This is, I am sure, an old story...

I have been asked to help someone whose web site author has
disappeared.  There is no animosity between the parties -- the guy has
simply become un-contactable for no known reason.

Now, the domain (a .co.uk) name was taken out in the designer's name.
The hosting, too, is in his name (fasthosts) and there is an urgent
need for some updates.

I have looked at Nominet's site and FAQ's and as far as I can see
there is no alternative but to use their Dispute Resolution Service to
get the domain name back.  Am I right?  Is there any other method?
(Sadly, it is possible that the registrant has died, and I see that
there is a special mechanism for that, but without being sure there is
no way that helps.)

The trouble with the DRS is that the company whose site it is makes very
little money and simply can't afford the fees that inevitably seem to
be involved if a dispute involves a party that does not respond.

Since there is no animosity, it would suffice to get access to the
hosting.  Does anyone know if this is even possible?  I suspect it is
harder than getting the domain back (which would allow the hosting to
be moved).

-- 
Ben.

On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:03:10 +0000, Ben Bacarisse put finger to
keyboard and typed:

>This is, I am sure, an old story...
>
>I have been asked to help someone whose web site author has
>disappeared.  There is no animosity between the parties -- the guy has
>simply become un-contactable for no known reason.
>
>Now, the domain (a .co.uk) name was taken out in the designer's name.
>The hosting, too, is in his name (fasthosts) and there is an urgent
>need for some updates.
>
>I have looked at Nominet's site and FAQ's and as far as I can see
>there is no alternative but to use their Dispute Resolution Service to
>get the domain name back.  Am I right?  Is there any other method?

Email or phone Nominet and ask. They're nice people; they do actually
respond to queries.

>(Sadly, it is possible that the registrant has died, and I see that
>there is a special mechanism for that, but without being sure there is
>no way that helps.)
>
>The trouble with the DRS is that the company whose site it is makes very
>little money and simply can't afford the fees that inevitably seem to
>be involved if a dispute involves a party that does not respond.
>
>Since there is no animosity, it would suffice to get access to the
>hosting.  Does anyone know if this is even possible?  I suspect it is
>harder than getting the domain back (which would allow the hosting to
>be moved).

Again, I'd suggest contacting Fasthosts. They may or may not be
helpful - a lot depends on whether they decide to be pedantic about
customer privacy or whether they're prepared to discuss things with a
downstream customer of their customer. But they may be able to sort
something out.

Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

Tagging a summary of my findings so far onto this reply because there
is a result that might be helpful to others.

Mark Goodge  writes:

> On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:03:10 +0000, Ben Bacarisse put finger to
> keyboard and typed:
>
>>This is, I am sure, an old story...
>>
>>I have been asked to help someone whose web site author has
>>disappeared.  There is no animosity between the parties -- the guy has
>>simply become un-contactable for no known reason.
<snip>
> Email or phone Nominet and ask. They're nice people; they do actually
> respond to queries.

Yes, they were very helpful on the phone.

<snip>
> Again, I'd suggest contacting Fasthosts. They may or may not be
> helpful - a lot depends on whether they decide to be pedantic about
> customer privacy or whether they're prepared to discuss things with a
> downstream customer of their customer. But they may be able to sort
> something out.

Much less helpful.  I am not entirely sure I was even able to
communicate what I was trying to achieve.

In the end, I don't think the existing site can be accessed.  It
simply is not worth Fasthosts time to make a special case for me
interfere with what is (as far as they are concerned) an ordinary
customer's site.

Nominet did have an option other than the costly (£200+fees when the
other party does not reply) Dispute Resolution Service.  One can
complain that the domain is badly set up -- with an address for the
registrant that is not valid.  You get proof of this with a recorded
letter, and sent it on to them.  They use their internal contact
details to try to get a proper address, and since that will fail (in
these cases) they then release the domain back into the public pool
(and the can warn you when will happen).

-- 
Ben.

Message-ID:  from Ben Bacarisse contained the
following:

>In the end, I don't think the existing site can be accessed.  It
>simply is not worth Fasthosts time to make a special case for me
>interfere with what is (as far as they are concerned) an ordinary
>customer's site.

Of course they won't  continue hosting it once the payment runs out. One
wonders whether they will be a tad more helpful when there is the
opportunity of a renewal fee.

