Reset Reasoning

This post picks back up on the issue of browser incompatibly that I was writing about a couple of weeks ago with my post “The Biggest Pain In Web Design”.

All browsers have their own presentation defaults, ( or CSS ) but none of the browsers have the same defaults. We think of our CSS as modifying the default look of our Web Designs, however, all bets are off when the site is actually rendered in the different browsers.

A “Reset” Stylesheet can make the default look more consistent across the many browsers, and thus reduce the time that is spent fighting with browser defaults.

Reset rules are being seen ever more frequently in Web Designs. While a growing trend, I’m not so sure they are here to stay. Eventually, I think as issues are resolved you will see fewer rules within these scripts. On the other hand, this trend of using reset scripts may indeed make its mark as an integral part of Web Designs in the future.

It would appear that even with the new HTML5 and CSS3, reset rules are all the rage as the “HTML5 DOCTOR CSS RESET” script is the second most popular set of rules out there, behind “Eric Meyers”, who actually introduced the web to the concept of “reset stylesheets”.

Andrew Krespanis first suggested back in 2004 of using the universal selector (*) at the beginning of your CSS file to select all elements and give them (0) values for margins and padding. This removes all inconsistent spacing between all browsers, and boy howdy does it ever work like a gem!

You can find a number of rule sets or scripts on the Internet if you ask Father Google. For now, I will provide you with a link to “CSSRESET.COM”, that offers a rather good selection, including the ones mentioned above.