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September 22, 2008

CSS Layouts: 40+ Tutorials, Tips, Demos and Best Practices

Filed under: css, tools — Tags: , , — Harsha M V @ 6:39 pm

The main idea behind CSS-based layouts is offering more flexibility and enhancing the visual experience of visitors. Some important tips and related key-factors can help to learn basics and keep essential techniques in mind. And this is what this article is all about. Finding the perfect Layout that have Total Flexibility, Equal Height Columns and just works fine.

So we’ve decided to take a deep look at articles about CSS-based layouts and the result was a list of 40 tutorials, resources and best practices offering gorgeous and valid CSS-based Layouts.


You might be interested to check other CSS related posts:

CSS Layout Tutorials

1-Three column fixed layout structure using CSS- This post explains how to realize an HTML/CSS basic structure to design a simple three column fixed page layout with standard elements (logo top bar, navigation bar, text stage, center column for post categories and right column to insert Google AdSense 120X600 ads), to use in your projects.

css layouts


2-Design page layout using CSS- How to design page’s layout for your site using a css file.

css layouts


3-How To Create a Horizontally Scrolling Site- Different techniques for creating horizontally scrolling layouts.

css layouts


4-Super Simple Two Column Layout- Different techniques for creating horizontally scrolling layouts.

css layouts


5-Simple 2 column CSS layout- This is a tutorial on how to use CSS to create a simple two column layout. The layout consists of a header, a horizontal navigation bar, a main content column, a sidebar, and a footer. It is also horizontally centered in the browser window.

css layouts


6-The holy grail layout – 3 columns and a lot less problems - This is a article discuss the three columns – two fixed-width sidebars and a fluid center column, all while keeping the markup clean and semantic, and most importantly well structured.

css layouts


7-CSS Centering 101- How to center a fixed-width layout using CSS

<body>
  <div id="container">
    ...entire layout goes here...
  </div>
</body>

Using CSS, the following two rules force whatever is contained within #container to be centered:

body {
  text-align: center;
  }
#container {
  margin: 0 auto;
  width: xxxpx;
  text-align: left;
  }

8-Creating a CSS layout from scratch- This guide will attempt to take you step by step, through the process of creating a fully functioning CSS layout.

css layouts


9-Multi-Column Layouts Climb Out of the Box- Multiple columns, equal column heights, fixed or liquid center column, clean markup, and CSS.

css layouts


10- In search of the One True Layout- Total Layout Flexibility, Equal Height Columns, Vertical placement of elements across grids/columns. This article shows how to achieve each of these goals, and then how to combine them, creating what could be called the One True Layout

css layouts


11-From PSD to HTML, Building a Set of Website Designs Step by Step-The entire process of getting from Photoshop to completed HTML.

css layouts


12- 5 Tips for coding xhtml/css layouts- These are few tips that could help you out in the transition from table-based web design to standards compliant css based layouts.


13-Designing a CSS based template- This is the start of a step-by-step based tutorial about how to create a CSS based template page. This will be a tutorial consisting of several parts: part 1 covers the creation of the navigation buttons in Photoshop CS*, the 2nd part will be the creation of the background, next on the list is the header and layout of the page and the final part will be the implementation in CSS and XHTML.

css layouts


14-Breaking Out of the Box With CSS Layouts- If you understand how the grid works, you can fracture or abstract that grid to make your layout more dynamic and interesting. In achieving this goal (while supporting flexibility and maintainability), CSS designs have so much more to offer than table-based layouts. Jina Bolton explains how to acheive this goal.

css layouts


15-Advanced CSS Layouts: Step by Step- The ultimate goal of this tutorial is to create a CSS layout that exactly resembles the WebReference.com layout made with tables and also behaves well with small window sizes and large fonts.

css layouts


16-6 Keys to Understanding Modern CSS-based Layouts-
These are the six things that will help people understand CSS-based layouts: Box Model, Floated Columns, Sizing Using Ems, Image Replacement, Floated Navigation and Sprites.


17-Are you making these common blog layout mistakes?-
Discussing 4 mistakes in basic blog layout are all too common and all too easy to fix.


18-Page Layout-
A practical guide for positioing and floating elements in a CSS page layout.


19-Site in an Hour- Making Simple Work of Complex CSS Layouts

css layouts


The best Layouts Resources

Most of these demonstrations can be used without asking for permission. However, some will require email approval first. Just check each site for the copyright requirements before use.