It's rather a poor state of affairs.  I'm sure people disappear all the
time through death or disability.  
-- 
Geoff Berrow  0110001001101100010000000110
001101101011011001000110111101100111001011
100110001101101111001011100111010101101011
http://slipperyhill.co.uk - http://4theweb.co.uk

Geoff Berrow  writes:

> Message-ID:  from Ben Bacarisse contained the
> following:
>
>>In the end, I don't think the existing site can be accessed.  It
>>simply is not worth Fasthosts time to make a special case for me
>>interfere with what is (as far as they are concerned) an ordinary
>>customer's site.
>
> Of course they won't  continue hosting it once the payment runs out. One
> wonders whether they will be a tad more helpful when there is the
> opportunity of a renewal fee.

Yes, hence I have just mirrored the site (though it is a mess of
JavaScript, so wget could not get it all in one go).

> It's rather a poor state of affairs.  I'm sure people disappear all the
> time through death or disability.  

Yes.  Everyone said how common it is.

-- 
Ben.

*The terrible terrible newbie question:
How do I suppress the spacing before a <p> tag?  


Rather than answering that question, please answer the next one:

*The terrible terrible newbie meta-question:
Where would I find answers to simple things such as that?


In case the answer to the meta-question points to stuff too bl**dy
difficult for me to understand, I'm using Dreamweaver 8 if anyone
deigns to answer the actual question (although I would prefer to work
it out from "The Manual" if I knew where the bl**dy manual was for
this basic stuff).  

I'm not a dunderhead, I've put a working paypal donate button exactly
where I want it, but overriding this damnable *default behaviour* has
me beaten! 

<rant> Why doesn't *everything* have to be EXPLICIT instead of SOME
things being IMplicit and you have to KNOW what's EX- and what's IM-?
Grrrrrr </rant>

I'm 53, you know!

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:19:19 +0000, me here put finger to keyboard and
typed:

>*The terrible terrible newbie question:
>How do I suppress the spacing before a <p> tag?  

Use the stylesheet to change the margin and/or padding of the
paragraph element.

>Rather than answering that question, please answer the next one:
>
>*The terrible terrible newbie meta-question:
>Where would I find answers to simple things such as that?

http://www.w3schools.com/CSS/css_margin.asp for this question
specifically, or http://www.w3schools.com/CSS/ for CSS in general. 

Mark
-- 
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

At 18:19:19 on Thu, 12 Mar 2009, me here  wrote in 
:

>*The terrible terrible newbie question:
>How do I suppress the spacing before a <p> tag?

margin-top on the <p> tag
margin-bottom on whatever precedes it
...and also padding-top and padding-bottom if you really want to drive 
yourself insane.

There are those (yes, right here in this newsgroup) who have a very deep 
understanding of margin and padding.  The easiest way, however, is to 
set the lot to zero, and then increase one of them until you get the 
results you want in browsers other than IE.  If you don't get the 
results you want, put that one back to zero and try another one.

>*The terrible terrible newbie meta-question:
>Where would I find answers to simple things such as that?

About ten million CSS tutorials on the web.  Finding one is not hard. 
Finding a good one, which explains things in terms which ring bells with 
you, is rather more of a lottery!  Others will come along and suggest 
their favourites, and I recommend that you check them all out, and 
bookmark those which seem best to you.

>In case the answer to the meta-question points to stuff too bl**dy
>difficult for me to understand, I'm using Dreamweaver 8

Do not weep at the things which some people will say about that.  I too 
use DW8.

However, I do not use its CSS "capability" other than for absolute 
basics;  after setting up rough stuff, I edit my CSS file by hand.  (In 
particular, DW8 has a horrible habit of bunging a new style definition 
somewhere in the middle of the stylesheet, where it does not necessarily 
do what you expected because you end up with inheritance problems.  The 
most important thing about Cascading Style Sheets is the word Cascading.

>I'm 53, you know!

Well done.  I'm 60.

And I have been a professional web designer since the last millennium.

And I only know about 10% of what there is to know about CSS - but I 
know 90% of what I *need* to know, much of it pragmatic rather than 
theoretical.  Trouble is, "what one *needs* to know" varies between 
every individual.

Oh, and you might like to subscribe to 
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets (and read it for a while 
before posting, or you are likely to get snapped at) - it will be 
daunting, then enlightening, then invaluable.

Good luck!
-- 
Molly Mockford
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
(My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.)

In article ,
 me here  wrote:

> How do I suppress the spacing before a <p> tag?  

If this is a simple question about one paragraph, you set the margin-top 
to zero on that particular paragraph. There many different ways to do 
this, depending on your context. 

