Can anyone tell me how to create a style sheet with a header, left column and main pane with a footer. Preferably using the coffee cup HTML editor with the inbuilt style sheet creator

I can do this with Adobe Dreamweaver 4, as they have a visual template view.

But I want to create my new site solely with coffee cup software, to include the external CSS.

Thanks to anyone who can help

I seldom use the stylesheet creator, and just write my own using the CC HTML Editor auto-complete feature.

I would likely start with a #mast for a <div id="mast"> and put in things like background color if needed, width and height, margin and padding.

Then I would have a #content and set it for the same width as my mast. Inside the content div, I would have a left div that floats left, and a right div that also floats left. Play around with the widths margins and paddings of the left and right divs to make them play together.

Finish with a footer div that has clear:both; in the style sheet.

Well here I go making enemies of the whole world wide web.

But Jane, you don't have to make CSS sheets no matter what you hear from everyone else.

If you want your site to be HTML on it's own that's just fine. Your actually increasing the potential that your site will run more smoothly.

CSS has great potential, but its in its infancy.

If you code your site in HTML and leave it that way, your NOT being left behind.

Thanks BillR, I will give it a go using the auto complete feature as you suggested.

I have to say random dude, I have always used HTML and tables but I do think CSS is the way forword. certainly search engines prefer this as they have less code to search through when ranking your site.

This is my only way reason for the need of CSS,

Thanks for your feedback guys.

When I recently re-built our website, I also wanted to use CSS because I thought it would be the way to go. However, after doing some research, I found that not all browsers can handle CSS. I agree that CSS may be the way forward, but the engine is unfortunately still in neutral for some browsers.

While some older graphic browsers may have trouble with it, CSS is the best way to go. A plain html page is usable to people who use text browsers or screen readers and those who simply like to browse with images turned off. For everyone else, the CSS makes otherwise plain text content much more attractive. Fancy html-based designs can be unusable nightmares for text browsers and screen readers.

JaneA, to do what you are describing in CoffeeCup, it is really quite simple and powerful! Just choose File->New From Layout, there is one with the layout you described. This will create a new page with the styles at the top. You can simply move these styles to a separate stylesheet and reference it appropriately at the top of your pages. You ABSOLUTELY should be using CSS. The search engines love it and then you are compliant with current web standards. As a web developer it makes your job simple because to change the appearance of your site you just make the change in the CSS file and voila, it changes everywhere instead of searching and replacing code in every page.

Also, essentially all current browsers do support CSS. Keep in mind that 70% of users still use IE, about 22% Firefox and the other 8% are split between Opera, Safari, Google Chrome and others. Of these browsers, IE is the least compliant with current web standards. Hopefully with the upcoming release of IE 8 that will be resolved. If you need more step-by-step help with this, let m eknow,

Max,

The new layout was exactly what I wanted. I can’t believe I didn’t find it, as it was so obvious when you pointed it out.

I have owned Coffee Cup HTML editor for many years and never used that feature.

I totally agree with you regarding the search engines and being compliant with current web standards. These are the exact two reasons why I am changing my current site layout.

Thank you for your reply.

While you're at it, you might want to check out the CSS section on Dynamic Drive.

http://www.dynamicdrive.com

There's some layouts, menus and loads of nice stuff that you can save as snippets in CC HTML Editor. I actually prefer that way the CSS in the layouts is set out on DD.