New WordPress template
I have just completed updating the template that I use on by my WordPress blog. I have finally eliminated the use of tables and replaced the old template with a new one that relies exclusively on CSS for object positioning.
While this is something that I should have done long ago (and that I still need to propagate the changes to the rest of my site), it was really the release of the iPhone that moved me to update my design. Now that Safari is using CSS design cues to display parts of the content in an optimal way, it is more than likely that Opera, Nokia and others will follow that very same path. Old design techniques, mainly based on the use of tables, which have been obsolete for years but are still used in many sites, are likely to disappear very quickly. We will certainly not miss them.
The adoption of standards by Web Designers has been slow at best. In most cases they have chosen simplicity over openness. Since IE was the dominant browser there was no compelling reason to check for compatibility with other browsers. Thankfully, Microsoft made a terrible mistake by not updating its browser in an attempt to maintain their desktop hegemony. That has allowed Firefox and Safari to slowly chip market share away from IE, but at a painfully slow pace. However, things are changing, by end of 2008 Apple will be selling each quarter more iPhones than Macs. Nokia will have sold millions of cell phones equipped with Web Kit based browsers and let’s not forget about Opera, their mobile browser is also very good. This will accelerate the rate of adoption of alternative browsers, since IE is not as dominant in the cell phone industry as it still is on the desktop.
Beleaguered Web designers like myself (if don’t really know how I dare call my self a web designer) have no choice. We need to adapt. CSS still has a lot of limitations. From my point of view it is an ugly and incomplete standard. However, if everyone understand that no single player can stop the standard from progressing, we will see it improve quickly. Today, companies like Microsoft and Adobe still believe that they can control the Web with products like Flash and initiatives such as AIR (a.k.a. Apollo) or Silverlight. We have a responsibility to show them that this is not what we want. What we need is simply better open standards.