Here is one way, style the para concerned inline:

<p style="margin-top: 0">Text</p>

If it is all your paragraphs in your whole website, you put the style in 
your stylesheet

p {margin-top: 0;} 

If it is all the paragraphs in just one page, there any number of ways 
to do this too. For instance, you can class an ancestor to all the paras

<paragraphContainingElement class="classname">

and in your stylesheet, you put:

.classname p {margin-top: 0;}

Another way would be to put the styles that differ for the target page, 
in the head of the document, like:

<style type="text/css" media="screen">
p {margin-top: 0;}
</style>

If there are just some paragraphs you want to do this to on a page, then 
generally the simplest way is to class the targets with

<p class="classname">

and in your CSS:

p {margin-top: 0;}

-- 
dorayme

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:56:33 +0000, Mark Goodge
 wrote:

>>Where would I find answers to simple things such as that?
>
>http://www.w3schools.com/CSS/css_margin.asp for this question
>specifically, or http://www.w3schools.com/CSS/ for CSS in general. 
>
Thank you very much for that link!  Most informative and an incredible
thief of time as I wander its highways and byways!  seriously, though:
thank you.

On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:04:34 +0000, Molly Mockford
 wrote:


>>*The terrible terrible newbie meta-question:
>>Where would I find answers to simple things such as that?
>
>About ten million CSS tutorials on the web.  
Thank you!  At least that means I don't have to look at the 50 million
HTML tutorials now that you've narrowed the field for me to *CSS*. I
think I now understand what is the province of CSS and what is HTML.


> (In 
>particular, DW8 has a horrible habit of bunging a new style definition 
>somewhere in the middle of the stylesheet, where it does not necessarily 
>do what you expected because you end up with inheritance problems.  The 
>most important thing about Cascading Style Sheets is the word Cascading.
I noticed that random entry thing: I'm now reading up on inheritance.
Thank you!

>And I only know about 10% of what there is to know about CSS - but I 
>know 90% of what I *need* to know, much of it pragmatic rather than 
>theoretical.  Trouble is, "what one *needs* to know" varies between 
>every individual.
Indeed.  I'm really trying to work with what is immediately available
(defaults) rather than insist on imposing a particular look and feel -
but sometimes I lose that battle.
>
>Oh, and you might like to subscribe to 
>comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets (and read it for a while 
>before posting, or you are likely to get snapped at) - it will be 
>daunting, then enlightening, then invaluable.
I shall, thank you.
>Good luck!
Ahh well, luck was finding nice folks to help me out!

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:08:23 +1100, dorayme
 wrote:

>In article ,
> me here  wrote:
>
>> How do I suppress the spacing before a <p> tag?  
>
>If this is a simple question about one paragraph, you set the margin-top 
>to zero on that particular paragraph. There many different ways to do 
>this, depending on your context. 
>
>Here is one way, style the para concerned inline:
>
><p style="margin-top: 0">Text</p>
That's where I'm at: thank you.  Solves the immediate problem I have -
although I think I'm going to make it more generic if I can - per the
below..

Thank you too for the remainder of what you wrote with the different
options: if I work through them and understand how they work and why
they would be used I shall have made some significant progress. Thank
you!

What I think I'm going to do, since I will probably want this again
here and there (I'm only on my first page ever right now!) is this:


In the CSS :

p.noTop {
padding-top: 0;
margin-top:0;
}

(changing the 0s as necessary)

and in the HTML

<h3>header text</h3>
<p class="noTop">blah blah blah</p>

Thanks

In article ,
 me here  wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:08:23 +1100, dorayme
>  wrote:
> 
> >In article ,
> > me here  wrote:
> >
> >> How do I suppress the spacing before a <p> tag?  
> >
> >If this is a simple question about one paragraph, you set the margin-top 
> >to zero on that particular paragraph. There many different ways to do 
> >this, depending on your context. 
> >
> >Here is one way, style the para concerned inline:
> >
> ><p style="margin-top: 0">Text</p>
> That's where I'm at: thank you.  Solves the immediate problem I have -
> although I think I'm going to make it more generic if I can - per the
> below..
> 
> Thank you too for the remainder of what you wrote with the different
> options: if I work through them and understand how they work and why
> they would be used I shall have made some significant progress. Thank
> you!
> 
> What I think I'm going to do, since I will probably want this again
> here and there (I'm only on my first page ever right now!) is this:
> 
>

You could do this. But there is an issue about why you want no top 
margin in the first place. I do not say that you have not good reasons. 
I have done it on occasion myself. However, always look to see why you 
are doing. For example, say you think there is too much space between 
the heading and the first paragraph. Here the solution that immediately 
presents itself is to alter the default bottom margin of the heading. 

