I've been noodling with a revision of the Nowheresville.org site design for some time now. You can take a look at the current development here.

I have four basic goals for the new design: maintain the same general look, change the layout to be CSS controlled instead of relying on a table-based layout, make it fully accessible and standards-compliant, and sort the content into three columns (navigation, content, and comments) instead of two (navigation/comments and content). I'm having trouble meeting all four goals.

The two outside columns will have consistent content, while the center column will display whatever that page calls for--an index, single entry, or whatever. I want the two outside columns to be fixed-width ("ice" as we say in the web development biz) while the inside column will be flexible width (or "liquid"), adjusting to the needs of the center content. I'm having trouble with the last point.

I can get all columns to be either ice or liquid, but can't yet figure out how to properly intermingle ice and liquid in a three-column layout while also keeping the established "buildings" appearance of the columns.

I think I may need to either concede on only having two columns, as Nowheresville.org appears now, or have three fixed columns, as shown in the test version.

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