CSS Page Layout

WebDev CSS layout

This has a more detailed account of the different layout possibilities
This is included as an Adobe Reader file

'Layers'
Dreamweaver terms the positioned containers as 'layers'

This came from Netscape who introduced 'layer' as an HTML element - it has since been degraded.

WebDev has a detailed introduction to layers in its Dreamweaver section

›› Using CSS for page layout

A growing trend is to design using CSS for layout. Designers can stop using tables with all their problems and produce cleaner faster loading code.

So away with transparent gifs and positioned tables to produce content. With CSS positioning you can place your content wherever you want on the page
CSS also has the advantage of having a comprehensive easily understandable set of formatting attributes that can be applied to the whole site.

›› Page layout with CSS

CSS uses the terms container and boxes to describe the nature of content holders

These content holders are familiar to HTML users. Tags like <p>, <table>, <tr>, <td> <body> are all content containers. Tags like <span> and <div> were introduced for CSS.

As with HTML you can nest CSS tags. <span> is specifically used to nest content within a <div>….. </div> container