Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

[RFox]

I date back to the early days of the web when HTML was limited
but very managable, and have always maintained that hand-coding
HTML gives you far better control and cleaner HTML markup than
any WYSIWYG editor.

But all the sites I created and manage are small sites (<50 pages).
And I've been out of the loop in terms of what's new in
methodology and with the specifications for the past couple
of years.

I need to get back into web design and am having to catch up
with a lot, as I find that most of the stuff I knew and did
is probably considered "archaic" and tedious.

It will just take me some time to familiarize myself with the
newer specs, but I can't decide if I should stay with hand-coding
web pages, or move to some kind of pre-packaged management
system.

I hear Dreamweaver is very popular, but have never used it.
Are people still hand-coding web design and web pages, or should
I move to a newer, more efficient method?

[Mark Jones]

"Tina Holmboe" <ti**@greytower.net> wrote in message
news:rN*******************@newsc.telia.net...

"Mark Jones" <sp**@block.com> exclaimed in <B7*****************@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink. net>:

the html. I told one designer many times that she needed
to keep the code view window open and clean up problems
as they occurred. She wouldn't listen, so the site ended up
being launched with lots of bloat that served no purpose.

So, basically, you suggest that an efficient way of builing websites
is using Dreamweaver to quickly create a rough sketch of the site,
then the code view window to correct the code manually ?

You can correct the code manually, or avoid doing things that
you know will cause problems. DW only works well if you really
understand it. I have been using it since 1.0 beta, so I am very
familiar with ways to avoid problems. A new user will not
know this and will end up with bloated html.

[Headless]

Stephen Poley wrote:

Mwoah, 345 html documents currently on one site.
Well I guess in your case I'll have to concede and admire your
self-discipline.

Using S&R effectively indeed requires a disciplined method of writing,
S&R is a nightmare without that.
I maintain however that using S&R is intrinsically more error-prone than
preprocessing/SSI type solutions, and so is less suitable for the
majority of people (at least the majority of those who take the quality
of their site seriously).
Which I do.
This is especially true when a site is
maintained by more than one person.

Good point, but for a single coder it's potentially a fine method.
Headless

--
Email and usenet filter list: http://www.headless.dna.ie/usenet.htm

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

Headless schrieb:

Matthias Gutfeldt wrote:

What's the point of fast coding if you waste all that saved time in a
thread like this?

You want to decide what I spend my time on?

Yeah. Spend some of it on getting yourself a sense of humour.
Matthias

[Headless]

Matthias Gutfeldt wrote:

>What's the point of fast coding if you waste all that saved time in a
>thread like this?

You want to decide what I spend my time on?

Yeah. Spend some of it on getting yourself a sense of humour.

Should you decide to have another attempt at humour, may I suggest
adding one of them smily things, that way the rest of us would be able
to tell the difference.
Headless

--
Email and usenet filter list: http://www.headless.dna.ie/usenet.htm

[Eric Jarvis]

Mark Jones wrote:

"Tina Holmboe" <ti**@greytower.net> wrote in message
news:rN*******************@newsc.telia.net...

"Mark Jones" <sp**@block.com> exclaimed in

<B7*****************@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink. net>:

the html. I told one designer many times that she needed
to keep the code view window open and clean up problems
as they occurred. She wouldn't listen, so the site ended up
being launched with lots of bloat that served no purpose.

So, basically, you suggest that an efficient way of builing websites
is using Dreamweaver to quickly create a rough sketch of the site,
then the code view window to correct the code manually ?

You can correct the code manually, or avoid doing things that
you know will cause problems. DW only works well if you really
understand it. I have been using it since 1.0 beta, so I am very
familiar with ways to avoid problems. A new user will not
know this and will end up with bloated html.

OK

so what you are basically suggesting is that you can most efficiently
create a site by having to concentrate on avoiding the deficiencies of the
software and then using it as a text editor to tidy up afterwards...and
you claim that this is more efficient than creating accurate mark up in
the first place?

I think I'll stick to using decent text editors thanks

--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
"Hey Lord don't ask me questions
There ain't no answer in me"

[Henri Sivonen]

In article <Pi*******************************@lxplus068.cern. ch>,
"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@mail.cern.ch> wrote:

Any views on Mozilla Composer? Gives access to both preview and
source code.

Bug 92686 is a blocker for me. Also, Composer sprikles style="..." all
over the place unless you are very careful.

Recently, I've used OpenOffice.org Writer/Web with manual fixups in
Emacs and a hand-authored style sheet.