This way, every time a para follows this level of heading, it will be 
judged satisfactory by you. No need for classes, you are sort of going 
to the root cause. Cleaner mark up and even simpler CSS.

Just a thought for you to bear in mind.

-- 
dorayme

Message-ID:  from me here
contained the following:

>In the CSS :
>
>p.noTop {
>padding-top: 0;
>margin-top:0;
>}
>
>(changing the 0s as necessary)
>
>and in the HTML
>
><h3>header text</h3>
><p class="noTop">blah blah blah</p>

Strictly speaking, this isn't the way to do it.

Say you decided to colour some text blue.  You might do

.blue {

}
<p class="blue">blah blah blah</p>

After the site was complete your client changes the house style from
blue to red.

So you change your css
.blue {
color: red;
}

Clearly, this is a less than optimum bit of mark up!

However, if you had done

.xyzParagraph{
color: blue;
}

<p class="xyzParagraph">blah blah blah</p>

(where you replace xyzParagraph with a word which has some meaning
within the context of the page e.g. subheadingParagraph,
mainBodyParagraph, etc)

You can subsequently make changes without making a nonsense of the whole
thing.  Also you make changes to the /specific/ elements of the page
that you want to change, because you have named them semantically.

Well that's the theory, at any rate.


I'm older than you and younger than Molly :-)



-- 
Geoff Berrow  0110001001101100010000000110
001101101011011001000110111101100111001011
100110001101101111001011100111010101101011
http://slipperyhill.co.uk - http://4theweb.co.uk

Molly Mockford wrote:
>  
> Oh, and you might like to subscribe to 
> comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets (and read it for a while 
> before posting, or you are likely to get snapped at) - it will be 
> daunting, then enlightening, then invaluable.
> 

QFT!

Learn how the GroupThink works and then carefully craft your question. 
You only get one bite of the cherry, and if you displease one of the 
regulars, you'll not get an answer from any of them.

Geoff Berrow wrote:
> Message-ID:  from me here
> contained the following:
> 
>> In the CSS :
>>
>> p.noTop {
>> padding-top: 0;
>> margin-top:0;
>> }
>>
>> (changing the 0s as necessary)
>>
>> and in the HTML
>>
>> <h3>header text</h3>
>> <p class="noTop">blah blah blah</p>
> 
> Strictly speaking, this isn't the way to do it.
> 
> Say you decided to colour some text blue.  You might do
> 
> ..blue {
> 
> }
> <p class="blue">blah blah blah</p>
> 
> After the site was complete your client changes the house style from
> blue to red.
> 
> So you change your css
> ..blue {
> color: red;
> }
> 
> Clearly, this is a less than optimum bit of mark up!
> 
> However, if you had done
> 
> ..xyzParagraph{
> color: blue;
> }
> 
> <p class="xyzParagraph">blah blah blah</p>
> 
> (where you replace xyzParagraph with a word which has some meaning
> within the context of the page e.g. subheadingParagraph,
> mainBodyParagraph, etc)
> 
> You can subsequently make changes without making a nonsense of the whole
> thing.  Also you make changes to the /specific/ elements of the page
> that you want to change, because you have named them semantically.
> 
> Well that's the theory, at any rate.
> 
> 
> I'm older than you and younger than Molly :-)
> 
> 
> 

Well put.

If you want to see this principle applied to become a thing of beauty, see:

http://www.csszengarden.com/

... where a single (!) html structure is presented with many, many 
different CSS style sheets by a series of talented designers.  Just 
click a link to see another interpretation (there are also adjacent 
links to the designers' portfolios).

I've always found CSS hard - it's getting easier as browsers (at last) 
are converging on a common standard.  Always try your pages in more than 
one browser, including (at least) Firefox and IE.

Phil, London

In article ,
 CJM  wrote:

> Molly Mockford wrote:
> >  
> > Oh, and you might like to subscribe to 
> > comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets (and read it for a while 
> > before posting, or you are likely to get snapped at) - it will be 
> > daunting, then enlightening, then invaluable.
> > 
> 
> QFT!
> 
> Learn how the GroupThink works and then carefully craft your question. 
> You only get one bite of the cherry, and if you displease one of the 
> regulars, you'll not get an answer from any of them.

A slight exaggeration! It's not quite as bad as that.

