What is the concensus on Template Sites

[PassingBy]

I recently came across a template site selling cd's and was wondering what
the groups opinion is of this?

I purchased one of the cd's and the templates are great and Im looking
forward to learning some design tips from the contents of the cd....

site: www.toptemplatecd.com

Jim

[Lachlan Hunt]

PassingBy wrote:

I recently came across a template site selling cd's and was wondering what
the groups opinion is of this?

I purchased one of the cd's and the templates are great and Im looking
forward to learning some design tips from the contents of the cd....

site: www.toptemplatecd.com

Well, considering the fact that neither the HTML nor CSS files on
their home page validate, and they use a tables for layout, I'd say
their template construction is probably quite awful. As a guide for
producing a look and feel for your own site, they might be ok — the
designs don't look too bad. However, if you really want help designing
a standards compliant, accessible website that looks fantastic and works
well in most browsers, take some advice from the experts…

Take a look at the CSS Zen Garden [1] and use that as a template.
Write the entire document *without* styles applied, focussing on the
document structure and semantics, rather than how it will look. Be sure
to add in enough extraneous <div>s, <span>s, ids and classes
(appropriately — don't go overboard) to give you enough flexibility to
style it however you like later on. Unfortunately, that's something we
have to do until CSS is well supported, but most people would agree that
it's far more flexible, and better than the alternative of the
many-nested-tables approach.

Only after you have done that, should you start applying style.
There's plenty of resources out there to help you with that, just try to
stick to the tutorials that *don't* teach the excessive use of tables
and font tags.

[1] http://www.csszengarden.com/

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://www.lachy.id.au/

[Karl Groves]

"PassingBy" <[e-mail]> wrote in message
news:fL*******************@newsread3.news.atl.eart hlink.net...

I recently came across a template site selling cd's and was wondering what
the groups opinion is of this?

I purchased one of the cd's and the templates are great and Im looking
forward to learning some design tips from the contents of the cd....

site: www.KillASpammerForJesus.com

Ah yes. The ole "Person pretending to be a third party" variety of spam.

-Karl

[Andy Dingley]

"PassingBy" <[e-mail]> wrote in message news:<fL*******************@newsread3.news.atl.ear thlink.net>...

I recently came across a template site selling cd's and was wondering what
the groups opinion is of this?

1. You're a fairly blatant spammer

2. Their page coding style is rubbish.
I think these rate a definite "Avoid at all costs". I'm sorry you
wasted your money, but then you didn't actually buy these things
anyway, did you?

[Veign]

CSSZenGarden - Very good link - Thank You!

Jim
"Lachlan Hunt" <la**********@iinet.net.au> wrote in message
news:r3***************@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

PassingBy wrote:

I recently came across a template site selling cd's and was wondering what the groups opinion is of this?

I purchased one of the cd's and the templates are great and Im looking
forward to learning some design tips from the contents of the cd....

site: www.toptemplatecd.com

Well, considering the fact that neither the HTML nor CSS files on
their home page validate, and they use a tables for layout, I'd say
their template construction is probably quite awful. As a guide for
producing a look and feel for your own site, they might be ok - the
designs don't look too bad. However, if you really want help designing
a standards compliant, accessible website that looks fantastic and works
well in most browsers, take some advice from the experts.

Take a look at the CSS Zen Garden [1] and use that as a template.
Write the entire document *without* styles applied, focussing on the
document structure and semantics, rather than how it will look. Be sure
to add in enough extraneous <div>s, <span>s, ids and classes
(appropriately - don't go overboard) to give you enough flexibility to
style it however you like later on. Unfortunately, that's something we
have to do until CSS is well supported, but most people would agree that
it's far more flexible, and better than the alternative of the
many-nested-tables approach.

Only after you have done that, should you start applying style.
There's plenty of resources out there to help you with that, just try to
stick to the tutorials that *don't* teach the excessive use of tables
and font tags.

[1] http://www.csszengarden.com/

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://www.lachy.id.au/

[Veign]

The reason I bought was for the graphic design layout ideas and color scheme
help...Im color blind and color schemes sometimes are difficult for me - I
also use some color scheme applications (there are some really good ones out
there)....

I appreciate the comments about the code and will use caution when using the
code.....

Thank All....

Jim
"Andy Dingley" <di*****@codesmiths.com> wrote in message
news:28**************************@posting.google.c om...

"PassingBy" <[e-mail]> wrote in message

news:<fL*******************@newsread3.news.atl.ear thlink.net>...

I recently came across a template site selling cd's and was wondering what the groups opinion is of this?