--
Henri Sivonen
hs******@iki.fi
http://www.iki.fi/hsivonen/
Mozilla Web Author FAQ: http://mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/faq.html

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Sun, Sep 14, Henri Sivonen inscribed on the eternal scroll:

Any views on Mozilla Composer? Gives access to both preview and
source code.

Bug 92686 is a blocker for me.

I see what you mean. I agree with you. Seems you have Glazman on
your side, which is worth a lot more than little old me.

I'm sick of MS Word users who think that hitting return is a
linebreak, and hitting return twice is a paragraph break. "Hence or
otherwise deduce...".

[Daniel R. Tobias]

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@mail.cern.ch> wrote in message news:<Pi******************************@lxplus078.c ern.ch>...

I'm sick of MS Word users who think that hitting return is a
linebreak, and hitting return twice is a paragraph break. "Hence or
otherwise deduce...".

Though, in this case (unlike many "common newbie errors"), it's
actually seasoned geeks (like myself) who are likely to fall into this
trap, being used to plain-text editors (like UltraEdit) much more than
to either word processors or WYSIWYG editors. I still tend to think
of CR+LF as representing a line break rather than a paragraph break.
In plain text, that's still the case.

--
Dan

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Mon, Sep 15, Daniel R. Tobias inscribed on the eternal scroll:

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@mail.cern.ch> wrote in message news:<Pi******************************@lxplus078.c ern.ch>...

I'm sick of MS Word users who think that hitting return is a
linebreak, and hitting return twice is a paragraph break. "Hence or
otherwise deduce...".
Though, in this case (unlike many "common newbie errors"), it's
actually seasoned geeks (like myself) who are likely to fall into this
trap,

True. And if you use the friendly input mode of the Faq-O-Matic, then
single newlines are treated as space, double newlines as <br> and
triple newlines as <p>. So it's a matter of context!
I still tend to think of CR+LF as representing a line break rather
than a paragraph break. In plain text, that's still the case.

Well, yes; but Word aims to be a word processor, not an electric
typewriter. It does its own line-breaking, automatically;
author-forced linebreaks are supposed to be special cases.

But MS then fools us all by providing an initial stylesheet where new
paragraphs _look_ like line breaks, whereas by hitting newline twice
you get an empty paragraph which _looks_ like you're now getting a new
paragraph. No wonder their naive users are confused.

The trick (as author) is to turn on that button which has a paragraph
(pilcrow) sign on it, so that Word displays the various special cases
(paragraph break, line break, no-break space etc.) in a distinctive
way during authoring, no matter what stylesheet is in effect.

Not forgetting, of course, to open up the style display area so you
can see what paragraph styles are applied. See the tip in
http://www.geocities.com/w2css/styles/sty-tut1.html

But I fear I digress too far off-topic, even if the motivation for the
above was to get a Word document that was well-suited for conversion
to a web page. (Not, of course, using anything that came out of the
Empire for doing the conversion...)

cheers

[David Dorward]

Alan J. Flavell wrote:

But MS then fools us all by providing an initial stylesheet where new
paragraphs _look_ like line breaks, whereas by hitting newline twice
you get an empty paragraph which _looks_ like you're now getting a new
paragraph. No wonder their naive users are confused.
Unfortunately OpenOffice.org does this too, but now I keep the Stylist open
whenever I use it, I can remember to change body text to "text body"
(instead of "default") which has margins above and below paragraphs.
But I fear I digress too far off-topic, even if the motivation for the
above was to get a Word document that was well-suited for conversion
to a web page. (Not, of course, using anything that came out of the
Empire for doing the conversion...)

Microsoft and HTML don't really get on very well do they? :)

--
David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk/

[Stan Brown]

In article <bl*******************@news.demon.co.uk> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, David Dorward
<do*****@yahoo.com> wrote:

Microsoft and HTML don't really get on very well do they? :)

It's not Microsoft and HTML, it's Microsoft and standards of any
sort. Look at what they did to C++, or e-mail and news.

I used to think it as just Microsoft and non-MS standards, but they
subvert their own standards too, for things like Windows menus.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[David Dorward]

Stan Brown wrote:

It's not Microsoft and HTML, it's Microsoft and standards of any
sort. Look at what they did to C++
I don't have much to compare, but then I look at what they did to Java...
, or e-mail and news.
HTML and top posting (argh).
I used to think it as just Microsoft and non-MS standards, but they
subvert their own standards too, for things like Windows menus.