-- 
dorayme

dorayme wrote:
> In article ,
>>>
>> QFT!
>>
>> Learn how the GroupThink works and then carefully craft your question. 
>> You only get one bite of the cherry, and if you displease one of the 
>> regulars, you'll not get an answer from any of them.
> 
> A slight exaggeration! It's not quite as bad as that.
> 

But you clearly understand the context! ;)

It can be unnecessarily intimidating and unwelcoming to a) newcomers and 
b) people who disagree with certain regulars. That said, there are some 
very knowledgeable people residing there and if your face fits, you 
stand a good chance of getting a detailed answer.

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:02:19 +1100, dorayme
 wrote:

>In article ,
> me here  wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:08:23 +1100, dorayme
>>  wrote:
>> 
>> >In article ,
>> > me here  wrote:
>> >
>> >> How do I suppress the spacing before a <p> tag?  

>> What I think I'm going to do, since I will probably want this again
>> here and there (I'm only on my first page ever right now!) is this:
>> 
>>
>
>You could do this. But there is an issue about why you want no top 
>margin in the first place. I do not say that you have not good reasons. 
>I have done it on occasion myself. However, always look to see why you 
>are doing. For example, say you think there is too much space between 
>the heading and the first paragraph. Here the solution that immediately 
>presents itself is to alter the default bottom margin of the heading. 

This is EXACTLY my problem: I haven't quite fathomed all the good
advice in the other replies yet (they need some thinking about as
opposed to typing the solution!) but my issue seemed to be with the
default space that browsers insert before a <p>.  

How would changing the space (bottom margin) after an <h> affect the
browsers'  default behaviour for a <p>?

Or is this evidence that I have I simply a) misunderstood  or b) not
understood enough yet?   I can live with b) but I'd need to deal with
a) I think.

Thank you all so much for your patience and generosity.

At 10:22:23 on Fri, 13 Mar 2009, Geoff Berrow  
wrote in :

>I'm older than you and younger than Molly :-)

Most people are, dear boy.

On the other hand, I have considerably more scalp-hair than you have.
-- 
Molly Mockford
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
(My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.)

At 15:47:23 on Fri, 13 Mar 2009, CJM  wrote 
in :

>dorayme wrote:
>> In article ,
>>>>
>>> QFT!
>>>
>>> Learn how the GroupThink works and then carefully craft your 
>>>question.  You only get one bite of the cherry, and if you displease 
>>>one of the  regulars, you'll not get an answer from any of them.
>>  A slight exaggeration! It's not quite as bad as that.
>>
>
>But you clearly understand the context! ;)
>
>It can be unnecessarily intimidating and unwelcoming to a) newcomers 
>and b) people who disagree with certain regulars. That said, there are 
>some very knowledgeable people residing there and if your face fits, 
>you stand a good chance of getting a detailed answer.

Do you not remember the days when a newbie was expected to lurk for *six 
months* before posting?  These days, one is grateful if they have kept 
themselves on read-only for six days.

Hell, six hours.
-- 
Molly Mockford
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
(My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.)

CJM wrote:
> Molly Mockford wrote:
>>  
>> Oh, and you might like to subscribe to 
>> comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets (and read it for a while 
>> before posting, or you are likely to get snapped at) - it will be 
>> daunting, then enlightening, then invaluable.
>>
> 
> QFT!
> 
> Learn how the GroupThink works and then carefully craft your question. 
> You only get one bite of the cherry, and if you displease one of the 
> regulars, you'll not get an answer from any of them.

The last time I looked they were an extraordinarily bad-tempered bunch 
and I gave up on them.  It's good to see this group giving some help to 
complete beginners.

Phil, London

In article ,
 me here  wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:02:19 +1100, dorayme
>  wrote:
...
> >You could do this. But there is an issue about why you want no top 
> >margin in the first place. I do not say that you have not good reasons. 
> >I have done it on occasion myself. However, always look to see why you 
> >are doing it. For example, say you think there is too much space between 
> >the heading and the first paragraph. Here the solution that immediately 
> >presents itself is to alter the default bottom margin of the heading. 
> 
> This is EXACTLY my problem: ... 

> How would changing the space (bottom margin) after an <h> affect the
> browsers'  default behaviour for a <p>?
> 
It does not affect the P at all. The point is that it reduces the gap 
that is contributed by the H's bottom margin. Behind the scenes, there 
is a default set of styles that browsers use. If you do not set margins 
on elements, the default styles kick in. Hs have them, Ps have them, the 
birds and the bees ha... o no that is going too far. <g>

If removing the bottom margin on Hs does not deliver enough space 
saving, you can alter the top margin of the P just below (as we 
discussed) instead of or *in addition*.

