• Highlighting different types of wysiwg editors

On many sites it is difficult to tell if fancy css menu point to another page on that site or to a different site altogether. We have all used css editors expecting it to go to another page in the current site, only to be whisked away somewhere different and unexpected. To combat this problem, many sites will offer new softwares to write good code in css.

The easiest way to do this is to add a class to any external links, and then apply the icon as a background image. In this example we have created space for the icon by giving the link a small amount of right padding, and then applied the icon as a background image at the top right of the link.

Although this method works, it is not a particularly smart or elegant way of doing things in the world of css reference, as you have to manually add your class to each external link.

CSS extends the ability with substring matching attribute selectors. As the name suggests, these selectors allow you to target an element by matching part of the attribute’s value to your chosen text. CSS 3 is not an official specification yet, so using these advanced selectors will probably invalidate the good css code you wrote.

However, a number of standards-compliant browsers such as Firefox and Safari already support these CSS selectors, so the chance of them being dropped from the final spec is pretty slim.

All these wyisiwg techniques can help to improve the user experience on your site. By warning users about offsite text editors or downloadable documents like html page builders, you let them know exactly what to expect when they create fancy css menu, and avoid unnecessary backtracking and frustration.