:)

--
David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk/

[d2003xx]

rf*****@go.com (RFox) wrote in message news:<2a**************************@posting.google. com>...

I date back to the early days of the web when HTML was limited
but very managable, and have always maintained that hand-coding
HTML gives you far better control and cleaner HTML markup than
any WYSIWYG editor.

But all the sites I created and manage are small sites (<50 pages).
And I've been out of the loop in terms of what's new in
methodology and with the specifications for the past couple
of years.

I need to get back into web design and am having to catch up
with a lot, as I find that most of the stuff I knew and did
is probably considered "archaic" and tedious.

It will just take me some time to familiarize myself with the
newer specs, but I can't decide if I should stay with hand-coding
web pages, or move to some kind of pre-packaged management
system.

I hear Dreamweaver is very popular, but have never used it.
Are people still hand-coding web design and web pages, or should
I move to a newer, more efficient method?

Hmmmm... I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in
html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page). And it can improve
maintainablity a lot.

[EightNineThree]

"d2003xx" <d2*****@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:72**************************@posting.google.c om...

rf*****@go.com (RFox) wrote in message news:<2a**************************@posting.google. com>...
.... I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page). And it can improve
maintainablity a lot.

wow.
that's a lot of tabular data...
--
Karl Core

At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not
cease to be insipid.
Friedrich Nietzsche

eightninethree AT eightninethree.com

[Kris]

In article <72**************************@posting.google.com >,
d2*****@yahoo.com (d2003xx) wrote:

I hear Dreamweaver is very popular, but have never used it.
Are people still hand-coding web design and web pages, or should
I move to a newer, more efficient method?

Hmmmm... I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in
html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page). And it can improve
maintainablity a lot.

Replace as much of the presentational HTML by CSS and you will be
cheering. PHP/CSS/Structural HTML is a very good combination.

--
Kris
kr*******@xs4all.netherlands (nl)
"We called him Tortoise because he taught us" said the Mock Turtle.

[William Tasso]

EightNineThree wrote:

"d2003xx" <d2*****@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:72**************************@posting.google.c om...

rf*****@go.com (RFox) wrote in message

news:<2a**************************@posting.google. com>...
... I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in

html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page). And it can improve
maintainablity a lot.

wow.
that's a lot of tabular data...

corporation bus company timetable?

--
William Tasso - http://WilliamTasso.com

[Nick Kew]

In article <bl************@id-139074.news.uni-berlin.de>, one of infinite monkeys
at the keyboard of "William Tasso" <ne****@tbdata.com> wrote:

corporation bus company timetable?

Why should that have more than about two tables (route, two directions)
in a single page?

Of course, it'd have lots of pages containing tables.

--
Nick Kew

In urgent need of paying work - see http://www.webthing.com/~nick/cv.html

[William Tasso]

Nick Kew wrote:

In article <bl************@id-139074.news.uni-berlin.de>, one of
infinite monkeys at the keyboard of "William Tasso"
<ne****@tbdata.com> wrote:

corporation bus company timetable?
Why should that have more than about two tables

more than one route perhaps - dunno?
(route, two directions) in a single page?

hmm - not sure I'd care too much about buses heading out the other way -
which makes just one for that particular application

In any event, we have now applied veneers of guesswork to a ficticious
base - I guess this ain't going any-place useful.

--
William Tasso - http://WilliamTasso.com

[Stan Brown]

In article <72**************************@posting.google.com > in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, d2003xx <d2*****@yahoo.com>
wrote:

I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in
html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page)

If the page is big enough to contain "hundreds of tables", isn't it
big enough to split up into sub-pages? It must take forever to load.

And of course I assume these are real tables, not <table> used for
mere layout purposes.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[d2003xx]

Kris <kr*******@xs4all.netherlands> wrote in message news:<kr*****************************@news1.news.x s4all.nl>...

In article <72**************************@posting.google.com >,
d2*****@yahoo.com (d2003xx) wrote:

I hear Dreamweaver is very popular, but have never used it.
Are people still hand-coding web design and web pages, or should
I move to a newer, more efficient method?

Hmmmm... I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in
html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page). And it can improve
maintainablity a lot.

Replace as much of the presentational HTML by CSS and you will be
cheering. PHP/CSS/Structural HTML is a very good combination.

I tried, but CSS is badly supported. :(

[d2003xx]

Stan Brown <th************@fastmail.fm> wrote in message news:<MP************************@news.odyssey.net> ...

