The University of Arizona
Part 1: Basics in creating and modifying style sheets
What are style sheets and why would you want to use them on your site? This lesson looks at basics on how style sheets and rules (or selectors) are put together and how selectors are created using Dreamweaver. Much of the lesson looks at the Style Definition dialog box and shows examples of creating rules (or selectors) using this tool and changing properties using this tool. We also see how to create an external style sheet from a document with an internal style sheet.
Part 1 videos (videos require a high speed Internet connection to view)
Part 2: Understanding style sheets more fully
The principle of inheritance can help reduce the number of rules you have in your style sheets, and precedence determines the order that rules (or selectors) are interpreted. This lesson also looks at more examples of effects created through the categories used in the Style Definition dialog box. Finally styles are useful in templates especially when you have editable regions in which there can be lots of text. The styles can affect formatting within these regions. To apply styles in templates and in existing documents, because of precedence, you often have to delete older formatting codes in these documents.

Part 2 videos (videos require a high speed Internet connection to view)

Part 3: Final issues about style sheets
This lesson looks at various issues: doing page layouts using ID selectors and DIV areas is one of the topics. This includes a look at the positioning category. Also we look at limitations or problems in using style sheets. The primary problem deals with inconsistent implementation of style properties and values in the various browsers and different releases of browsers. This lesson also shows you ways you can find out which properties are supported in which browsers, and how you can validate your own style sheets or getting coding for style sheets used on other sites. Finally, there are other resources you can use to learn more about style sheets.

Part 3 videos (videos require a high speed Internet connection to view)

Additional videos about using CSS, including videos about creating a 2- and 3-column layout using style sheet rules, examples of descendant selectors, and creating a print style sheet.

This material was used in a distance class on Templates and Style Sheets given by Linda Ffolliott, ECAT, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona. To use this material, contact Linda Ffolliott at ffolinda@ag.arizona.edu