Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets

G. Kagombe

ICS 2203
 Outline
• Motivation for CSS
• How to use CSS in your documents
• Formatting text with CSS
–
Font properties
–
Text properties
• Formatting lists with CSS
• Summary
 HTML
• HTML (when used correctly) describes the
different parts of a document
–
Paragraphs, section headings, quotes, images, ...
• HTML (when used correctly) does not describe
the formatting of a document
• HTML is a logical markup language not a
physical markup language
• HTML was designed to be rendered on a wide
variety of devices
–
Graphical web browsers, text terminals, screen readers, ...
 CSS
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is for the
formatting side of the Web
• CSS describes how rendered HTML documents
should look
• CSS considers the physical and visual
display of the document (the Style)
 Advantages of CSS
• The use of CSS separates document layout from
document content
–
Different people can be responsible for the two parts
–
Document author can focus on content
–
Graphic designer can focus on layout
• A single file can control the look of an entire
web site
–
Easy to modify look of web site without affecting its contents
–
Easy to obtain a consistent look (the R in CRAP)
• If done correctly, documents degrade gracefully
on platforms that don't support visual formatting
 Disadvantages of CSS
• More to learn
–
CSS is powerful but complex
• Not fully supported on some browsers
–
Even some modern browsers are not fully CSS 2 compliant
• The formatting is separated from the
document
–
Makes it hard to write a document and format it
simultaneously
 How to Write a Document
1. Decide what you want to write
–
First and foremost the content of the document is important
–
Decide on the logical structure of the document
2. Write it
–
Write the document content
–
Markup the document's logical structure
3. Format it
–
Use CSS to do formatting
–
Add other formatting-specific data (e.g., navigation)
• Points 1 and 2 should take the majority of
the time
 Using CSS
• There are three ways to use CSS
• External Style Sheets
–
Using the LINK tag (in the document HEAD)
<link rel=”stylesheet”
href=”../mystyle.css” type=”text/css”>
• Using the CSS @import directive,
<style>
@import url('styles.css');
</style>
 Using CSS (Cont'd)
• Inline Style Sheets
– The STYLE tag (in the document HEAD)
<style type=”text/css”>
/* CSS information goes here */
</style>Inline STYLE Attributes
• The STYLE attribute (within another HTML
tag)
<a style=”font-size: 10pt;”
href=”xsk.html”>
=>Don't use these
–
Gives the disadvantages of CSS without the most important
advantages
 Simple CSS
• An Inline CSS example that modifies some
of the common HTML tags
<style type=”text/css”>
h1 { font-size:12pt;
font-family: “Luxi Sans”, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold; }
p {
font-size: 12pt;
font-family: “Luxi Serif”, serif;
}</style>
 Using Comments
• You can place a comment within a pair
of /* ... */ tags, like this:
/* This is a CSS comment */

• you can extend a comment over many lines,

like this:
/*A Multi-
line
comment*/
 CSS with Class
• (Almost) all HTML tags can have an
optional CLASS attribute
• This works nicely in conjunction with CSS:
<style type=”text/css”>
p.blogentry {
font-size:12pt;
font-family: “Luxi Serif”, serif;
}
</style>
...
<p class=”blogentry”>Today was the best
day ever ...</p>
 CSS with IDs
• IDs are unique
• All HTML tags can have IDs.
<div id='iblue'>Hello there</div>
//in CSS..
#iblue { font-style:italic; color:blue; }
 Notes on CLASS and ID
• Use CLASS when a document contains (or
may contain) many items of this type
–
E.g.: blogEntry, nameList, properName
• Use ID when a document can only contain
one item of this type
–
E.g. pageTitle, mainNavigationBar
• Choose CLASS and ID names wisely
–
Good: <a id=”properName”>Jeff Kagombe</a>
–
Bad: <a id=”blueunderlinenowrap”>Jeff Kazungu</a>
 The DIV and SPAN tags
• HTML has 2 tags, DIV and SPAN, that are
specifically used with CSS and CLASS and
ID attributes
• A DIV tag contains a block of text
–
Like a paragraph, section heading, or title
• A SPAN tag contains a short piece of text
within a block
–
Like a proper name, or a dollar amount
 Example of DIV and SPAN
<div class=”mainDocument”>
On his way to school, <span
class=”properName”> Uncle
Rico</span>stopped at the local grocery
and spent<span class=”money”>KSh 455.00
</span> on milk, bread, and honey.
</div>
<div class=”about”>
This document was written by <span
class=”properName”>John Baraza</span> on
<span class=”date”>Jan. 9th,
2020</span></div>
 Measurements
• CSS supports an impressive range of different units of
measurement,
–
precisely to specific values, or relative dimensions.
• most useful are pixels, points, ems, and percent,
Pixels
• 1 pixel = the width/height of a single dot on the screen,
• best suited to monitors. For example: .classname { margin:5px; }
Points
• 1 point = 1/72 of an inch.
.classname { font-size:14pt; }
Inches
• 1 inch = 72 points
.classname { width:3in; }
Centimeters
.classname { height:2cm; }
Millimeters
.classname { font-size:5mm; }
•
 More on measurements
Picas
• 1 pica = 12 points.
.classname { font-size:1pc; }
• Ems
• An em = the current font size
• one of the more useful - relative dimensions.
.classname { font-size:2em; }
• Exs
• An ex =the height of a lowercase letter x.
• .classname { width:20ex; }
• Percent
• relative 1em = 100% = the current font size.
• When not relating to a font, relative to the size of the
container of the property being accessed. For example:
.classname { height:120%; }
 Typeface: font-family
• Consists of a comma-separated list of font
names