In article <72**************************@posting.google.com > in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, d2003xx <d2*****@yahoo.com>
wrote:

I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in
html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page)

If the page is big enough to contain "hundreds of tables", isn't it
big enough to split up into sub-pages? It must take forever to load.

And of course I assume these are real tables, not <table> used for
mere layout purposes.

heh, they're just for layout purposes. :)

[Barbara de Zoete]

d2003xx schreef:

Kris schreef:

d2003xx schreef:

Hmmmm... I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in
html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page). And it can improve
maintainablity a lot.

Replace as much of the presentational HTML by CSS and you will be
cheering. PHP/CSS/Structural HTML is a very good combination.

I tried, but CSS is badly supported. :(

Now this is news to me. Why do you think "CSS is badly supported" ?

--

Barbara

http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/weblog.html *Dagboek*
http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html *Zweefvliegen*?

[EightNineThree]

"d2003xx" <d2*****@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:72**************************@posting.google.c om...

Kris <kr*******@xs4all.netherlands> wrote in message

news:<kr*****************************@news1.news.x s4all.nl>...

In article <72**************************@posting.google.com >,
d2*****@yahoo.com (d2003xx) wrote:

> I hear Dreamweaver is very popular, but have never used it.
> Are people still hand-coding web design and web pages, or should
> I move to a newer, more efficient method?

Hmmmm... I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in
html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page). And it can improve
maintainablity a lot.

Replace as much of the presentational HTML by CSS and you will be
cheering. PHP/CSS/Structural HTML is a very good combination.

I tried, but CSS is badly supported. :(

Uh, no.
--
Karl Core

At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not
cease to be insipid.
Friedrich Nietzsche

eightninethree AT eightninethree.com

[Isofarro]

William Tasso wrote:

Nick Kew wrote:

In article <bl************@id-139074.news.uni-berlin.de>, one of
infinite monkeys at the keyboard of "William Tasso"
<ne****@tbdata.com> wrote:

corporation bus company timetable?

Why should that have more than about two tables

more than one route perhaps - dunno?

Maybe its a train timetable of a route where every few stops they split the
train so it has to cover about one hundred routes. For example there's a
London Victoria service destined for Tattenham Corner and Caterham, and
they split the train at Purley (front 4 coaches to Caterham, back two to
Tattenham corner) - so two routes need to be covered by one service.
(Though I havent heard of one service that needed to split out to handle
the number of routes the OP is intending to cover).
--
Iso.
FAQs: http://html-faq.com http://alt-html.org http://allmyfaqs.com/
Recommended Hosting: http://www.affordablehost.com/
Web Design Tutorial: http://www.sitepoint.com/article/1010

[Jonathan Snook]

"EightNineThree" <uc*@ftc.gov> wrote in message
news:bl**********@ngspool-d02.news.aol.com...

I tried, but CSS is badly supported. :(

Uh, no.

Uh, yes.

I know, I know... you're saying that Mozilla has really great support. And
heck, even IE does a half decent job. But it's not like you can take
advantage of the full CSS1 and CSS2 spec and expect to have it work in all
browsers.

Jonathan
--
http://www.snook.ca/

[Isofarro]

Jonathan Snook wrote:

But it's not like you can take
advantage of the full CSS1 and CSS2 spec and expect to have it work in all
browsers.

Well, if that is your requirement - what are you using that "work in all
browsers"?
--
Iso.
FAQs: http://html-faq.com http://alt-html.org http://allmyfaqs.com/
Recommended Hosting: http://www.affordablehost.com/
Web Design Tutorial: http://www.sitepoint.com/article/1010

[Eric Jarvis]

Jonathan Snook wrote:

"EightNineThree" <uc*@ftc.gov> wrote in message
news:bl**********@ngspool-d02.news.aol.com...

I tried, but CSS is badly supported. :(

Uh, no.

Uh, yes.

I know, I know... you're saying that Mozilla has really great support. And
heck, even IE does a half decent job. But it's not like you can take
advantage of the full CSS1 and CSS2 spec and expect to have it work in all
browsers.

no more so than anything else...there is a whole bunch of imperfectly
supported html...if anything support for css 1 is more consistent than
support for any flavour of html...css 2 is, I'll admit, patchily supported
as yet

--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
all these years I've waited for the revolution
and all we end up getting is spin

[Jonathan Snook]

"Isofarro" <sp*******@spamdetector.co.uk> wrote in message
news:rh***********@sidious.isolani.co.uk...

Jonathan Snook wrote:

But it's not like you can take
advantage of the full CSS1 and CSS2 spec and expect to have it work in all browsers.