20-Sample CSS Page Layouts- Here are a range of CSS page layouts, including 2 column and 3 column layouts.

css layouts


21-The Perfect 3 Column Liquid Layout (Percentage widths)- No CSS hacks. SEO friendly. No Images. No JavaScript. Cross-browser & iPhone compatible.

css layouts


22-CSS TEMPLATES AND SAMPLES

css layouts


23-IM Layouts- IM Layouts is a simple CSS layout system. IM Layouts offer full Grade-A browser support.

css layouts


24-CSSplay - CSS Layout Listing

css layouts


25-Layoutgala - Getting the maximum number of layouts based on the same markup, each with valid CSS and HTML, without hacks nor workaround and a good cross-browser compatibility. The result is a set of 40 layouts.

css layouts


26-Glish- Many useful cross-browser CSS layout techniques

css layouts


27-Thenoodleincident- CSS Boxes going from a simple single box, through 3 columns with a full width top box, all with variations.

css layouts


28-The Layout Reservoir- Many useful CSS layout techniques

css layouts


29-The only CSS layout you need- In this article you are presented to ten different layouts with example pages, all based on the same HTML.

css layouts


30-Yet Another Multicolumn Layout- is an (X)HTML/CSS framework for creating modern and flexible floated layouts. The structure is extremely versatile in its programming and absolutely accessible for end users.

  • Download YAML here.

31-Liquid Designs- Liquid Designs is a gallery of websites designed with liquid layouts using XHTML and CSS


Best Practices

Also if you are looking for inspiration for CSS-based layout designs, you will find a nice collection of websites below. These sites show how css layouts can be applied on various type of sites. Check out how the layout can be divided into 2 columns, 3 columns, a mixture of narrow and wide columns.

32-Helldesign

css layouts


33-Silverbackapp

css layouts


34-OS communications informatiques

css layouts


35-Rockatee

css layouts


136-Darrenhoyt

css layouts


37-Makebetterwebsites

css layouts


38-Elitetheme

css layouts


39-Studio7designs

css layouts


40-Brightcreative

css layouts

Form Elements: 40+ CSS/JS Styling and Functionality Techniques

Filed under: css, tools — Tags: , — Harsha M V @ 6:38 pm

Designing effective web forms isn’t easy, as we need to figure out more practical styling and functionality techniques to provide a great user experience.

Recently there have been a number of noteworthy techniques such as styling different form fields, live validation, Context highlighting, trading options from field to another, slider controls and more – using CSS and different Javascript libraries. Below we present findings of search to more than 40 tutorials and demos to showcase the capabilities and robustness of CSS and Javascript.


You might be interested to check other CSS related posts:

1-Styling dropdown select boxes- To style a dropdown select box is heavy work. This is an experiement on how you can style select box options items.

form field


2-<select> Something New, Part 1-With a little DOM scripting and some creative CSS, you too can make your <select>s beautiful… and you won’t have to sacrifice accessibility, usability or graceful degradation.

form field


3-Styling even more form controls-There are a lot of controls that can be used in an HTML form. Roger Johansson offers an extensive report on the ways you can use CSS to style web form controls.

form field


4-Check it, don’t select it-The biggest problem with multiple-select boxes is that selecting multiple options is a pain, especially if there are enough to create a scrollbar within the box. Here is a good technique for replacing the cumbersome select box with a scrollable checklist. You can check the demo here.

form field


5-DropDown – xHTML/CSS/Javascript replacement of classic selectbox-While there is no problem with styling input fields, styling selectbox is more complicated and solution isn’t perfect. This tutorial brought visualy better solution based on xHTML/CSS/Javascript called dropdowns.

form field


6-Masked Input Plugin- A masked input plugin for the jQuery javascript library. It allows a user to more easily enter fixed width input where you would like them to enter the data in a certain format (dates,phone numbers, etc). It has been tested on Internet Explorer 6/7, Firefox 1.5/2, Safari, and Opera.

form field


7-Custom Checkbox with jQuery- Provides the ability to customize the design of checkboxes in your web forms. You can use the default skin and the Safari skin which are provided with the package.

form field


8-LiveValidation- LiveValidation is a small open source javascript library for making client-side validation quick, easy, and powerful. It comprises of two main parts. Firstly, it provides developers with a rich set of core validation methods, which can also be used outside the context of forms. Secondly, it provides your visitors with real-time validation information as they fill out forms, helping them to get it right first time, making the forms easier, quicker and less daunting to complete.

form field


9-FancyForm- FancyForm is a powerful checkbox replacement script used to provide the ultimate flexibility in changing the appearance and function of HTML form elements. It’s easy to use and degrades gracefully on all older, non-supporting browsers.

form field


10-Styling disabled text inputs- A disabled text input usually has a grayed-out look, and the value is not able to be modified by user input. Here is how you can style them. You can also check this demo page for different examples Styling disabled form controls with CSS

form field


11-PrettyCheckboxes- A simple jQuery plugin to customize the checkboxes and radio buttons.

form field


12- Building a better web forms: Context highlighting using jQuery- Due to complexity of web appications, sometimes you often need to find a way to focus a user on a current context. Here is a nice way of achieving this effect. Check out the demo here

form field


13-Control.SelectMultiple This control uses a combination of a standard select input, and a collection of checkbox inputs to create an alternative to the standard select multiple control. It’s primary benefit besides a vastly improved experience for selecting multiple items is that for single item selection, it behaves like a normal select input.