h1 { font-family: “Times New Roman”, Luxi

Serif”, DejaVu LGC Serif”, serif;}
• Not all fonts are available on all systems
–
Browser will try fonts in order that they are specified
• Always make the last option one of the
generic fonts: serif, sans-serif, cursive,
fantasy, or
monospace
 Font Size: font-size
• Specified in one of the CSS size units
–
1em is the width of a letter m (relative to surrounding text)
–
1pt is a standard typographic point (1/72 inches)
–
1px is one screen pixel
–
Keywords: xx-small, x-small, small, medium, large, x-large, xx-
large are browser dependent
–
Percentages: XXX% relative to the surrounding code
• Points and pixels are extremely accurate but
not resizeable
h1 { font-size: 200%; }
h2 { font-size: large; }
h3 { font-size: medium; }
 Bold Fonts: font-weight
• Can be one of normal, bold, bolder,
lighter, 100, 200, ..., 900

h1 { font-weight: bold;
font-size: 200%;}

h2 { font-weight: bold;
font-size: medium;}
 The Font Style: font-style
• Can be one of normal, italic, or oblique
• An oblique font is a skew transformation
of a regular font (not well supported)

em { font-style: italic; }
h1 { font-family: sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
font-style: italic;}
 Other Font Properties
• Use font-variant for producing small caps
• Use font-stretch to expand or condense a
font

• Use font as a shorthand to set all font

properties at once

h1 { font: italic small-caps bold 12pt

sans-serif;}
 Text Properties: color
• Can be a color name, a rgb value, or a
hexadecimal value
• 147 color names are at
–
http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_colornames.asp

/*Make all headings pure red */

H1{ color:red; }
H2{ color:rgb(255,0,0); }
H3{ color:#ff0000; }
 Text Properties: background
• The background property specifies the
background color and/or image
• background-color specifies a color
(named,RGB, or hex)
• background-image, background-position,
background-repeat, and/or background-
attachment to specify a background image
• Usually used on the body tag
 Text Properties: text-align
• Determine which side of the page (or
containing box) that text lines up with
• Can be one of left, right, center, or
justify

h1 { text-align: center; }
p { text-align: left; }
 Text Properties: text-decoration
• Add some decoration to the text
• Can be one of none, underline, overline,
line-through, or blink
• Treat blink like a contagious disease

h1 { text-decoration: underline; }
a { text-decoration: none; }
 Text Properties: text-indent
• Specifies a length by which the first
line of text should be indented
• Length can be measured in a relative unit
–
em: the font-size of the current font (width of a letter m)
–
ex: the x-height of the current font (height of a letter x)
–
px: one screen pixel
• Or an absolute unit
–
Inches (in) centimeters (cm) millimeters (mm), points (pt), or
picas (pc)
●
1pt = (1/72)in and 1pc=12pt
P { text-indent: 5em; }
 Text Properties: text-transform
• Can actually transform the text
• Can be one of
–
none: don't do anything to the text
–
capitalize: Start each word with an uppercase letter
–
uppercase: Make everything uppercase (allcaps)
–
lowercase: Make everything lowercase

h1 { font-size: large; text-transform:

capitalize;}
h2 { font-size: normal; text-transform:
uppercase;}
 Text Properties: white-space
• Defines how white space (space, tabs,
carriage-returns) is handled
• Can be one of
–
normal: Normal formatting, wrap at white space, merge
multiple whitespace
–
pre: treat as preformatted text
–
nowrap: don't wrap at whitespace

a.properName { white-space: nowrap; }

 Other Text Properties
• direction: Sets the text direction
• line-height: Sets the distance between
lines
• letter-spacing: Sets the space between
characters
• text-shadow: Make a colored text shadow
• unicode-bidi
–
Allows english blocks to flow left-to-right and Arabic blocks
flow right-to-left on the same page
• word-spacing: Sets the space between words
• These probably should not be used unless
you know a lot about typesetting.
 CSS and Lists
• Several properties are specific to lists and
list items
• list-style-image: sets an image to use as the
bullet marker
• list-style-position: controls where the bullet
appears
• list-style-type: specifies what kind of bullet
to use
–
none, disc, circle, square, decimal, decimal-leading-zero, lower-roman,
upper-roman, lower-alpha, upper-alpha, lower- greek, lower-latin,
upper-latin, hebrew, armenian, georgian, cjk-ideographic, hiragana,
katakana, hiragana-iroha, katakana-iroha

ul.menu li { list-style-type: none; }

 CSS Lookup
• We can specify styles that apply to tags or
identifiers only when contained in other tags

ul.menu { padding: 0; }
ul.menu li { text-decoration: none; }
...
<ul class=”menu”>
<li>Menu item1</li>
<li>Menu item2</li>
</ul>
 CSS and the A Tag
• CSS has several options for the A tag
–
A:link defines the style for normal unvisited links
–
A:visited defines the style for links that have already been visited in
the past
–
A:active defines the style for links after the user clicks on them
(usually while the next page loads)
–
A:hover defines the style for links when the mouse pointer is
hovering over them
• A:hover is useful for making things that look
like menus
 Summary
• CSS provides fine-grained control over
–
fonts
–
text
–
the display of lists
• The CSS lookup mechanism allows us to
apply styles to tags that only appear
within other tags
• In practice, many authors ignore most HTML
tags other than DIV and SPAN