3 ms·

Hands up for anyone else who remembers how much worse this was in the CSS 2.1 days when it had to be hacked using `display: inline-block` and tricks involving n

Hands up for anyone else who remembers how much worse this was in the CSS 2.1 days when it had to be hacked using `display: inline-block` and tricks involving negative margins.

mattwad 6y ago
inline-block was cheating. Plus, for a long time after it was "released" you couldn't rely on browsers actually implementing it. I always used `margin: 0 auto` and if you know the height of an element, you can set the top to be 50%, and use a negative margin half its height.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  I'm really hazy going back this far, but wasn't it that it worked in Firefox and Opera, but then IE could be handled using magic HTML comments that served it special separate rules? I know sometimes IE's vendor-specific CSS "expressions" system could be used to compute properties like max-width and so-on that it didn't otherwise support, and it was nice to be able to do that without requiring a JS polyfill.
  - ljm 6y ago
    There were conditional comments for loading IE specific things. And I remember IE6 having .htc files (html components), csspie is the one I remember
npsomaratna 6y ago
Reminds me of having to use (CSS) floats to position stuff. CSS grid and flexbox have made positioning (in particular, vertical positioning) so easy.
- BattyMilk 6y ago
  Floats and clearfixes everywhere
  - andy_ppp 6y ago
    The horror: *:after { visibility: hidden; display: block; font-size: 0; content: " "; clear: both; height: 0; }
FriedrichN 6y ago
Absolutely. I remember how it was to make your website work in IE6 and later in IE7's Frankenstein compatibility mode. All those dirty hacks you needed to do to make stuff work make me so thankful for today's wonderful CSS, even when it frustrates me.
- berkes 6y ago
  After fighting years against IE6¹, when IE7 came bantering in with its Compatibilty Mode, I gave up and moved to backend work. Spending weekend-allnighters to get this one rounded-corner-drop-shadow working is depressing. ¹ a real-life lesson in monopolism: IE6 was around for over 14 years!
- citrons 6y ago
  Stuff like 99% support flexbox and high % for grid makes working with layout so good. Only wish "gap" property would be adopted easier to make working collapsing flex rows way easier. Even the basic things like :last-child selector is good quality-of-life improvement.
Shinchy 6y ago
I still remember using `display: table` and `display: table-cell` for getting vertical alignment as well.
antidaily 6y ago
I remember wrapping entire content blocks in table markup to center them :(

Hands up for anyone else who remembers how much worse this was in the CSS 2.1 days when it had to be hacked using `display: inline-block` and tricks involving negative margins.

mattwad 6y ago

inline-block was cheating. Plus, for a long time after it was "released" you couldn't rely on browsers actually implementing it. I always used `margin: 0 auto` and if you know the height of an element, you can set the top to be 50%, and use a negative margin half its height.

mikepurvis 6y ago
I'm really hazy going back this far, but wasn't it that it worked in Firefox and Opera, but then IE could be handled using magic HTML comments that served it special separate rules? I know sometimes IE's vendor-specific CSS "expressions" system could be used to compute properties like max-width and so-on that it didn't otherwise support, and it was nice to be able to do that without requiring a JS polyfill.
- ljm 6y ago
  There were conditional comments for loading IE specific things. And I remember IE6 having .htc files (html components), csspie is the one I remember

npsomaratna 6y ago

Reminds me of having to use (CSS) floats to position stuff. CSS grid and flexbox have made positioning (in particular, vertical positioning) so easy.

BattyMilk 6y ago
Floats and clearfixes everywhere
- andy_ppp 6y ago
  The horror: *:after { visibility: hidden; display: block; font-size: 0; content: " "; clear: both; height: 0; }

FriedrichN 6y ago

Absolutely. I remember how it was to make your website work in IE6 and later in IE7's Frankenstein compatibility mode. All those dirty hacks you needed to do to make stuff work make me so thankful for today's wonderful CSS, even when it frustrates me.

berkes 6y ago
After fighting years against IE6¹, when IE7 came bantering in with its Compatibilty Mode, I gave up and moved to backend work. Spending weekend-allnighters to get this one rounded-corner-drop-shadow working is depressing. ¹ a real-life lesson in monopolism: IE6 was around for over 14 years!
citrons 6y ago
Stuff like 99% support flexbox and high % for grid makes working with layout so good. Only wish "gap" property would be adopted easier to make working collapsing flex rows way easier. Even the basic things like :last-child selector is good quality-of-life improvement.

Shinchy 6y ago

I still remember using `display: table` and `display: table-cell` for getting vertical alignment as well.

antidaily 6y ago

I remember wrapping entire content blocks in table markup to center them :(