<MULTICOL ...>
COLS: how many columnsGUTTER: space between columns | |
WIDTH: width of a single column |
<MULTICOL ...> is one of those interesting special effects from Netscape that is
more likely to detract from the page than add to it.
<MULTICOL ...> creates columns across the screen. The text flows
from one column to the next like in a newspaper. This tends to make the web page more
difficult to read, but this tag has a few good uses we'll discuss below.
In its most basic use, <MULTICOL ...> uses just the
COLS attribute indicate how many columns across.
<MULTICOL COLS=3>
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by
her sister on the bank and of having nothing to
do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her
sister was reading, but it had no pictures or
conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,'
thought Alice, `without pictures or conversations?'
</MULTICOL>
gives us
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by
her sister on the bank and of having nothing to
do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her
sister was reading, but it had no pictures or
conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,'
thought Alice, `without pictures or conversations?'
To put a little more space between the columns to make it more readable
use either the WIDTH attribute, which controls the width of a single
column, or the GUTTER attribute, which controls the space between
columns. I recommend not using both attributes, because they
interact. (If you really want to make the page more readable, you may wish
to consider not using <MULTICOL ...> at all.)
One popular use for <MULTICOL ...> is to compact lists which are long and not wide:
<MULTICOL COLS=3>
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="home.html">Home Page</A>
<LI><A HREF="idocs.html">Idocs</A>
<LI><A HREF="magenta.html">Magenta</A>
<LI><A HREF="html.html">HTML</A>
<LI><A HREF="scripting.html">scripting</A>
<LI><A HREF="rrr.html">waste reduction</A>
<LI><A HREF="communities.html">communities</A>
<LI><A HREF="veggie.html">vegetarianism</A>
<LI><A HREF="perl.html">Perl</A>
<LI><A HREF="space.html">space</A>
</UL>
</MULTICOL>
gives us this list which uses the vertical space on the screen:
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