Is there a problem to using javascript for styling content?
My website requires javascript. There is this text on my website that I want vertically centered. The text could be either 2 lines or 3 lines long. With javascript I could vertically center it pretty easily. The CSS ways to vertically center it seem complicated and include IE hacks.
So, is there a downside to me using javascript for this styling, considering I have already decided that my website will require javascript?
The downside is that if you have any long-running page, say an ad fails to load, etc hanging the document.ready event...your styling wouldn't be applied until the document completed rendering and the javascript then ran. (Note: This assumes your script fires in the ready event, usually the case since you'd want the elements to be there)
Basically you'd get a flash of non-styled content in the case of anything delaying the ready event. Whether that matters, up to you, but personally I'd stick to CSS where possible.
I don't think there is a downside. If you say it's going to be easier and considering that JavaScipt is the de facto client side language, go for it. Just make sure it'll work on modern browsers...
Just a point: CSS is meant to be used to do this kind of work, but it's not a rule. There are exceptions as is your case.
Sometimes using JavaScript for seemingly simple styling is unavoidable; if I have to use JavaScript in this kind of scenario I just try to make it degrade as well as possible, ensuring that whilst a user without JavaScript doesn't get the full experience from the website, they don't get a bad one either.
I'd personally use display: table-cell, and vertical-align:middle. Then in IE8+ and all other browsers it's centered, in older ones it won't be, but generally things like vertically aligned text aren't that vital to the design anyway.