1. You're a fairly blatant spammer

2. Their page coding style is rubbish.
I think these rate a definite "Avoid at all costs". I'm sorry you
wasted your money, but then you didn't actually buy these things
anyway, did you?

[Jim Dabell]

[Please don't top-post.]

Veign wrote:

"Andy Dingley" <di*****@codesmiths.com> wrote in message
news:28**************************@posting.google.c om...

"PassingBy" <[e-mail]> wrote in message

news:<fL*******************@newsread3.news.atl.ear thlink.net>...

> I recently came across a template site selling cd's and was wondering what > the groups opinion is of this?

1. You're a fairly blatant spammer

2. Their page coding style is rubbish.
I think these rate a definite "Avoid at all costs". I'm sorry you
wasted your money, but then you didn't actually buy these things
anyway, did you?

The reason I bought was for the graphic design layout ideas and color
scheme help...

[snip]

I smell spam.

Firstly, you started your post asking for opinions, but ended up trying to
tell us how great the templates are.

Secondly, rather than using a real name, you used a pseudonym, in
particular, a pseudonym that suggests you aren't going to stick around.

Thirdly, it's crap web templates, which seems to be a prime market for
spammers (along with logo design, etc).

In your defence, it wasn't a fire & forget post and you stuck around to
respond to people. That is unusual for a spammer.

However, you are now using the handle "Veign". As it happens, veign.com
developed the website in question, toptemplatecd.com, and also provides DNS
service for it. The same tool, Dreamweaver, was used to develop both the
veign.com and toptemplatecd.com websites. These facts are verifiable
through statements at the bottom of the page, meta information included in
the HTML, and public DNS records.

In fact, the administrative details associated with that domain suggest that
the Veign organisation actually runs toptemplatecd.com. Not surprising, as
they claim to offer web development services (despite being unable to
produce valid HTML for either website).

Furthermore, various net databases indicate the IP addresses you are posting
to Usenet from, 165.247.185.149 and 165.247.176.162, are in use in the
general vicinity of Greenville, South Carolina, U.S.A. The veign.com and
toptemplatecd.com domains are registered to Chris Hanscom in Spartanburg,
South California, a mere 44KM from Greenville. The Veign website also
lists the contact address as being:

PO Box 6261
Spartanburg, SC 29304

So, in summary, you call yourself the same name as the organisation selling
the templates, you appear to be located in the same area as the
organisation selling the templates, and you posted here telling us how good
the templates are with a link to the website you can buy them from.

It's amazing how people might jump to the conclusion that you are spamming.

It looks like you are posting to Usenet through Earthlink. Were you aware
that Earthlink has successfully sued spammers in the past? Or that
spamming puts you in breach of Earthlink's Acceptable Use Policy¹? In
fact, by spamming, since you agreed to Earthlink's terms, not only is your
account with them subject to suspension or termination, but you may also be
liable for additional costs or end up on the wrong end of legal action, as
described in Section 3 of their AUP.

Please don't spam. I have not reported you to Earthlink, although I can't
assure you that some other readers of this newsgroup will not do so or have
not already done so.
¹ <URL:http://www.earthlink.net/about/policies/use/>

--
Jim Dabell

[PassingBy]

Relax...

You take it on yourself to report someone for one post - Take it easy....

A simple response about your problem would have sufficed as I did stick
around and had all intent of responding to everyone's post....

"Jim Dabell" <ji********@jimdabell.com> wrote in message
news:wf********************@giganews.com...

[Please don't top-post.]

Veign wrote:

"Andy Dingley" <di*****@codesmiths.com> wrote in message
news:28**************************@posting.google.c om...

"PassingBy" <[e-mail]> wrote in message news:<fL*******************@newsread3.news.atl.ear thlink.net>...

> I recently came across a template site selling cd's and was wondering

what

> the groups opinion is of this?

1. You're a fairly blatant spammer

2. Their page coding style is rubbish.
I think these rate a definite "Avoid at all costs". I'm sorry you
wasted your money, but then you didn't actually buy these things
anyway, did you?

The reason I bought was for the graphic design layout ideas and color
scheme help...

[snip]

I smell spam.

Firstly, you started your post asking for opinions, but ended up trying to
tell us how great the templates are.

Secondly, rather than using a real name, you used a pseudonym, in
particular, a pseudonym that suggests you aren't going to stick around.

Thirdly, it's crap web templates, which seems to be a prime market for
spammers (along with logo design, etc).

In your defence, it wasn't a fire & forget post and you stuck around to
respond to people. That is unusual for a spammer.

