A short css question

Is it considered legitamite to have div's in the html file that have an id referring to an external CSS file, but with no content inside them? For example:

< div id="image" > < /div >


(and in the CSS file)

#image {
background-image: url(bg.gif);
}




(just ignore the spaces in the div tags... otherwise the forum will pick it up)


Is this legitamite CSS coding? I heard somewhere, (maybe I'm mistaken), that not putting content inside the

Put a non-breaking space in there. Or better yet, the caption for the image, and then just set it to visibility: hidden.

thanks derek.

by non-breaking space, do you mean   ? if so, then that's kind of what I've been doing, though I thought there might be a better way than having a highlight-able space out in the middle of nowhere for no reason.

As for captions, I use this generally for background design purposes and the like, so i'm guessing there's no captions to these images, but if i were to make one up, for example "topleft" would that mean this?


[html]
< div id="topleft" > topleft < /div >

[css file]

#topleft {
visibility: hidden;
}



If I do that, then any background image I set in the div also is hidden and now it's no good to me anymore.

though, I can do this:

[html]
< div id="topleft" >
< div id="topleftcontent" > Caption text here
< /div >
< /div >

[css]

#topleft {
background-image: url(bg.gif);
}

#topleftcontent {
visibility: hidden;
}





This second method works nicely. Is it legitamite? If so, then that's definitely a good way to go. No highlight-able spaces or nothin'.

You don't need captions for decorations.

Don't nest divs like that. Instead do this:

< div id="topleft">< p>& nbsp;< /p>< /div>


#topleft p {
visibility: hidden;
}

That means that rule will apply to any P tag contained in a tag with the topleft ID.

Coolio, worked nicely. Thanks a lot deke.


One more quick question. Is it never legitamite css coding to nest div tags?

You want to use nested divs as little as possible, and classes/ids as little as possible. Much better to do like I showed you above, where you just make rules based on the structure of the HTML document. More flexible, and just better.

haha, you're killing me man xD what's wrong with using classes and ids.... unfortunately I rape that stuff..l. seriously, I dont use anything but divs with IDs to do layouts. lol I feel pretty guilty about my coding now lol

Yeah they call it "Class-itis". Try to do it without having classes and **** everywhere. It's a lot of wasteful code.

its just annoying to do it without derek :P it would be easy if it wasn't for ****ing internet explorer which can't read code for ****.

the bastards.