Geekfindr: CSS Layouts
While in general I don’t love using CSS for the broad layout of a site. If the site is simple enough it makes sense and can really simplify the structure of the page. Typically this involves looking around for the latest tricks to columnify something that resolutely doesn’t wish to be made into columns (which is to say, CSS). I came across css tinderbox which gives me some hope.
This is a very web2.0 looking site, nicely designed with very simple functionality. It gives a little copy about what it does (provides simple open source templates for various layouts) and then down the right side provides links to examples and downloads of it’s catalogue of layouts. The layouts are divided into two broad sections fixed and fluid. The layouts include various elements that you might or might not be interested in (like headlines, footers and rails, etc..) which give it a plug and play type of feel. The html and css both are very clean - a lot of effort has been put into creating and compilling this list.
What I wish it had, though, were some layouts that had equal length columns. All the layouts let the columns be as long as they wish, which works for some needs, but more often than not when I find myself wanting columns I want the columns to be equal height no matter which column is the longest. That is something I’ve seen require some crazy hacking to handle. Another longer shot would be some css/javascript combinations that give you fluid layouts that put parameters on max and min size, I’ve seen those every now and again and they really make fluid a lot more usable from my perspective. That is, I like fluid to let a column shrink, but wouldn’t want it to become as wide as possible now that people are starting to have much bigger screens.
For the layouts this site provides I think it is a great resource. I hope that they continue to add and refine the layouts, I’m definitely keeping my eye on css tinderbox.