Well, if that is your requirement - what are you using that "work in all
browsers"?

My requirement in running my personal site is that it "works" in all
browsers but doesn't have to look the _same_ in all browsers. For this, I
use a table-less design and CSS to make it look decent in more recent
browsers but to have it degrade well (hopefully) in other UA's.

For corporate and government sites, where users often still have N4 on their
desktop, I have to comprimise (due to existing standards or other project
requirements) by creating a basic shell using tables and then using the
parts of the CSS spec (things like font-family, color, etc) that will still
make it look okay.

Jonathan
--
http://www.snook.ca/

[Isofarro]

Jonathan Snook wrote:

"Isofarro" <sp*******@spamdetector.co.uk> wrote in message
news:rh***********@sidious.isolani.co.uk...

Jonathan Snook wrote:

> But it's not like you can take
> advantage of the full CSS1 and CSS2 spec and expect to have it work in all > browsers.

Well, if that is your requirement - what are you using that "work in all
browsers"?

My requirement in running my personal site is that it "works" in all
browsers but doesn't have to look the _same_ in all browsers.

So CSS does this.
--
Iso.
FAQs: http://html-faq.com http://alt-html.org http://allmyfaqs.com/
Recommended Hosting: http://www.affordablehost.com/
Web Design Tutorial: http://www.sitepoint.com/article/1010

[Eric Jarvis]

Jonathan Snook wrote:

"Isofarro" <sp*******@spamdetector.co.uk> wrote in message
news:rh***********@sidious.isolani.co.uk...

Jonathan Snook wrote:

But it's not like you can take
advantage of the full CSS1 and CSS2 spec and expect to have it work in all browsers.

Well, if that is your requirement - what are you using that "work in all
browsers"?

My requirement in running my personal site is that it "works" in all
browsers but doesn't have to look the _same_ in all browsers. For this, I
use a table-less design and CSS to make it look decent in more recent
browsers but to have it degrade well (hopefully) in other UA's.

For corporate and government sites, where users often still have N4 on their
desktop, I have to comprimise (due to existing standards or other project
requirements) by creating a basic shell using tables and then using the
parts of the CSS spec (things like font-family, color, etc) that will still
make it look okay.

I don't understand this...even Netscape 4 allows some css 1 layout...it
certainly has support for float which gets you enough layout options to at
leach match a table layout...the @import hack allows one to exploit
Netscape 4's limited css support to the full and still have a "sensible"
stylesheet too

--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
all these years I've waited for the revolution
and all we end up getting is spin

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Sun, 5 Oct 2003, Jonathan Snook wrote:

[about CSS]

I know, I know... you're saying that Mozilla has really great support.

Lynx has perfect support for CSS: it reliably ignores it. This is a
perfectly fine option - for example, when the browsing situation is so
far away from what the author probably had in mind.

You can't say the same for table layouts, for example.

What is really inexcusable, though, are browsers which dimly
understdand CSS but do something so different than what the spec wants
them to do as to make the page useless. If they don't reliably
understand a construct they should ignore it (indeed, for some kinds
of "don't understand" this is a mandatory requirement of the CSS spec,
not that I expect a certain vendor to comply with mandatory
requirements from the IETF -or- the W3C in my lifetime...)

[Jonathan Snook]

"Eric Jarvis" <we*@ericjarvis.co.uk> wrote in message
news:MP************************@News.CIS.DFN.DE...

Jonathan Snook wrote:

"Isofarro" <sp*******@spamdetector.co.uk> wrote in message
news:rh***********@sidious.isolani.co.uk...

Jonathan Snook wrote:

> But it's not like you can take
> advantage of the full CSS1 and CSS2 spec and expect to have it work

in all

> browsers.

I don't understand this...even Netscape 4 allows some css 1 layout...it
certainly has support for float which gets you enough layout options to at
leach match a table layout...the @import hack allows one to exploit
Netscape 4's limited css support to the full and still have a "sensible"
stylesheet too

Read the message again and you'll notice that I said "due to existing
standards or other project requirements" (and by standards I mean corporate
standards). These things are not in my control and force me to use tables
for layout.

I hope that made it a little clearer.

Jonathan
--
http://www.snook.ca/

[Kris]

In article <72**************************@posting.google.com >,
d2*****@yahoo.com (d2003xx) wrote:

Hmmmm... I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in
html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page). And it can improve
maintainablity a lot.

