CSS: A Metaphor

[gothwalk]

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Working with cross-browser CSS is like being released, blind-folded, into a large maze with mobile walls. While you make your way through it, you are occasionally beaten with sticks. Sometimes, the beating stops. You can’t always identify why.

I enjoy working with CSS. I must be a masochist…

Comments

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

Me too, except when it comes to coding for IE

[wechsler.livejournal.com]

Our latest discovery is that turning on PNG-transparency in IE causes truncation of certain long floated div's, unless they have a bottom border.

[ex-agname.livejournal.com]

Oh oh oh! You've never worked with JSF have you? I'm desperately stuck with an issue and you're the only person I know who might be able to help me :)

[socmot.livejournal.com]

Try working with opacity and DIV tags. The trick is to make the DIV transparent, but things within that DIV not transparent. It's harder than it sounds!

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I fear that I have barely even heard of JSF, and apart from some vague connections with Java Beans, I know nothing about it. I recommend the evolt mailing lists, though, specifically thelist, for questions about any such topic.

Check out http://lists.evolt.org/ and subscribe - they're well worthwhile.

[ex-agname.livejournal.com]

Aha, will do thanks. I have discovered that JSF and JavaScript hate one another and refuse to interact. It makes writing UI excessively difficult.

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Can you describe the problem anyway? Maybe we can ask stupid questions that point you in the right direction?

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

You forgot how, intermittently, stretches of the floor on the maze are covered in broken glass, salt, honey, and ice-cold water. And that the flooring may well change even if you backtrack.

[utterlymundane.livejournal.com]

We have a semi-official 'swearing at IE' entry on all our project schedules. Well, I do.

[wechsler.livejournal.com]

I knew this place seemed familiar...

[ex-agname.livejournal.com]

The problem is that in my JSP page I've got some JavaScript that moves some elements across into a SelectManyListBox (a JSF component). The JavaScript moves them across as Option objects.

In my backing bean then, I want to be able to access all the Option objects that have been put into the SelectManyListBox. I can access the box just fine. The trouble is that I can't find any of its elements. There's a function called .getSelectedValues() that should do that, but it's just getting null.

I've made sure to select the values in the form using JavaScript, though it's entirely possible that the Options aren't being selected before the JSF code to get them executes. It's also possible that I shouldn't be passing Option objects into the box, I'm not sure.

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Possible workaround in the last message? http://forum.sun.com/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=51654&messageID=193686