Using tables is a thing of the past in Web 2.0, unless of course your making an actual table. It’s a faux-pa to use them for layout in this day and age. The 2.0 mantra is content separate from design, limited HTML markup and CSS handling display. Though sometimes CSS doesn’t always cut it and you end up doing something that isn’t very modern just to get the job done. One thing that I always revert back to tables is when I have to center something vertically and horizontally in the window.
I’ve looked all over the place trying to find something that was simple, worked for IE and could have a fixed size box. In my search I found this solution that uses display to render a div as a table or table cell. It’s pretty good, but it doesn’t work with a fixed box size. I tweaked a little bit and now it can work with a fixed box size. I added an extra div called box to center . The only problem that I see with it is that the doctype has to be set to HTML 4 Transitional. For most projects, I don’t imagine this is a deal breaker. I’ve posted a minimal example. The HTML page can be found here. This has been tested in IE 6, Safari 3, Chrome 1, and Firefox 3.
Despite all the attention that was paid to the CS4 version of Flash, I keep coming across gaps in logic that baffle me. I think this is probably perpetrated by Macromedia legacy staff that are effectively suicide bombing themselves against the usability of the product. Actually, no, it’s probably not even that interesting. It’s just dumb.
So, my gripe is the Flash Zoom tool is now keystroke m by default. The z keystroke is of course now used for the Bind tool. Z is for Bind? M is for Zoom? What kind of alphabet soup are they cooking here? Bind is not even the primary tool in the IK tools. That means you need to click and hold in the toolbar even to see the Bind tool. It’s not worthy of z.
I know they renamed the Zoom tool to the Magnify tool, but that is a weak justification to a senseless change. Yes, you can change this easily in Flash > Keyboard Shortcuts… but that’s not the point. The less I have to change the shortcuts to what makes sense, the faster I can get to work.
Maybe soon I’ll have something nice to say about Flash CS4, because there are some really cool things and some really subtle improvements that are worth mentioning, but I got to get over some of this kind of dip-shittery that has wedged itself in to this version.