Replace as much of the presentational HTML by CSS and you will be
cheering. PHP/CSS/Structural HTML is a very good combination.

I tried, but CSS is badly supported. :(

My experience is the opposite. And besides, there is no point in a
layout that sustains in all situations. A site that 'works' in all
situations is something far more valuable.

--
Kris
kr*******@xs4all.netherlands (nl)
"We called him Tortoise because he taught us" said the Mock Turtle.

[Kris]

In article
<wf*********************@news01.bloor.is.net.cable .rogers.com>,
"Jonathan Snook" <go***************@snook.ca> wrote:

Uh, no.

Uh, yes.

I know, I know... you're saying that Mozilla has really great support. And
heck, even IE does a half decent job. But it's not like you can take
advantage of the full CSS1 and CSS2 spec and expect to have it work in all
browsers.

Not immediatly. Don't give up practicing, though.

--
Kris
kr*******@xs4all.netherlands (nl)
"We called him Tortoise because he taught us" said the Mock Turtle.

[Stan Brown]

In article
<X%**********************@news01.bloor.is.net.cabl e.rogers.com> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Jonathan Snook
<go***************@snook.ca> wrote:

My requirement in running my personal site is that it "works" in all
browsers but doesn't have to look the _same_ in all browsers.

This should be emblazoned on the forehead of every Web designer.

So _much_ effort is wasted trying to get pages to look the same in
different browsers, when the only one who will know is the author.
With the possible exception of people who review Web sites for a
living, no user who is trying to get information cares what the site
looks like in a browser other than the one she happens to be using -
- provided the browser she's using can display the information.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Jonathan Snook]

"Kris" <kr*******@xs4all.netherlands> wrote in message
news:kr*****************************@news1.news.xs 4all.nl...

Uh, no.

Uh, yes.

I know, I know... you're saying that Mozilla has really great support. And heck, even IE does a half decent job. But it's not like you can take
advantage of the full CSS1 and CSS2 spec and expect to have it work in all browsers.

Not immediatly. Don't give up practicing, though.

I'm confused. Keep practicing what? Are you saying keep using CSS because
browsers will eventually make use of it? If so, sure. I'm not about to argue
with you. CSS saves me more time then font tags and tables ever did. :)

Jonathan
--
http://www.snook.ca/

[d2003xx]

Barbara de Zoete <b_********@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<bl************@ID-52872.news.uni-berlin.de>...

d2003xx schreef:

Kris schreef:

d2003xx schreef:Hmmmm... I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in
html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
too complex (hundreds of tables in one page). And it can improve
maintainablity a lot.

Replace as much of the presentational HTML by CSS and you will be
cheering. PHP/CSS/Structural HTML is a very good combination.

I tried, but CSS is badly supported. :(

Now this is news to me. Why do you think "CSS is badly supported" ?

For example, "display: block" and "position: absolute"... Try to use
them to control the layout on different browsers and you will see.

[Kris]

In article
<la*******************@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.r ogers.com>,
"Jonathan Snook" <go***************@snook.ca> wrote:

heck, even IE does a half decent job. But it's not like you can take
advantage of the full CSS1 and CSS2 spec and expect to have it work in all browsers.
Not immediatly. Don't give up practicing, though.

I'm confused. Keep practicing what?

CSS of course. And master yourself in what some browsers do with it.
Just like we all did when TABLEs for layout were hot.
Are you saying keep using CSS because
browsers will eventually make use of it?
They already do. I make sites with it, fully CSS for layout, and I save
a lot of time compared to as it used to be.
If so, sure. I'm not about to argue
with you. CSS saves me more time then font tags and tables ever did. :)

Ehm.. wasn't it clear that I was pro CSS?

--
Kris
kr*******@xs4all.netherlands (nl)

[Kris]

In article <MP************************@news.odyssey.net>,
Stan Brown <th************@fastmail.fm> wrote:

So _much_ effort is wasted trying to get pages to look the same in
different browsers, when the only one who will know is the author.
With the possible exception of people who review Web sites for a
living, no user who is trying to get information cares what the site
looks like in a browser other than the one she happens to be using -
- provided the browser she's using can display the information.

And provided that the user is a she, which is often not the case. :)

--
Kris
kr*******@xs4all.netherlands (nl)

[Barbara de Zoete]

d2003xx schreef:

Barbara de Zoete wrote:

d2003xx schreef:

Kris schreef:

d2003xx schreef:

>Hmmmm... I code php to produce html pages.... (not embedding php in
>html) I started to use this because the layout of html pages becomes
>too complex (hundreds of tables in one page). And it can improve
>maintainablity a lot.

