languages: El Camaleón in Spanish by Manuel Guerrero of México (an RSS Feed Available) CSS Zen Sentiero in Italian by Michele Ledda (Javascript needed) Zen-Garden do maujor - Tema de visitante in Portugese by Maurício Samy Silva Also worth a look: A collection of ...

By Holly Marie Koltz | April 2nd, 2005

Interview with Håkon Wium Lie

Håkon Wium Lie is the CTO of Opera Software and in 1994 proposed the idea of CSS. Håkon is as deeply involved with the Web and with CSS as anyone can possibly be. Recently, he contacted WaSP to ask whether we could host the Acid2 test, which we agreed to ...

By Molly E. Holzschlag | March 31st, 2005

Handheld Styling

Jim Wilkinson authored a CSS Wiki page of useful information for those interested in styling content for the small screen, found at: Handheld Stylesheets - css discuss. If you are developing or styling content for handheld or mobile devices this page looks like it would be a very useful bookmark. Jim ...

By Holly Marie Koltz | March 10th, 2005

Staples.com CSS redesign

Update: Apparently, we BUZZed too soon; it appears that Staples has rolled back their site to its previous design. Hopefully this is a temporary hiccup, and Staples will soon be CSS-licious yet again. Following on the heels of its standards-savvy redesign of their customer rewards center, Staples.com has just launched ...

By Ethan Marcotte | February 26th, 2005

CSS Hacks – A Timely Reminder

With the news of IE7 somewhere on the horizon, there's something that all web developers should be aware of if - and it's a big if, I believe - Microsoft does take the opportunity of updating and fixing the CSS rendering problems with their browser. As Anne van Kesteren points ...

By Ian Lloyd | February 17th, 2005

MSN Gets Religion

WaSP Advisory Committee member Douglas Bowman has some nice things to say about MSN's new CSS-based look. And why not? While the XHTML Strict DOCTYPE is a bit optimistic, they come closer to achieving it than many high-profile sites. Quibbles or no, clearly someone on the MSN team 'gets it'.

By Chris Kaminski | February 1st, 2005

I Got An “Easy Button” For You

If you’re an especially sharp-eyed WaSP reader and you’re shopping for office supplies, you might have seen that Staples just redesigned their customer rewards center. While the new look isn’t a huge departure from the old yellow ‘n’ red, things under the hood look quite different—the site’s new layout ...

By Ethan Marcotte | January 28th, 2005

Because You KNow Someone Will Ask…

Every once in a while, you might wind up with a project sponsor who since 1997 hasn't let go of their opinion that aniGIFs are the panacea for web design ennui. For you hapless, Bruce Lawson has adapted the CSS Zen Garden template. [Warning: may cause seizures in susceptible viewers.] [From L. ...

By Ben Henick | January 19th, 2005

CSS reference on your iPod

If you’re on the lookout for cool technical references that will draw the occasional puzzled glance at parties, then the folks at WestCiv have some great news for you. They’ve recently released their popular Complete CSS Guide in a format that can be installed on your iPod. If ...

By Ethan Marcotte | December 15th, 2004

All That Glitters

Mike Davidson, art director behind the now-legendary ESPN.com CSS redesign, announces the redesign of ABC News, touting it as a success of real-world web standards. While the site’s new design successfully incorporates Flash, JavaScript, and CSS into an appealing, well-reasoned layout, I’m not exactly sure what real-world web standards means. ...

By Ethan Marcotte | October 12th, 2004

It’s a standard world, after all

Andy Clarke just announced the standards-based redesign of Disney Store UK — and yes, folks, the new site even validates right out of the gate. The site's yet another compelling argument for how easily it is to build a high level of standards compliance and accessibility into a well-established brand. ...

By Ethan Marcotte | October 4th, 2004

Zen of CSS

WaSP Molly Holzschlag has posted an announcement for her new book, co-authored by fellow WaSP Dave Shea. Just what I need — one more reason to blow my milk money on books. Thanks a lot, Molly. ;-) Update: Dave Shea has added a very complete previewing the book.