However, you are now using the handle "Veign". As it happens, veign.com
developed the website in question, toptemplatecd.com, and also provides

DNS service for it. The same tool, Dreamweaver, was used to develop both the
veign.com and toptemplatecd.com websites. These facts are verifiable
through statements at the bottom of the page, meta information included in
the HTML, and public DNS records.

In fact, the administrative details associated with that domain suggest that the Veign organisation actually runs toptemplatecd.com. Not surprising, as they claim to offer web development services (despite being unable to
produce valid HTML for either website).

Furthermore, various net databases indicate the IP addresses you are posting to Usenet from, 165.247.185.149 and 165.247.176.162, are in use in the
general vicinity of Greenville, South Carolina, U.S.A. The veign.com and
toptemplatecd.com domains are registered to Chris Hanscom in Spartanburg,
South California, a mere 44KM from Greenville. The Veign website also
lists the contact address as being:

PO Box 6261
Spartanburg, SC 29304

So, in summary, you call yourself the same name as the organisation selling the templates, you appear to be located in the same area as the
organisation selling the templates, and you posted here telling us how good the templates are with a link to the website you can buy them from.

It's amazing how people might jump to the conclusion that you are spamming.
It looks like you are posting to Usenet through Earthlink. Were you aware
that Earthlink has successfully sued spammers in the past? Or that
spamming puts you in breach of Earthlink's Acceptable Use Policy¹? In
fact, by spamming, since you agreed to Earthlink's terms, not only is your
account with them subject to suspension or termination, but you may also be liable for additional costs or end up on the wrong end of legal action, as
described in Section 3 of their AUP.

Please don't spam. I have not reported you to Earthlink, although I can't
assure you that some other readers of this newsgroup will not do so or have not already done so.
¹ <URL:http://www.earthlink.net/about/policies/use/>

--
Jim Dabell

[Brian]

Please don't top-post. (That's the second time you've been asked.)

"PassingBy" <[e-mail]> wrote in message
news:<fL*******************@newsread3.news.atl.ear thlink.net>...

> I recently came across a template site selling cd's

Veign wrote:

The reason I bought was for the graphic design layout ideas

Jim Dabell wrote:

I smell spam.

you are now using the handle "Veign". As it happens, veign.com
developed the website in question, toptemplatecd.com, and also
provides DNS service for it. The same tool, Dreamweaver, was used
to develop both the

PassingBy wrote: Relax...

You take it on yourself to report someone for one post - Take it
easy....

A simple response about your problem would have sufficed as I did
stick around and had all intent of responding to everyone's post....

Does this mean you *were* merely spamming? That the "I recently came
across this site" thing was a mere ruse?

--
Brian (remove "invalid" from my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Harlan Messinger]

"PassingBy" <[e-mail]> wrote in message
news:8u*******************@newsread3.news.atl.eart hlink.net...

Relax...

You take it on yourself to report someone for one post - Take it easy....

A simple response about your problem would have sufficed as I did stick
around and had all intent of responding to everyone's post....

Had you intended to continue pretending that you were just a disinterested
visitor to the site instead of its owner?

[Veign]

Nope again bad choice on my part....

All make mistakes

Jim

"Harlan Messinger" <h.*********@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2h************@uni-berlin.de...

"PassingBy" <[e-mail]> wrote in message
news:8u*******************@newsread3.news.atl.eart hlink.net...

Relax...

You take it on yourself to report someone for one post - Take it easy....
A simple response about your problem would have sufficed as I did stick
around and had all intent of responding to everyone's post....

Had you intended to continue pretending that you were just a disinterested
visitor to the site instead of its owner?

[Veign]

Yes...Poor choice on my part..Sometimes people make bad decisions...
[top post] - personal preference on my part. Some newsgroups want top post
some want bottom, so you have to make a call and go with it. Most
newsgroups that I talk in prefer top posting, so majority wins (cant make
everyone happy)

Jim

"Brian" <us*****@julietremblay.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:10*************@corp.supernews.com...

Please don't top-post. (That's the second time you've been asked.)

> "PassingBy" <[e-mail]> wrote in message
> news:<fL*******************@newsread3.news.atl.ear thlink.net>...
>
>> I recently came across a template site selling cd's Veign wrote:

The reason I bought was for the graphic design layout ideas

Jim Dabell wrote:

I smell spam.

you are now using the handle "Veign". As it happens, veign.com
developed the website in question, toptemplatecd.com, and also
provides DNS service for it. The same tool, Dreamweaver, was used
to develop both the

PassingBy wrote:

Relax...

You take it on yourself to report someone for one post - Take it
easy....