There are other things. Line height of the H can be a contributing 
factor to 'too much' gap. But best not to go into this until you are 
more confident with simpler safer methods.

-- 
dorayme

Message-ID: <00pS5WD6rquJFwq2@molly.mockford> from Molly Mockford
contained the following:

>>I'm older than you and younger than Molly :-)
>
>Most people are, dear boy.
>
>On the other hand, I have considerably more scalp-hair than you have.

Gives me a good excuse to wear a cowboy hat.  :-)
-- 
Regards,
Geoff Berrow
http://www.slipperyhill.co.uk - Blue grass, blues, barn dance
http://4theweb.co.uk - Web design, development and hosting

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:47:21 +0000, me here  wrote in
:

>This is EXACTLY my problem: I haven't quite fathomed all the good
>advice in the other replies yet (they need some thinking about as
>opposed to typing the solution!) but my issue seemed to be with the
>default space that browsers insert before a <p>.  
>
>How would changing the space (bottom margin) after an <h> affect the
>browsers'  default behaviour for a <p>?
>
>Or is this evidence that I have I simply a) misunderstood  or b) not
>understood enough yet?   I can live with b) but I'd need to deal with
>a) I think.

Consider a page with something like this:
<h2>heading</h2>
<p>first</p>
<p>second</p>

The gap between 'heading' and 'first' is affected by the bottom padding
border and margin of 'h1' and the top margin border and padding of 'p'.
The gap between 'first' and 'second' is affected by the bottom padding
border and margin of 'p' and the top margin border and padding of 'p'.

If the gap between 'first' and 'second' looks right but the gap between
'heading and 'first' is too big then consider adjusting the style for
'h2' rather than making the 'p' for 'first' special.

Another thing you have to get to grips with quite quickly here is
"collapsing margins". In the examples above, the bottom margin of the
'h2' and the top magin of the 'first' 'p' combine to form a single
margin that is the maximum of the sizes rather than the sum of the
sizes. The same for the margins between the two 'p's; if you set both
top and bottom margin of 'p' to 0.5em you will get a margin of 0.5em
between 'p's.

I find the Firefox "Web Developer" extension particularly useful when
experimenting with CSS - it lets you experiment with the CSS dynamically
and shows you the effect immediately.

-- 
Owen Rees
[one of] my preferred email address[es] and more stuff can be
found at <http://www.users.waitrose.com/~owenrees/index.html>

On Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:19:18 +0000, Owen Rees 
wrote:


>
>Consider a page with something like this:
><h2>heading</h2>
><p>first</p>
><p>second</p>
>

>Another thing you have to get to grips with quite quickly here is
>"collapsing margins". In the examples above, the bottom margin of the
>'h2' and the top magin of the 'first' 'p' combine to form a single
>margin that is the maximum of the sizes rather than the sum of the
>sizes. The same for the margins between the two 'p's; if you set both
>top and bottom margin of 'p' to 0.5em you will get a margin of 0.5em
>between 'p's.

I've seen reference to that in passing elsewhere (and I passed over it
with glazed eyes) - thank you for the explanation,  It's exactly the
opposite from formatting in e.G a word processor.  I shall have to do
some research and .....

>I find the Firefox "Web Developer" extension particularly useful when
>experimenting with CSS - it lets you experiment with the CSS dynamically
>and shows you the effect immediately.

... therefore that is an *excellent* suggestion!  Thank you.


Lewis
By the way, in another post, I mentioned that I think I've found my
preferred solution, which is:


<style type="text/cuss">
h2 {
padding-bottom: 0;
margin-bottom: 0;
color: blue
}

h2 + p {
text-indent: 20px;
color: red;
padding-top: 0;
margin-top:0;
}


This gives me an h2 with no bottom spacing (what I want) and a p with
no top spacing when it follows an h2, but I DO get inter p spacing
without having to add it manually.  I am pleased with this solution!

At 23:44:19 on Sat, 14 Mar 2009, spam.goes.here2@ntlworld.com wrote in 
:

>By the way, in another post, I mentioned that I think I've found my
>preferred solution, which is:

Just in case this isn't simple typo:

><style type="text/cuss">

Although that's how many of us feel much of the time, you will have more 
success with <style type="text/css">!
-- 
Molly Mockford
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
(My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.)