By Chris Kaminski | October 3rd, 2004

Min-Height Without the Min-Height

Fellow WaSP Dave Shea has cracked the nut of making min-height work in Safari. Ironically, he does it without using min-height. Well, almost: there's still a 'phantom' min-height in there to get Opera to do the right thing, but that's it. Nice work, Dave!

By Chris Kaminski | September 21st, 2004

MacRabbit

MacRabbit is a new CSS editor for the Mac. I haven't had a go with it yet, but the extraction feature alone, which allows you to suck down the CSS for an arbitrary site using a custom user agent string so you can 'spoof' different browsers and circumvent browser-sniffing, looks ...

By Chris Kaminski | September 20th, 2004

what do swimming pool maintenance and CSS have in common?

Why John Gallant, of course. The ex-pool repair guy is now an internationally recognized CSS guy instead. You can read all about his transformation (oh, that's a bad pun) in the recent “Ten Questions for John Gallant (Big John)” from our great friends at the Web Standards Group.

By Molly E. Holzschlag | September 15th, 2004

Z-Positioning: The Definitive Guide

Aleksandar Vacic has posted what looks to be an exceedingly thorough guide to Z-index positioning. He's a good man, and thorough. He goes throgh the effect of z-index values on both absolutely- and relatively-positioned elements in a variety of browsers. Definitely one for the bookmarks file. Update: Well, that didn't take ...

By Chris Kaminski | September 15th, 2004

CSS Tables

Following up on the variable-width, even-height CSS columns technique he worked out with WaSP Douglas Bowman, Eric Meyer has added a couple of posts explaining the CSS table-layout properties.

By Chris Kaminski | September 8th, 2004

Tantek on ‘Ten CSS Tricks’

Last week, an article on evolt called Ten CSS tricks you may not know made the rounds through the CSS blogosphere. CSS luminary and erstwhile IE 5/Mac developer Tantek Çelik is doing some peer review. A must-read, if only for information on IE/Win's support for multiple class selectors and why ...

By Chris Kaminski | September 8th, 2004

Sliding CSS Columns

Eric Meyer and WaSP Douglas Bowman have teamed up to develop a technique for creating multiple columns of equal height and variable width using CSS. Eric's discussion also includes his thoughts on the expediency of the odd layout table, while Doug frames his explanation in a discussion of the advantages ...

By Chris Kaminski | September 7th, 2004

Defenestrating Tables

Fellow WaSP Douglas Bowman has posted a analysis of the benefits of tableless design. It's based on his presentation at Digital Design World in which he made-over Microsoft's home page using only CSS for layout. What's makes this post especially interesting is Bowman's focus on real-world business benefits: I thought it was ...

By Chris Kaminski | July 28th, 2004

CSS to Go

CSS guru Eric Meyer has announced the release of the CSS Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition. My copy of the first edition is among the well-worn pile of books I lug around in my laptop bag on all extended trips. Looks like it's finally going to get a well-earned leave of duty.

By Chris Kaminski | July 27th, 2004

Hack for Posterity

Proving yet again that she has some sort of compulsive publishing disorder, our very own Molly Holzschlag has just written a new article on Strategies for Long-Term CSS Hack Management. Style sheet hacks are a bit of a necessary evil, which can provide an easy workaround to many browsers' CSS ...

By Ethan Marcotte | June 25th, 2004

Tables, easier?

Patrick Griffiths points out a few flaws with those thinking that tables are easier for layout than Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), in his entry, Tables My Ass.One myth is that CSS is 'hard'. It isn't hard. Well, not any more difficult than any other approach. The problem is that experienced ...

