Most CSS properties that a web developer deals with regularly are instantaneous in their application to elements on the page. For example, when you add the background-color or font-size property to an element on your page, in most cases you will see the results immediately upon page refresh. But other CSS properties are not quite as “plug and play” as we would like.
The z-index property is one example of the latter. I would venture to guess that z-index is probably the CSS property that is more speedily abandoned than any other. Very often — when I previously didn’t understand z-index — I would try to apply it to an element, hoping that the element would automatically “jump” to the top in the page’s stacking order. But that didn’t happen, so I would abandon that method and try some other way to solve the problem. Maybe you’ve had the same experience. Hopefully this article will clear up some misunderstandings regarding z-index.
It started out as an industry “buzzword” and has slowly progressed into one of the most important web technologies in use today. It is easily implemented using your favourite JavaScript framework. It can provide a beautiful layer of enhancement to many web applications, helping to improve page-load times and greatly improve the user experience. It can also degrade the user experience and cause a web application to fail if a particular client-side technology is unavailable.
Yes, I’m talking about the web methodology immortalized by Jesse James Garrett called Ajax. (As Garrett points out, Ajax is not a technology, but several technologies.) This article will begin a multi-part tutorial series in which I will explain how to implement Ajax “from the ground up”. This series will be geared towards web developers who would like to better understand Ajax in its raw format, using pure JavaScript.
Recently I came across a few articles that mentioned CSS !important declarations, and there was a little bit of confusion over what they actually did, and how they could be used, as expressed in the user comments on those articles.
So I thought I would research this unique CSS property/value appendage and do a comprehensive write-up on it that would go through essentially all the information developers should have before considering its use in their style sheets.
This article will discuss what !important is, how it’s used, some practical uses for it, and drawbacks that need to be considered before implementing it.
This brief and easy tutorial provides a method to indent multiple lines of text around a background image on a styled <blockquote> element.
When I wrote the previous post, listing 25 Classic web design articles, I included a styled <blockquote> for each of the listed articles. This is obviously nothing new; virtually all design blogs have a fancy blockquote styled with a double quotation mark in the background or something similar.
But when I was laying out the blockquote in Photoshop, I didn’t like the way it looked with the entire left side indented. Here is how I originally intended it to be:
Over the years there have been hundreds, if not thousands of articles published online that have each had a tremendous impact on the world of web development and design. Some have been truly memorable, and have remained quite relevant for years, and remain so today. Others have outlived their usefulness, but we remember them because of the impact they had on our code and on the way we think about web design.
Occassionally, while reading or doing research, I still stumble upon “classic” web design articles. So I thought it would be a great idea to list what I feel are some of the most important articles that have been published in the relatively short history of the web development industry.
Originally, I had started with the idea of listing 10 articles — but when I began the research, I slowly started to realize that was not going to do justice to this list. So I settled on 25. I think this is a good collection of some of the more significant articles that have been produced over the past 13 years or so.
In a previous article I described 10 useful, cross-browser, CSS properties that might often be forgotten, but can really come in handy in specific situations where a solution is needed.
But not all CSS property names are that friendly. In this post, I’ll describe 10 properties that can be quite useful but have little or no support in Internet Explorer.
(NOTE: This list does not take into consideration IE8, which I have not yet used or studied for its capabilities.)
My name is Louis Lazaris, and I’m a freelance web developer, and author of two books on HTML/CSS. This site is my personal blog where I like to post unique information, practical suggestions, and honest viewpoints on front-end web development. For the most part, the material on Impressive Webs is in the form of articles […]
I’m available for the following services: HTML/CSS JavaScript WordPress Development HTML Email Development Some projects are beyond my scope of skills, but I know a few other excellent designers and developers, and I’ll be happy to take on a collaborative project that I feel fits into my areas of interest, or else I can recommend […]
Tuesday morning, Adobe followed through on a webcast that was alerted via email subscribers informing previous Adobe software customers of the newest release of Adobe Creative Suite, specifically CS4. The graphic designers and front end developers at the company I currently work for got together to watch the web cast. Here is my summary: It […]
In a previous article I described (in principle) a method using JavaScript to get equal columns in a two-column layout. Of course, that’s not always the most elegant solution. Another solution, which is much easier to implement is completely CSS based. I’ll describe briefly how this is done and what possible effects it could have on your site’s layout and code. Here is the demo page, if you want to jump ahead.
Most CSS properties that a web developer deals with regularly are instantaneous in their application to elements on the page. For example, when you add the 
It started out as an industry “buzzword” and has slowly progressed into one of the most important web technologies in use today. It is easily implemented using your favourite JavaScript framework. It can provide a beautiful layer of enhancement to many web applications, helping to improve page-load times and greatly improve the user experience. It can also degrade the user experience and cause a web application to fail if a particular client-side technology is unavailable.
Recently I came across a few articles that mentioned CSS 
This brief and easy tutorial provides a method to indent multiple lines of text around a background image on a styled 
Over the years there have been hundreds, if not thousands of articles published online that have each had a tremendous impact on the world of web development and design. Some have been truly memorable, and have remained quite relevant for years, and remain so today. Others have outlived their usefulness, but we remember them because of the impact they had on our code and on the way we think about web design.
In a previous article I described 