A simple response about your problem would have sufficed as I did
stick around and had all intent of responding to everyone's post....

Does this mean you *were* merely spamming? That the "I recently came
across this site" thing was a mere ruse?

--
Brian (remove "invalid" from my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Neal]

On Mon, 24 May 2004 21:17:11 GMT, Veign <[e-mail]> wrote:

Yes...Poor choice on my part..Sometimes people make bad decisions...
[top post] - personal preference on my part. Some newsgroups want top
post
some want bottom, so you have to make a call and go with it. Most
newsgroups that I talk in prefer top posting, so majority wins (cant make
everyone happy)

You could try. Tell you what - if you post here, bottom-post. That makes
it easy to remember.

[Veign]

"Neal" <ne*****@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:op**************@news.individual.net...

On Mon, 24 May 2004 21:17:11 GMT, Veign <[e-mail]> wrote:

Yes...Poor choice on my part..Sometimes people make bad decisions...
[top post] - personal preference on my part. Some newsgroups want top
post
some want bottom, so you have to make a call and go with it. Most
newsgroups that I talk in prefer top posting, so majority wins (cant make everyone happy)

You could try. Tell you what - if you post here, bottom-post. That makes
it easy to remember.

Will try...

[Brian]

> Brian wrote...

Does this mean you *were* merely spamming?

Veign wrote:
Yes...Poor choice on my part..Sometimes people make bad decisions...
Well, maybe I'll make a bad choice and report you. hmm.
[top post] - personal preference on my part. Some newsgroups want
top post some want bottom, so you have to make a call and go with it.

Well, at the least, I'll go with this: *plonk*.

--
Brian (remove "invalid" from my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Wolfgang Wildeblood]

Lachlan Hunt <la**********@iinet.net.au> wrote:

Take a look at the CSS Zen Garden [1] and use that as a template.
Very bad advice.

Write the entire document *without* styles applied, focussing on the
document structure and semantics, rather than how it will look.
Good advice.

Be sure to add in enough extraneous <div>s, <span>s, ids and classes
(appropriately â€" don't go overboard) to give you enough flexibility to
style it however you like later on.
Bloat is bloat. Might as well add in extraneous <tr>s and <td>s and
style them later on. More "reliable" no-CSS fallback too.

Unfortunately, that's something we
Are you royalty? Why do you write in the first person plural?

have to do until CSS is well supported, but most people would agree that
Ah yes, "most people". Who couldn't guess they were about to make an
appearance?

Most people object to downloading 100KB of bloat just to display two
or three paragraphs of text. Most people don't give a damn whether
this bloat consists of layout tables or div and class stew. Most
people become impatient if a page takes longer than seven seconds to
display. Most people use dial-up modems, not DSL.

it's far more flexible, and better than the alternative of the
many-nested-tables approach.

More flexible (for the site maintainer), yes. Better (more flexible
for the hapless victim), no.

--
"CSS Zen Garden" is the new "A List Apart".

[Lachlan Hunt]

Wolfgang Wildeblood wrote:

Lachlan Hunt <la**********@iinet.net.au> wrote:

Take a look at the CSS Zen Garden [1] and use that as a template. Very bad advice.

Why? The structure of the code in the Zen Garden is really good, and
*much* better than any table-based layout.

Be sure to add in enough extraneous <div>s, <span>s, ids and classes
(appropriately — don't go overboard) to give you enough flexibility to
style it however you like later on.

Bloat is bloat. Might as well add in extraneous <tr>s and <td>s and
style them later on. More "reliable" no-CSS fallback too.

Using tables really locks you into one layout and there's very little
you can do to change that. Yes, I know you can apply styles the the
various table elements and, theoretically, make it look however you
want, but then the structure would be all wrong.

using divs and spans *appropriately*, I guarentee (unless you go
overboard), you're page will be much smaller, and more flexible than any
table based layout.

All I meant by extraneous div's, spans, etc. (although, perhaps poorly
worded) was something like this:
eg.
Example 1.
<body id="siteid">
<div id="container">
<div id="title">
<h1><span></span>Title</h1> <!-- span for image replacement. -->
<div id="section1">
<h2>Section 1</h2>
<p>content...</p>
</div>
<div id="section2">
<h2>Section 2</h2>
<p>content...</p>
<div id="section2-1">
<h3>Section 2-1</h3>
<p>content...</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="section3">
<h2>Section 3</h2>
<p>content...</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="sitenav">
<ul>
<li>menu item</li>
<li>etc...</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</body>

Compared with:
Example 2.
<body>
<h1>Title</h1>
<h2>Section 1</h2>
<p>content...</p>
<h2>Section 2</h2>
<p>content...</p>
<h3>Section 2-1</h3>
<p>content...</p>
<h2>Section 3</h2>
<p>content...</p>
<ul>
<li>menu item</li>
<li>etc...</li>
</ul>
</body>

Sure, both are completely valid; both have the same content; and both
should render exactly the same with only the default stylesheet applied.

