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Web Dev + WordPress + Security

Prevent JavaScript Elements from Breaking Page Layout when Following Yahoo Performance Tip #6: Place Scripts at the Bottom

[ Screenshot: broken footer positioning in IE 7 ]

By now, everyone is familiar with the Yahoo Developer Network’s 14 best-practices for speeding up your website. Certainly, many (if not all) of these performance optimization tips are ideal for high-traffic sites such as Yahoo or Google, but not all of them are recommended for smaller sites such as Perishable Press. Nonetheless, throughout the current site renovation project, I have attempted to implement as many of these practices as possible. At the time of this writing, I somehow have managed […] Continue reading »

New Mobile CSS Styles for Perishable Press

The amount of time I spend surfing the Web from a mobile device has steadily increased since the acquisition of my new favorite mobile device. Unfortunately, many sites have yet to implement (or even consider) support for mobile devices. Without proper formatting, such sites are virtually useless, requiring unnecessary download times, displaying unreadable pages, and serving unusable content. Given the inevitable ubiquity of mobile access to the World Wide Web, providing reasonable support for handheld browsers is becoming increasingly important. […] Continue reading »

Killer Collection of CSS Resets

[ Global CSS Reset ]

Using CSS to style semantically meaningful (X)HTML markup is an important key to modern web design practices. In a perfect world, every browser would interpret and apply all CSS rules in exactly the same way. However, in the imperfect world in which we live, quite the opposite frequently happens to be the case: many CSS styles are displayed differently in virtually every browser. Continue reading »

Position Absolute Horizontal and Vertical Center via CSS

Recently, a reader named Max encountered some scrolling issues while implementing our absolutely centered layout technique. Of course, by “absolutely centered” we are referring to content that remains positioned dead-center regardless of how the browser is resized. After noticing the scrollbar deficiency, Max kindly dropped a comment to explain the issue: the div solution works well, only one problem maybe somebody can help: if you make the browser window smaller then the div is -> the scrollbar doenst fit right […] Continue reading »

CSS Throwdown: Preload Images without JavaScript

[ Preload Images with CSS ]

Clean, easy, effective. You don’t need no stinking JavaScript to preload your images. Nope. Try some tasty CSS and (X)HTML instead! Here’s how to do it with only two easy steps.. Step 1 — Place this in your CSS file: div#preloaded-images { position: absolute; overflow: hidden; left: -9999px; top: -9999px; height: 1px; width: 1px; } Step 2 — Place this at the bottom of your (X)HTML document: <div id="preloaded-images"> <img src="https://perishablepress.com/image-01.png" width="1" height="1" alt="" /> <img src="https://perishablepress.com/image-02.png" width="1" height="1" alt="" […] Continue reading »

Standards-Compliance Throwdown: MS-IE5/6 DNS/404 Error-Page Redesign

Screenshot: default IE 404 error page

First of all, congratulations if you are geeky enough to understand the title of this article. Many would be like, "CSS, MS.. IE, error ..what..?" Whatever. If you get the title, you will get the point of this utterly pointless exercise. If that is the case, prepare for a delightful romp through geekland. Otherwise, save your precious time and stop reading here (exit strategy). Continue reading »

Maximum and Minimum Height and Width in Internet Explorer

Behold the seventh wonder of the virtual world: max/min-height and max/min-width properties are possible in Internet Explorer! Indeed, by taking advantage of IE’s proprietary CSS attribute, expression, you too can whip IE widths and heights into desirable proportions. The CSS expression attribute enables JavaScript commands to be executed within Internet Explorer. JavaScript via CSS? Thanks, Microsoft! Continue reading »

Keep it Dark: Hiding and Filtering CSS

Hiding and filtering CSS rules for specifically targeted browsers is often a foregone conclusion when it comes to cross-browser design considerations. Rather than dive into some lengthy dialogue concerning the myriad situations and implications of such design hackery, our current scheduling restraints behoove us to simply cut to the chase and dish the goods. Having said that, we now consider this post a perpetually evolving repository of CSS filters.. Continue reading »

Firefox CSS Magic

Consider this post an evolving receptacle for Firefox-specific CSS tricks. Continue reading »

Extreme Makeover for Gravatars in WordPress

Gravatars have become a popular way of adding spice to the “comments” page of many WordPress-powered sites. So popular, in fact, that the gravatar server is often overloaded, bogged down with millions of gravatar requests every second. This immense server load effects user pages everywhere, resulting in slow loading times, unresolved server requests, and missing gravatars. Such broken presentations appear unprofessional, tarnish reputations, and may provoke confusion. This article provides essential solutions for an extreme gravatar makeover.. Continue reading »

Absolutely Centered Layout

This tutorial explains several techniques for centering content absolutely using (X)HTML. By “absolutely”, I am referring to an element (such as a <div></div>) that is centered on the page both horizontally and vertically. The techniques presented below explain how to center elements using CSS, frames, or tables. Continue reading »

IE Scrollbar Colors

Changing the color of scrollbars for Internet Explorer may very well be the oldest trick in the book. In fact, this post exists mostly for the sake of prosperity, as we here at Perishable Press strive to eliminate our entire offline library of website design notes by transferring them to the World Wide Web. Although library conversion requires time, patience, and determination, changing the color of IE scrollbars is relatively simple. Simply associate these CSS rules to the (X)HTML documents […] Continue reading »

Nifty CSS Link Hover Effect

This nifty CSS link hover effect magically reveals a hidden span of text after specified links. The trick employs an anonymous span nested within an anchor tag. CSS then acts upon the markup with a set of rules that basically says hide the nested span until the link is hovered. Continue reading »

CSS Code Repository

Here is my online (i.e., public) repository of interesting, mysterious, and/or perhaps even useful CSS code. Note that this post and file are from 2006. Probably best for informational and reference purposes only. Continue reading »

Crazy CSS Underline Effects

Check out these crazy CSS underline effects: Continue reading »

CSS Hack Dumpster

Consider this page a virtual dumpster of wonderful CSS hacks.. Continue reading »

Welcome
Perishable Press is operated by Jeff Starr, a professional web developer and book author with two decades of experience. Here you will find posts about web development, WordPress, security, and more »
Digging Into WordPress: Take your WordPress skills to the next level.
Thoughts
I live right next door to the absolute loudest car in town. And the owner loves to drive it.
8G Firewall now out of beta testing, ready for use on production sites.
It's all about that ad revenue baby.
Note to self: encrypting 500 GB of data on my iMac takes around 8 hours.
Getting back into things after a bit of a break. Currently 7° F outside. Chillz.
2024 is going to make 2020 look like a vacation. Prepare accordingly.
First snow of the year :)
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