By Holly Marie Koltz | May 21st, 2004

The New Blogger

Blogger, Google's popular weblogging service, has just been thoroughly redesigned — and after looking under the hood, it becomes quickly apparent that they've drunk deeply from the web standards kool-aid. In their own announcement of the redesign, Blogger notes that their new blog templates are all CSS based, standards compliant, ...

By Ethan Marcotte | May 10th, 2004

Message To The Messengers

In a nostalgic nod to the past, John Allsopp of WestCiv praises they that went before us as he pays respects to a small group who worked with CSS before CSS was workable. Message To The Messengers sheds some light on the work done in the late 90's by a crew ...

By Ethan Marcotte | May 6th, 2004

Recent Buzz

Our Work Here is Done

By Aaron Gustafson | March 1st, 2013

Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality.

When The Web Standards Project (WaSP) formed in 1998, the web was the battleground in an ever-escalating war between two browser makers—Netscape and Microsoft—who were each taking turns “advancing” HTML to the point of collapse. You see, in an effort to one-up each other, the two browsers introduced new elements and new ways of manipulating web documents; this escalated to the point where their respective 4.0 versions were largely incompatible.

Realizing that this fragmentation would inevitably drive up the cost of building websites and ran the risk of denying users access to content and services they needed, Glenn Davis, George Olsen, and Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded WaSP and rallied an amazing group of web designers and developers to help them push back. The WaSP’s primary goal was getting browser makers to support the standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

In 2001, with the browser wars largely over, WaSP began to shift its focus. While some members continued to work with browser vendors on improving their standards support, others began working closely with software makers like Macromedia to improve the quality of code being authored in tools such as Dreamweaver. And others began the hard slog of educating web designers and developers about the importance of using web standards, culminating in the creation of WaSP InterAct, a web curriculum framework which is now overseen by the W3C.

Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality. While there is still work to be done, the sting of the WaSP is no longer necessary. And so it is time for us to close down The Web Standards Project.

Many (if not all) of us are continuing to work in the world of web standards, but our work is now largely outside the umbrella of WaSP. If you are interested in continuing to work on web standards-related projects along with us, we humbly suggest you follow these projects:

• A List Apart – The magazine “for people who make websites” is run by WaSP founder Jeffrey Zeldman and is a consistent source of forward-thinking articles and tutorials.
• HTML5 Doctor – A solid resource and discussion forum on all things HTML5, brought to you by Bruce Lawson and his team.
• W3C Community Groups – If you have a passion for a specific web technology, you can help make it better by participating in one (or more) community groups. In particular, you might be interested in one of these: Core Mobile Web Platform, Responsive Images, Web Education, and Web Media Text Tracks.
• WebPlatform.org – A fantastic web standards resource, providing up-to-date documentation, Q&As, tutorials & more. Chris Mills, Doug Schepers, and a number of other standards advocates are involved in this project.
• Web Standards Sherpa – An educational resource founded by WaSP which continues to operate under the leadership of Chris Casciano, Virginia DeBolt, Aaron Gustafson, and Emily Lewis.
• Web Standards + Small Business – An outreach project started by WaSP that educates small businesses about why they should care about web standards. This project is overseen by Aaron Gustafson.

The job’s not over, but instead of being the work of a small activist group, it’s a job for tens of thousands of developers who care about ensuring that the web remains a free, open, interoperable, and accessible competitor to native apps and closed eco-systems. It’s your job now, and we look forward to working with you, and wish you much success.

Nota bene: In the near future, we will be making a permanent, static archive of webstandards.org and some of our other resources like WaSP Interact to preserve them as a resource and to provide a record of our 15-year mission to improve the web.
Bruce Lawson and Steph Troeth contributed to this post.

Filed in WaSP Announcement | Comments (89)

More Buzz articles

Title	Author
Call for action on Vendor Prefixes	Rachel Andrew
An End to Aging IE Installs	Aaron Gustafson
Beyond the Blue Beanie?	Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis
The Sherpas are Here	Aaron Gustafson