Over the past few weeks I've had time to continue my exploration of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): the glue that holds together the Web 2.0 generation of web sites.

It is easy to get lost in that CSS space and lose hours, and days, because it promises supreme control over any web enabled computer user interface--which is where the crown jewels are to be found.

The beauty of CSS is that there are many techniques to get to the same place, which means there are endless arguments on many issues, within the CSS webmaster communities. Yet two or more years ago, CSS was still very much in the background because web browser support was patchy and differed.

These days Internet Explorer 7.0 is a much better citizen of the CSS world, and so are the other major browsers. But there is still  no universal CSS understanding among browsers. This makes it more difficult, more time consuming, and more expensive to build web sites using a pure CSS approach that look the same within all browsers.

One way to avoid the madness in chasing workarounds,  is to realize that a web site should look good in all browsers, but doesn't have to look the same in all browsers.

Yet within the web master web design communities there is a strong Puritan streak emerging in regards to CSS. Now the trend is to try to develop pure CSS based web sites--without taint from any other, or older web design technologies..

There is almost a mania to validate web sites as pure CSS (by using free online services) to make sure everything is kosher and copasetic. And web masters will sneer at sites that don't validate as pure CSS. (By the way, if a site fails CSS validation it doesn't mean that it doesn't work...)

I don't care if my sites validate as pure CSS, as long as things function they way they should.

For example, the use of tables, a common way to layout web page elements using html--the core web language--is one of the biggest sins in the CSS community. Yet this is technique is easy and offers greater browser compatibility.

Such hybrid approaches are fine; and chasing after pure CSS layouts is money wasted at this point in our web tools evolution. The point of web user interface design should be to figure out a way to implement it using all available techniques and technologies. The end justifies the means. Web design projects do not have to validate as pure CSS if there are faster, hybrid approaches available, IMHO.

Still, CSS is incredibly compelling once you start getting to know it and use it. It's because it promises to abstract all content from all form. CSS defines the look and feel of content such as text, images, video, with incredible control and dexterity, and can be changed in a micro-second. You'll be surprised how much separation from content and form can be achieved. CSS Zen Garden is a stunning example of the power of CSS.

The reason I'm interested in CSS is that it is important for journalists, and any online publisher,  to know about CSS, RSS, PHP, JavaScript, and how server-side processing/publishing works.

My goal is not to become expert in these areas but to know enough about how they work, how they slot together. Because then I can potentially design new types of media products. After all, these are all media publishing technologies.

Tools I've been using and like:

- StyleMaster 4.6 from Westciv.com in Australia. This is an excellent CSS editor with dozens of tools plus inbuilt tutorial and support functions that work very well. StyleMaster makes for an excellent CSS development platform--you don't need DreamWeaver of GoLive and everything validates 100 per cent.

- EditPlus is a great text/html/CSS editor, it is small, fast, and clean.

- Microsoft's Live Writer is a very good "Word" for creating blog posts and then posting to multiple platforms. Many users are also developing and releasing a lot of good plugins, so it is only going to get better. We'll have to see how Microsoft decides to monetise this free Beta.