I successfully did this using an inline style attribute in the link tag. However, it only works for IE 5.x - doesn't work on Netscape. Is there anyway to get this to work on Netscape?

Probably the best bet is to make the link a graphic. If you've got a graphics package, you could actually use the same font to create the link and make it appear that it's not actually a graphic but a text link. If your page has a white background, then use a white background in the graphic. If you want the image to change color when they do a mouseover or click on it then you should use the imageswap technique.

This may not be exactly what you're looking for, but from my experience it's the most reliable since graphics show up in just about all browsers, and the imageswap tag is good in both netscape and IE.

<A HREF="/desk/benefits.htm" style="text-decoration=none"><img src="button.gif" align="absmiddle" height="17" width="18" border="0" vspace="2">Benefits</a>

What this will display is a button, then a text link. In IE 5.x it does not show the underline. In Netscape communicator 4.x (I think it's 4.3) it shows the underline. Also, I've had a few other people look at it, all in Netscape, and they are all seeing the underline, they all have versions 4.0 and higher.

Here's a link to the page we're working on: http://www.thewritemarket.com/sfm/desk.htm

[This message has been edited by RenKen (edited 10-17-2000).]

<a HREF="/desk/industry.htm" style="text-decoration: none">

[This message has been edited by Ron C (edited 10-17-2000).]

note the : instead of the =

<style type="text/css">

A:Link {text-decoration: none;}
A:visited {text-decoration: none;}
A:Link:hover {text-decoration: underline;}

</style>

This just makes it easier if you use alot of links through-out the site.

Now, I notice you use the semicolon at the end of the command, before the last bracket - } In my book it doesn't show it this way. What should I do?
(Obviously, I'm no programmer!)

Also, if you want to the links in the body of your text underlined, simply leave out the A link (etc.) stuff in your stylesheet, then make a style that you'll use where you want it (say, in a navbar), and just use it there. Works like a charm.

a:hover {text-decoration: underline;}

The semi-colons separate each argument RenKen. For instance, if you wanted the link to turn red when moused over (remembering that hover doesn't work in NS4) it could be:

a:hover {text-decoration: underline; color: #FF0000;}

The semi-colons tell the browser where one atribute ends and the next begins. You don't actually need one if you only have one attribute, but I find it easier to make a habit of always including it so I don't forget it when I need it.

When you are working up your external (linked) stylesheet, you may want to list attributes vertically instead of all on one line. While it may not seem helpful when you look at one or two attributes, consider this example:

a:link {text-decoration: none; color: #0000cc; background: #ffffff; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; font-face: arial, sans-serif;}
a:hover {text-decoration: underline; color: #ff0000; background: #000000; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; font-face: arial, sans-serif;}

Now imagine you have ten more definitions for your site written like that. You can make this much easier to read and edit by instead listing it as:

a:link {
text-decoration: none;
color: #0000cc;
background: #ffffff;
font-weight: normal;
font-size: 12px;
font-face: arial, sans-serif;
}

a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
color: #ff0000;
background: #000000;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 12px;
font-face: arial, sans-serif;
}

The semi-colon becomes more obvious this way too...sort of like "end of line". The spaces are ignored so it won't affect your result, but your eyes will thank you for the organizational effort

[This message has been edited by baffled (edited 10-24-2000).]

I can't believe I never bothered with style sheets before this. This is going to make changing things a lot easier. They really are pretty simple, too.

Is px pixel? Because I have it in pt - points.

WebTV Plus supports CSS: http://developer.webtv.net/authoring/css/

You may want to review the discussion about someone else's style sheet at: http://gethighforums.com/Forum5/HTML/000252.html

There's a few other tips in there, plus some conversation about WebTV, you may find useful.

Yes, px is pixels. Whether you should use points or pixels will depend on who's article you read. Basically, points and pixels each have their own demons, and to be fair none of the CSS font sizings are uniform in any of the browsers or platforms. Its a great big mess because they tried to map them to match the html font sizes and did it differently even between PC and Mac versions of the same browser (I hate all browser companies BTW...I think they do this stuff to me on purpose!). Add the various bugs for some of the specs, and points and pixels end up as the only viable choices for now.

Points are a print setting and not a screen setting. Browsers don't always interpret these the same way. Some point sizes seem to match up well, others are dramatically different. Then you switch platforms and get yet another surpize. Smaller point settings (say 9-13) seem to be fairly close, and work well for most text. H tags work better than the large point settings do.

Pixels are a screen setting, so you leave out the browser interpretation of how big a point is. Unfortunately, different screen resolutions will affect the display of a pixel sized font significantly (for example, higher resolution settings mean more pixels per inch, so your pixel font will look smaller the higher the resolution is...of course, you live with that now using HTML font sizes so???). Note that 9px is the very minimum text size that can be rendered legibly. It is very tiny, and NS actually only seems to be able to do it with a sans-serif font (times is a mess). Start with 10 (approx. size one text) and go up from there and you should be OK.

So which to use. I've used both, but use pixels more often because I think I'm able to get more subtle diffences in sizing where points appear to be larger "steps". 13 px main text and 11 px small text looks pretty good to me. For points, I tend to use 11 or 12 for main text and 9 or 10 for small text (depends on the page and site). In the end, I often cop out and just use HTML fonts on the page and leave the font-size out of the CSS tags. That way I cover the few non-CSS enable folks at the same time.

No matter which you chose test-test-test in every browser you can---but you do that anyway right .

I just wanted to know -- if all else fails -- that the text would display at default. Thanks.

I'm using text sizes of 14px, 16px and 18px for headings - is that going to be obscenely big on webtv? Because it seems to be the same as size=2 -14px and size=3 - 16px in regular HTML.

Personally, I don't worry about the text size on WebTV; I just try to ensure that -- for those of my clients for whom WebTVers are one of their target markets -- it all fits into the tiny WebTV screen space.

But these are case-by-case determinations.