form field


14- Justify elements using jQuery and CSS- When creating a web form you have to make a functional and visually aligned layout. You can do so by justifing all labels to have the same width. And the simplest way to do this is to use jQuery.

form field


15-jQuery Form Input Example Plugin- A jQuery plugin to specify examples within form inputs (i.e. text fields and text areas) that disappear on user focus. Check out the demo here.

form field


16-Jquery-Autotab- Autotab is a jQuery plugin that provides auto-tabbing and filtering on text fields in a form

form field


17-jquery-asmselect- A progressive enhancement to “select multiple” form elements. Check out a demo here and here.

form field


18-jQuery.AddToList- A very customisable plugin that hooks into select lists. An ‘open-form’ event or trigger value display a form (any dom element you specific, that contains a <form>). AddToList will then ajax submit the form, and if it’s successful, and a new item to your list. Check out a demo here.

form field


19-Easy Multi Select Transfer with jQuery- A perfect example to demonstrate the simple and compact nature of jQuery coding allowing options to be traded from one multi select to another.

form field


20-fValidator- fValidator is an open source (free) unobtrusive javascript tool for easy handling form validation. Check out the examples here.

form field


21-Grow a textarea-Just make a form, and this script will add the ability to resize each textarea.

form field


22-jQuery selectbox replacement- This is an unobtrusive jQuery plugin that allows you to replace the HTML select box with a styled dropdown menu. Check out the demo here.

form field


23-Unobtrusive Slider Control V2- Sliders can be associated with both text input and select list form elements. All of the slider’s configuration parameters should be defined within the associated form element’s className Check out the demo here.

form field


24- jQuery Field Plug-in- This plugin greatly expands the ability to retrieve and set values in forms beyond jQuery’s standard val() method (and Mike Alsup’s Form Plug-in’s fieldArray() method) by allowing you to interact with all types of form field elements (except input[@type="file"], which is a read-only element.) It works the same way for text elements as it does for radio, checkbox and select elements.

form field


25-jquery.combobox- jquery.combobox is an unobtrusive way of creating a HTML type combobox from a existing HTML Select element(s).
A combobox is technically a ‘Select’ HTML element. Check out the demo here.

form field


26-Checkboxes, Radio Buttons, Select Lists, Custom HTML Form Elements- This JavaScript and CSS will allow you to use custom images for checkboxes, radio buttons and select lists.

form field


27-ToggleFormText plug-in example- ToggleFormText is a jQuery plugin to enable help text for input fields.

form field


28-Password field with strength meter- Password strength meter extension class for the extjs library.

form field


29-STYLING FILE INPUTS WITH CSS AND THE DOM- File inputs are the bane of beautiful form design. No rendering engine provides the granular control over their presentation designers desire. This simple, three-part progressive enhancement provides the markup, CSS, and JavaScript to address the long-standing irritation.

form field


30-Pin plugin for Prototype, Remember Field’s Values- Pin plugin for prototype which aims to remember some field’s values. Check out the demo here.

form field


31-accessible, javascript-enhanced, css-able form elements for mootools- A javascript-class (based on mootools) customFormElements, which gives you the opportunity to style your own checkboxes and radiobuttons via css.

form field


32-Resizeable Textboxes- What we are going to create today is a textbox with resize handles on the bottom, right, and bottom-right corner. The resize handles do what you might expect – grabbing the right edge will let you resize the width, grabbing the bottom will let you resize the height, and grabbing the corner will let you resize either.

form field


33-Resizeable Textboxes- Browsers do not let you style file inputs. File Style plugin fixes this problem. It enables you to use image as browse button. You can also style filename field as normal textfield using css. It is written using JavaScript and jQuery. Check out the demo here.

form field


34-jQuery AlphaNumeric- jQuery AlphaNumeric is a javascript control plugin that allows you to limit what characters a user can enter on textboxes or textareas.

form field


35-Mootools Form Hints- Mootools/Javascript Form Helper
Allows inline help in form input fields.

form field


36-MultiSelect- MutliSelect is a clean way to display a drop down and allow multiple options to be selected with just the mouse and without taking up more room that you need. With just a single line of code, MultiSelect styles up any select with a new and simple drop down. Check out the example here.

form field


37- Watermark Input Plugin- This is a watermark input plugin for jQuery. Currently this is a beta release. This simple plugin allows forms with limited space to display additional information about the contents of a field.

form field


38-Select box manipulation

form field


39-Spinner Control How to integrate Spinner control on your form inputs.

form field


40-Autohelp Sometimes it’s important to tell the user what’s expected of him. Especially when filling out a complicated form. This plugin uses the title attribute to display help in a separate DOM element.

form field


41-Custom Select boxes with jquery – A working example of a jquery custom select box with icons. Check out the demo here

form field

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