Charles Dort wrote:
Georg wrote, in part,
The voice-family hack is extremely unreliable, and should not be
used.
I'm a CSS beginner, slowly working through Dan Cedarholm's
_Bulletproof Web Design_ ...
Can't and won't comment on the book. Have never read it and probably
never will.
I read the W3C specs and Changelogs for browsers, and test to see the
actual results across browser-land. I do that regardless of where or
whom any solution comes from, as I prefer to understand and know how to
use/not use every little bit of code that's coming my way.
Just take your time, and you'll learn how to sort out the pieces you'll
need for each case.
May I ask for more details on what might happen if I use this in my
site, how likely or frequently that might happen, and what I should
consider as a better alternative?
I recommend reading the original description...
<http://www.tantek.com/CSS/Examples/boxmodelhack.html>
...and pay special attention to this:
<quote> Finally, note that UAs that have the parsing bug illustrated by
the "\"}\"" value, could potentially ignore the next rule, so the "be
nice to Opera 5" rule serves to help those errant parsers "catch up"
with where the style sheet is going. </quote>
That's the main weakness of the voice-family hack in practical use, as
that "potentially" is often overlooked or ignored.
The 'Opera 5' rule isn't of much use anymore, and I see frequent
examples of 'lost' rules and other strange failures when the
voice-family hack is used extensively without recovery.
Dummy-rules may "save" the voice-family hack, but they are a potential
maintenance-nightmare and are rarely used.
Since it's usually IE/win that's in need of a "kick"...
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/ccomment_ovw.asp>
...may be useful to some.
Others may prefer one or more of the alternative CSS-filters found here:
<http://www.dithered.com/css_filters/css_only/index.php>
Note that _all_ filters carry the potential for failure and/or
maintenance-problems.
I often combine 'IE/win-version' filters with the '* html' hack, as I
know that won't be picked up by IE7 in 'standard mode' - according to
the MS-team. If their information is correct, then there's not much
chance of failure in the future, IMO.
regards
Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no
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