The following is based on my experiences:
- HTML for simple formatting works OK. Different browsers render stuff differently, especially when it comes to nested tables. It helps to not use HTML, but XHTML and mention the proper DOCTYPE at the beginning of the document. That way you make sure that all browsers at least try to render it as the same type!
- CSS is usually implemented OK. Some browsers have different defaults than others though. I don't know any examples of the top of my head, but imagine browserA rendering all text in red by default. But browserB rendering everything green. If you we're designing red text in browserA which would work without the explicit 'color: red', you will need to add that definition for browserB (making sense?). So if something is not displaying right: try explicitly defining that particular style element. You may have been duped by the default behavior of your design-browser.
- Drop-down menus - for me this has always been a nightmare. I did get some dropdowns to work in all browsers, but with examples I got of the 'net I always needed to spend hours tweaking the code to get it right.
(I too have had the place-menu-somewhere-else-at-different-times bug. For me it was in FF and that should be fixed in the most recent versions.)
- Browsers: My primary browser is Opera. It has a nice feature that allows you to validate the current page. That way you can check wether you've used your HTML/css etc correctly.
Firefox is a very good browser, it is fast very compatible, and it has the DOM inspector (ctrl+I) This allows you to actually examine the structure of your page. You can actually determine what style is applied to each element, and in what order. Also this allows you to see the calculated sizes of tables and what Javascript actions are associated. A must have for developers!
Also there is an amazing extension available (well at least I think so
) called "Web developer" (current version 0.9.4). This allows for better Javascript error reporting and tons of other neat stuff (also validation in different forms).
I first learned HTML/CSS/Javascript and such using
www.w3schools.com. It gives plenty of examples, but is not too forthcoming on practical problem solving. One reason I keep coming back to them is the fact that they have extensive listings of tags and css directives.
For better real-world examples I've always googled for my particular issue, and while some sites keep popping up (with varying success) none of them have stuck in my head, so I can't remember the url
Oh well, I'm not a fulltime webdeveloper, what I've done is mostly hobby-type stuff. I'm sure others can offer more help, but I hope this helps somewhat.
One tip: if you're stuck with a specific problem perhaps you could give us a link to the site. (if you're OK with other people reading the content...)