Replace as much of the presentational HTML by CSS and you will be
cheering. PHP/CSS/Structural HTML is a very good combination.

I tried, but CSS is badly supported. :(

Now this is news to me. Why do you think "CSS is badly supported" ?

For example, "display: block" and "position: absolute"... Try to use
them to control the layout on different browsers and you will see.

All of my pages have a two colomn layout (except for one, which has
three colomns). To get the colomns in place I use position:absolute;
(and display:block; if necessary, which is rare).
As far as I can see, using various browsers (IE6, OP7.11, NS7.1, Moz1.4,
Firebird0.6, Avant8.02, Konqueror) none of the newer browsers have any
problem with that what so ever.

So what are the problems you encountered?

--

Barbara

http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/weblog.html *Dagboek*
http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html *Zweefvliegen*?

[Bertilo Wennergren]

Stan Brown wrote:

So _much_ effort is wasted trying to get pages to look the same in
different browsers, when the only one who will know is the author.

Wrong. The paying clients will know it. They are the ones who ask for
it, even demand it. (It's still crazy, of course.)

--
Bertilo Wennergren <be******@gmx.net> <http://www.bertilow.com>

[Barbara de Zoete]

Stan Brown schreef:

Jonathan Snook wrote:

My requirement in running my personal site is that it "works" in all
browsers but doesn't have to look the _same_ in all browsers.

This should be emblazoned on the forehead of every Web designer.

So _much_ effort is wasted trying to get pages to look the same in
different browsers, when the only one who will know is the author.
With the possible exception of people who review Web sites for a
living, no user who is trying to get information cares what the site
looks like in a browser other than the one she happens to be using -
- provided the browser she's using can display the information.

Too bad it is much to long for a sig :-) Like every message should start
and or end with this.
I've never seen it explained so clearly before. Thank you for this reminder.

--

Barbara

http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/weblog.html *Dagboek*
http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html *Zweefvliegen*?

[Salagir]

On 4 Oct 2003 22:55:06 -0700, in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html,
d2003xx wrote:

too complex (hundreds of tables in one page)

If the page is big enough to contain "hundreds of tables", isn't it
big enough to split up into sub-pages? It must take forever to load.
And of course I assume these are real tables, not <table> used for
mere layout purposes.

heh, they're just for layout purposes. :)

So it takes forever to load, it uses all the ressources for calculating
the tables, and it's very static, and must explode if I increase the
font size.

Nice.

--
++++++++ Zelda, Dragon Ball, Mana and my (art)work at www.salagir.com ++++++++
"Take away hope, then give them guns." -+- Jeff Gibbn, www.michaelmoore.com -+-

[Eric Bohlman]

Bertilo Wennergren <be******@gmx.net> wrote in news:bl*************@news.t-
online.com:

Stan Brown wrote:

So _much_ effort is wasted trying to get pages to look the same in
different browsers, when the only one who will know is the author.

Wrong. The paying clients will know it. They are the ones who ask for
it, even demand it. (It's still crazy, of course.)

That all depends on what the client is paying for, doesn't it? If the
client is paying for a trained monkey, there's not much hope, but if the
client is paying for an expert, one would hope that part of the expertise
involves being able to *show* (not tell) the client why that doesn't matter
and why changing the requirement from "looks the same in all browsers" to
"looks great in all browsers" will do a better job of meeting the client's
*real* requirements (the "X" in the "XY problem").

[Jonathan Snook]

"Kris" <kr*******@xs4all.netherlands> wrote in message
news:kr*****************************@news1.news.xs 4all.nl...

Ehm.. wasn't it clear that I was pro CSS?

Oh it was clear. :) Just didn't understand the context of your question. I'm
pro CSS. Which often isn't clear because I like to argue "carte blanche"
statements.

[Kris]

In article
<Lj*******************@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.r ogers.com>,
"Jonathan Snook" <go***************@snook.ca> wrote:

Ehm.. wasn't it clear that I was pro CSS?

Oh it was clear. :) Just didn't understand the context of your question. I'm
pro CSS. Which often isn't clear because I like to argue "carte blanche"
statements.

I can't even remember what the topic was about. But maybe that is
because you also like 'carte blanche' quoting. :)

--
Kris
kr*******@xs4all.netherlands (nl)

[Bertilo Wennergren]

Eric Bohlman:

Bertilo Wennergren <be******@gmx.net> wrote in news:bl*************@news.t-
online.com:

Stan Brown wrote:

So _much_ effort is wasted trying to get pages to look the same in
different browsers, when the only one who will know is the author.

