Note: this is one of a series of posts about the creation of the King Design web site.
Anyone who has developed a pure CSS layout with any amount of complexity is well aware of cross-browser quirks and limitations. Not all browsers have implemented CSS to the same degree or in the same way – it’s just a fact of life for web developers. While I try to use mainstream techniques as much as possible, there are times when I need to give certain browsers 
special 
The technique I use is to have one main stylesheet that works in most modern browsers, then load additional stylesheets for problem
CSS rules are applied in the order they appear in the stylesheet and the order the stylesheets are loaded. If you load your main stylesheet first, then load a browser-specific stylesheet afterward (with some of the same CSS selectors but different definitions) the definitions in the second stylesheet will override the ones defined in the main stylesheet.
Incidentally, I use the same technique to handle themes in my Tasks Pro™ and Tasks software. The base style information is loaded then, if the user has a different theme chosen, a theme stylesheet is loaded that overrides some of the base style information.
This post is part of the project: Tasks Pro™. View the project timeline for more context on this post.
I load a special stylesheet for IE and a common one for everything else.
Do you do anything for IE5 on Mac? IF so, what?
I’ve gotten to the point of not supporting IE5 for mac if it’s a personal (i.e. blog) site unless specifically requested and/or paid for…because it’s such a pain.
Microsoft doesn’t support IE Mac and neither do I (though I’ve actually found it handles more than I expected).
i use the techniqe that Doug Bowman uses on Stopdesign.com. Check out his source. It works beautifully but is a little complicated to understand exactly how it works at first.
That’s exactly the mess I avoid by loading browser specific stylesheets.