CSS Zen Garden relaunched
csszengarden.com
csszengarden.com
[0] http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/211/211.css [1] http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/213/213.css
http://stackoverflow.com/a/3557279/2508518 says it in a good way.
Even if the DPI could be known (and afaik normally it isn't, it is just set to a value) and it would be possible to convert in into real inches (btw, I have no idea how big that is in real units) to be displayed on a monitor, how would a designer know how big any element, even text, should be? It depends on the available space, which depends on the size of the monitor/the size of the window.
To think about how absurd that would be, try to find a situation where someone would say "this heading should be 2 cm tall".
px as size lead to the same problem with the available space, but they at least correspond to the resolution.
IE9- (and Android 1.6-) didn't scale/zoom well when the font was set in px. But using px was widespread despite these (and other) cons because it was easy, reliable and consistent to implement across browsers. [3]
Pt (point type) are only for printer style sheets [4], not screen style sheets. Using them for screen styles is not-done and doesn't make much sense. [5]
[1] http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/font-size-with-rem
[2] http://clagnut.com/blog/348/
[3] http://alistapart.com/article/howtosizetextincss
[4] http://css-tricks.com/css-font-size/
[5] http://style.cleverchimp.com/font_size/points/font_wars.GIF
Those old designs were great in the past to show what is possible, but now they are a reminder of the long way web design has behind.
I also think existing software played a large part in the proliferation of tables. E.G. WordPress/B2 and phpBB (as well as practically every other forum system) layouts at the time were all heavily dependent on tables. There was really no incentive other than "well, CSS is a better way!" Until you came up with your own examples, there was no convincing.
It was a slow and arduous process, but I hope we keep going forward and not backward into JS-only land.
BTW, here's the design I sent... 8 years ago o_O
On the subject of CSS, I've often thought it would be great if somebody made a sort of 'CSS koans.' Like each koan would be a little puzzle where you manipulate the box model etc. to get the desired physical layout.
Even though it's "just CSS"...I think CSS Zen Garden, and other sites like it, were absolutely critical to my web development career. Not because I specialized in web design, but because it demonstrated that CSS was cool...and not just some other syntax to learn (which, when you're new to web development, can be quite intimidating).
Zen Garden inspired me to learn CSS...and it wasn't the CSS itself that was important, but the concept that CSS is based on: separation of presentation and content...something that is very hard to grok until you just do it...Zen Garden's fantastic demos encouraged me to try it out, even if I could never match the site's artistry.
And if I had never gotten the concept of separation down...I don't think I would be a web developer today. I think the maintenance of even a simple personal website built on inline HTML would've driven me to quit web development long ago...
That said, in my career (which admittedly hasn't been focused on design), I've never been in a situation where a client has wanted to redesign the site and to do so was just a task of rewriting the CSS sheets, no matter how well-written the HTML templates were. Redesigns almost always go hand-in-hand with addition of new features, technology, and content...the architectural ideal that CSS Zen Garden strives for is a great one, but it doesn't seem to occur often in professional work.
People with large, rich databases -especially- need ideas on how to represent that data from many potential angles-of-view while maintaining clarity. 4 or 5 pretty boxes on a page with minimal text just don't suffice. Such ideas are vanishingly rare on most sites dedicated to CSS.
This site was my inspiration for a senior project in an independent study class on web design where I surprised and completely redesigned my teacher's website while only changing the CSS file, and the original site was not designed well –- at all.
Some fantastic designs produced by it though.
it's been a great tool to show beginners, imo. it clearly demonstrates the effect/power of CSS on the aesthetics of a site. the fact that some examples are "so ugly" can be used to convey that impact...
The thing you need to remember is that CSS Zen Garden was big around 2004 and most of the designs are from that period. The site was a big inspiration at the time to show that with a single HTML file, you could completely change the appearance of a site. This was huge!
So the downvotes are likely coming with a thought along the line of "how dare you show disrespect for that venerable site!".
tangent: should downvotes be based on "how dare you?" sentiments?