Wrong. The paying clients will know it. They are the ones who ask for
it, even demand it. (It's still crazy, of course.)

That all depends on what the client is paying for, doesn't it? If the
client is paying for a trained monkey, there's not much hope, but if the
client is paying for an expert, one would hope that part of the expertise
involves being able to *show* (not tell) the client why that doesn't matter
and why changing the requirement from "looks the same in all browsers" to
"looks great in all browsers" will do a better job of meeting the client's
*real* requirements (the "X" in the "XY problem").

True. But it's still a fact that most of the pressure to do sensless
control freak pixel-perfect-in-both-browsers design comes from the
clients. They want it. They ask for it, or even take it for granted. If
you try to tell them that they really don't want it, they'll take their
business somewhere else.

Sad...

--
Bertilo Wennergren <be******@gmx.net> <http://www.bertilow.com>

[Eric Bohlman]

Bertilo Wennergren <be******@gmx.net> wrote in
news:bl*************@news.t-online.com:

Eric Bohlman:

That all depends on what the client is paying for, doesn't it? If
the client is paying for a trained monkey, there's not much hope, but
if the client is paying for an expert, one would hope that part of
the expertise involves being able to *show* (not tell) the client why
that doesn't matter and why changing the requirement from "looks the
same in all browsers" to "looks great in all browsers" will do a
better job of meeting the client's *real* requirements (the "X" in
the "XY problem").

True. But it's still a fact that most of the pressure to do sensless
control freak pixel-perfect-in-both-browsers design comes from the
clients. They want it. They ask for it, or even take it for granted.
If you try to tell them that they really don't want it, they'll take
their business somewhere else.

As I said, telling won't work. You have to *show* them. That still might
not work, but it's got a far better chance. You have to make the idea
concrete, not abstract, to them.

[Eric Jarvis]

Eric Bohlman wrote:

Bertilo Wennergren <be******@gmx.net> wrote in
news:bl*************@news.t-online.com:

Eric Bohlman:

That all depends on what the client is paying for, doesn't it? If
the client is paying for a trained monkey, there's not much hope, but
if the client is paying for an expert, one would hope that part of
the expertise involves being able to *show* (not tell) the client why
that doesn't matter and why changing the requirement from "looks the
same in all browsers" to "looks great in all browsers" will do a
better job of meeting the client's *real* requirements (the "X" in
the "XY problem").

True. But it's still a fact that most of the pressure to do sensless
control freak pixel-perfect-in-both-browsers design comes from the
clients. They want it. They ask for it, or even take it for granted.
If you try to tell them that they really don't want it, they'll take
their business somewhere else.

As I said, telling won't work. You have to *show* them. That still might
not work, but it's got a far better chance. You have to make the idea
concrete, not abstract, to them.

You also need to know how to sell an idea. I do NOT make flexible web
sites that can cope with most situations. I make liquid sites that
automatically offer a design adapted to make best use of the user's
browsing environment. They don't need to know that largely means I don't
add a batch of moronic fixed size specifications. They need to know that
it is a feature of the design process that the marketing manager's iMac
sees something different to the CEO's 1600px wide flatscreen PC and the
tech manager's brand new handheld.

Don't sell it as avoiding problems in different situations. Sell it as
personalising the site for the user.

--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
all these years I've waited for the revolution
and all we end up getting is spin

[Andy Dingley]

On Mon, 06 Oct 2003 19:56:26 +0200, Bertilo Wennergren
<be******@gmx.net> wrote:

True. But it's still a fact that most of the pressure to do sensless
control freak pixel-perfect-in-both-browsers design comes from the
clients.

I disagree (based on my experience working (briefly) for a bunch of
classic despisable Nathans, back in early 2000)

The production process began with the web shop doing layouts in
Photoshop. One large bitmap, representing the page. It was basically
the print advert design process, transferred unchanged to the web (I
can't express how much I despised these pointy-bearded fucktards)
From that point on, "design" was complete and "implementation" was the
process of reproducing every pixel exactly, using whatever misbegotten
rag-bag of <FONT> and Flash could be dragged into it. Truly these
people were devoid of clue, yet ample of scooters.

It wasn't the client's fault. Now the client, late in the process, did
start to compare pixels and whine about differences. But this was as a
direct result of being told that _that's_how_you_did_ "web design" by
the web shop.
--
Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods