a basc css question from one without a clue

OK, this is an easy one for most, but I still use tables, so bear with me.

I use css to control the look of links, but can I use css so that my nav menu is consistent on every page? If I change one link, all are changed?

Can anyone recommend a good css tutorial?

Thanks in advance.

well, it really depends on how your nav menu is coded.

If its text, then controlling the look (and updating) should be a snap with CSS.

webmonkey has a great CSS tutorial here:

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/reference/stylesheet_guide/works.html

No, CSS can only control format. You cannot embed data in CSS. You can make all your nav links black on orange...but if you want to change all of the links on a page in a snap, you will need a more powerful technology.

To make a menu which is consistent on each page, you will want to use server side includes. Most web hosts today will offer either ASP or PHP.

I can't recommend a good CSS manual. I have read a dozen, and have not found a decent one. My only recommendation with CSS is to remove all sharp objects from the room...and to do your programming on the ground floor of the building...as jumping out a window is a more pleasureful option than trying to get valid CSS to look okay in different browser.

yintercept,

Thanks for the info. I thought as much, but didn't know for sure.

You would need to use SSI (server side includes) to do this. www.websitetips.com has a good tutorial on this, as well as CSS. CSS is for formatting and placement.

zen

Eric Meyer has gresat books out. Jeffery Zeldman has great articles on his site. westciv.com has great tutorials. CSS is a standard. XHTML is a standard. No, pages will not look the same in previous millenium browsers because they do not adhere to standards, but it is pretty simple enough to create a second style sheet to make them useable, maybe not as pretty, but useable, and to have them look as good, the dinosaurs need to upgrade. I use CSS almost exclusively, and I validate it all. Not a hard thing to do, once you understand the basics. I validated my blog CSS yesterday, and it is CSS-P. Took me two hours to fiddle with it, but now I have a base CSS for other use as well... no it looks like crap in Netty4, but for them users I have a different sheet that gives them plain vanilla text. They can upgrade if they want the good stuff, and they do not represent the demographic I target for my work.

zen

Thanks for all the input. I am a rookie at building sites and still learning html. Since I still have a learning curve ahead, I wanted to make sure that I invested my time wisely and try to stay current with design techniques. I dont really want to build future websites with tables if I would be better off using css. I had read an article where you could design a 2 or 3 column site that was virtually table free.

However, my target audience is anyone looking for real estate, so my visitors could be using anything including webTV, so what I am of the belief that I should design for the greatest common denominator. is there a big difference in css?

Thanks again for the help.

If the nav menus is basically a list in CSS, would this accomplish my goal?