Introduction
This is version two of Tierra Verde, a revision of the original design I submitted to OSWD in February 2003. Following is a summary of the major differences between this version and the original.
This design was inspired by the website of whereis.com.au, an Australian-based online street directory. I chose the name Tierra Verde to encapsulate the green earthy tones which dominate the design’s colour scheme. This template is marked up in XHTML 1.0 Strict and styled with CSS, allowing for greater compatibility and transformability. The design does not use any tables (unlike the design’s inspiration) resulting in greater design flexibility and cleaner code.
I hope you find this revision to your liking. You are free to use this design for any purpose you wish — personal, commercial or otherwise — without any obligation. If you publish a web site that’s based on this template, please email me your site’s URI.
Improved Cross-browser Compatibility
I did not test version one of Tierra Verde in Opera before submitting it to OSWD. As a result, the original does not render properly in that browser. In contrast, this version of Tierra Verde has been fully tested in Opera (7.01), Gecko (Mozilla 1.3) and Internet Explorer (6.0) for consistent rendering.
This means that people using standards-compliant browsers will see the same format and layout of your page.
Modified Stylesheets
- More comprehensive screen stylesheet
- The improved cross-browser consistency is a result of Tierra Verde’s more comprehensive screen stylesheet. Major style parameters are explicitly defined in the stylesheet, resulting in less dependence on browser-determined defaults and thus fewer rendering idiosyncrasies.
- Removal of colour scheme stylesheet
- I’ve removed the separate colour scheme stylesheet found in the original version, instead incorporating the colour definitions in the single screen stylesheet.
- Addition of a print media stylesheet
- Tierra Verde now has a print media stylesheet that styles the page in a format appropriate for black and white printing. To see the effect of this stylesheet, select print preview from the file menu, or direct this page to a printer (NB: print only this frame if you are viewing this template in a multi-frame document).
Improved Accessibility
This version of Tierra Verde has improved accessibility features for people with impaired vision. The template tentatively conforms to the WCAG double A rating and § 508 guidelines for web content accessibility. The relative simplicity of the template’s underlying markup ensures that your page can be easily transformed for rendering in aural, tactile (braille) and other non-visual user agents.
Additionally, the majority of document metrics (widths, lengths and spacings) are font-size relative. This means that a user can increase the default font size of your page (using their browser) without compromising it’s layout.