Semantics & negative margins

[ktinkel]

Why do WordPress pages have so many DIVs? Do they make sense? Take a look at my test site with the Web Developer Outline tool (outline block level elements) to see what I mean.

If I were making that layout by hand, I would use header, main text, sidebar, footer, with a couple of DIVs for small items. These DIVs overlap, surround each other, some fall on top of each other.

I have reworked the CSS extensively (changing many negative margins because they made me nervous) and made changes to many templates as well, but have left all these DIVs intact. I want more or less what is shown but with the sidebar on the left side.

None of the ordinary approaches let me move the sidebar, so I contacted the theme writer who referred me to “Creating Liquid Layouts With Negative Margins” by Ryan Brill on AListApart.

The idea is that negative margins are necessary to preserve semantic order and that all those extra DIVs are required to achieve it.

So I have three questions:

1. Is that really the only (or a good) way to do it?

2. Does it really call for all those extra DIVs, eating up margin, making the page hard to manage?

3. Are negative margins interpreted correctly by all (most) browsers?

Thanks.


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