Of course, the second example is smaller, however, the first is far
more structured, more flexible and easier to style with current UA
support for style sheets. I'm well aware, that with all CSS3 will offer
it may be possible to do advanced style with both reasonably well, but
support for that isn't widely available yet.

Also, most of the <div>s have been used much like <section> will in
XHTML2.0, which will mean easier migration later on, when XHTML2.0 is
widely supported. Now just imagine that whole structure as a bunch of
tables, filled with tonnes of presentational markup — I'm sure anyone
would agree it would be much bigger than both examples.

Unfortunately, that's something we

Are you royalty? Why do you write in the first person plural?

Who cares whether I use first, second or third person, my point would
be exactly the same! Try to focus on the topic, rather than picking on
problems with my writing skills.
Most people object to downloading 100KB of bloat just to display two
or three paragraphs of text.
Who on earth said anything about 100KB of bloat? On all the pages
I've coded, very few of them have been over around 20KB total, including
*all content*.

Most people don't give a damn whether this bloat consists of layout tables or div and class stew. Most
people become impatient if a page takes longer than seven seconds to
display. Most people use dial-up modems, not DSL.

I know very well about slow download times; I used dial up
connections for a long time, and know exactly how slow they are compared
with broadband.

it's far more flexible, and better than the alternative of the
many-nested-tables approach.

More flexible (for the site maintainer), yes. Better (more flexible
for the hapless victim), no.

Well, if user stylesheets ever become more widely used, then yes it
will be more flexible than a table layout, and, as I said before, the
file sizes are much smaller.

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://www.lachy.id.au/

[Harlan Messinger]

"Veign" <[e-mail]> wrote in message
news:rD******************@newsread3.news.atl.earth link.net...

Yes...Poor choice on my part..Sometimes people make bad decisions...
[top post] - personal preference on my part. Some newsgroups want top post some want bottom,
Can you give an example of a newsgroup that "wants" top-posting, and tell us
how such a preference is expressed? I find it tough to believe.
so you have to make a call and go with it. Most
newsgroups that I talk in prefer top posting, so majority wins (cant make
everyone happy)

If you top post, then you kill any possibility of a correspondent
intelligibly inserting comments throughout your message (as I'm doing here),
each under the portion of the message to which it directly relates. Because,
as you see, there is now no rhyme or reason to the order at all.

[marathon]

On Mon, 24 May 2004 21:15:48 GMT, Veign in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html wrote:

Nope again bad choice on my part.... All make mistakes

Yeah, like continuing to top-post when specfically asked NOT to?

You show a lack of morality, do you not even reconize that it was more than a
mistake? You did it *dilibertly*. That is not a mistake -- you *intended* to
deceive, no mistake about it.

Still would be interested in seeing a list of Usenet groups that tell people
to top post...

--
S.Allen
-----------------------------------------------
barnyard Tuesday May 25 2004 08:10:01 PM EDT
-----------------------------------------------
You shall be rewarded for a dastardly deed.

[Wolfgang Wildeblood]

Jim Dabell <ji********@jimdabell.com> wrote:

In your defence, it wasn't a fire & forget post and you stuck around to
respond to people. That is unusual for a spammer.
It's spam Jim, but not as we know it.

Please don't spam. I have not reported you to Earthlink...

I have.

[Andy Dingley]

wo****************@yahoo.com.au (Wolfgang Wildeblood) wrote in message news:<a9**************************@posting.google. com>...

Please don't spam. I have not reported you to Earthlink...

I have.

"Report" and "Earthlink" in the same sentence. There's hopeful....

[Wolfgang Wildeblood]

di*****@codesmiths.com (Andy Dingley) wrote:

wo****************@yahoo.com.au (Wolfgang Wildeblood) wrote:

Please don't spam. I have not reported you to Earthlink...

I have.

"Report" and "Earthlink" in the same sentence. There's hopeful...

Apparently Earthlink has only received 226358 reports prior to this
one. Actually that seems rather a lot, is it a particularly large ISP,
or just one that attracts spammers? Anyway, if anyone wants to defend
this spammer, be sure to use the following subject line:

To: "EarthLink Abuse Department" <ab***@abuse.earthlink.net>
Subject: EarthLink Abuse Ticket ID AB0000000226359