RE: [WSG] Real world use of standards

[info]

My situation is as follows:

Here at BHP Billiton, I am part of the Global Intranet Team. I wrote
the CSS/XHTML for their Global Intranet and then wrote standards
compliant templates for other people within the business to use to
build their own intranets.

We were able to adopt W3C standards and XHTML/CSS for all this
because, basically, before our team was put together, there were no
standards at all - intranets were built by whoever with whatever. We
wrote documentation, style guides etc emphasing standards compliance
as well.

This went fine for a year or two. Our team was rebuilding old
non-compliant intranets and making them standards compliant and
building new intranets with CSS/XHTML, W3C standards etc.

Since that time, new CMS's have been bought into sections of the
company (against our protests) that do not adhere to these standards,
and things are starting to go backwards in some areas. 

It's sort of like two steps forward - one step back when it comes to
web standards here, which can be frustrating. In a company this size,
it does take a lot of championing the cause by the right people to
get something like web standards in place. We're making progress, but
it's a battle.

Regards,

David McDonald
http://www.davidmcdonald.org




 Original Message 
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [WSG] Real world use of standards
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:06:45 +1100

>
>I have a question for you all, given that quite a few of you work for
>large,
>CMS-type companies and the collective level of experience here is
>seemingly
>very large:
>
>How many of you have experienced working for companies/clients which
>actively embrace the standards and protocols/working methods we
>discuss here
>every day? It seems to me that very often dealing with clients and
>client
>needs makes using standards to the fullest an impractical thing at
>best.
>
>I'd like to know how many of you have experienced work-places where
>standards are extremely important, and not just an afterthought in
>the
>production process.
>
>This is perhaps a little off-topic, but I think it's worth a
>discussion
>because the PRACTICAL, real-world use of standards is surely of
>utmost
>importance to us all.
>
>
>
>*
>The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
>* 
>


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RE: [WSG] Real world use of standards

[Mark Stanton]

> How many of you have experienced working for companies/clients which
> actively embrace the standards and protocols/working methods we
> discuss here
> every day? It seems to me that very often dealing with clients and
client
> needs makes using standards to the fullest an impractical thing at best.

In my personal experience proven ability to implement standards based
sites is a selling point for about 20% of our clients. The rest really
don't care.

Pretty much any client who is involved in government or is in anyway
government funded should be extremely aware of standards & should insist
on their work being standards compliant. By standards compliant I don't
mean validating XHTML 1.1. I mean primarily WAI and AGLS (because this is
law), but also valid mark-up (any version) & proper separation of content
& presentation.

Anyone else (outside the technical world) has no real reason know or care
about web standards at this point in time.


> I'd like to know how many of you have experienced work-places where
> standards are extremely important, and not just an afterthought in the
> production process.

For us standards are extremely important. We are not validation nazis, but
we feel that the proper use of HTML & CSS results in a higher quality of
end product. There is also a side benefit that our code is easier to
write, maintain & reuse these days. So our priorities are:

#1 - Better user experience
#2 - Better product for the client (easier for the client or another
agency to maintain).
#3 - More efficient development process

Maybe a small example is in order - http://www.pophouse.com.au. This is a
really small & simple site. The client doesn't know or care about web
standards. Personally I don't know if the HTML & CSS validate and I
haven't checked whether it passes any of the WAI standards. However none
of this really matters & there was no budget for building & testing
against the specs.

I think the site is still cool because its really simple & easy to use.
- Its fast loading.
- The nav is clear & text based.
- The fonts resize.
- Content & presentation are pretty neatly separated (with a couple of
exceptions).
- It makes almost as much sense in Lynx as it does in IE.
- The whole layout is super simple & reusable.
- The client can easily edit page content with Contribute.

So without chaining ourselves to the letter of the standards we've found a
nice balance by understanding the principles behind them. I think its
taken us about 18-24 months to reach this point & be pretty comfortable
with it. This learning process has involved everyone in product, from
project management, to graphics & programming.

If you treat standards as something programmers or QA people deal with at
the end of development you are going to waste a massive amount of time &
effort. If you start off by understanding the standards you can work them
into your day to day work without batting an eyelid & you'll end up with
all round better end products.

> This is perhaps a little off-topic, but I think it's worth a discussion
> because the PRACTICAL, real-world use of standards is surely of utmost
> importance to us all.

This is definitely NOT off-topic


Cheers

Mark


--
Mark Stanton
Technical Director
Gruden Pty Ltd
Tel: 9956 6388
Mob: 0410 458 201
Fax: 9956 8433
http://www.gruden.com


smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature

[WSG] Mail problem this morning and CMS list

[Peter Firminger]

Yeah, sorry folks, had a server issue this morning so if you think a message
didn't get through, please check the archive and send it again if it isn't
there.

http://webstandardsgroup.org/manage/archive.cfm

I have 5 people for the CMS list and I assume that some replies to this
request may have gone astray as well. So rather than bother with it any
further, it's done.

If you want to be on the CMS mailing list please send an email to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] with "Subscribe cms" (no quotes) in the BODY
of the message.

Regards,

Peter

> Sent this message before 10am today, and it seems to have disappeared.


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Re: [WSG] Definition lists -- mid-weekly challenge

[russ weakley]

Looks like you have cracked your version of the DL - looks fine on Safari.

Yes, this is the right place to ask this sort of question. It is closely
tied to semantic use of elements and css etc (which is part of web
standards) - even if only for experimenting...

If you mean is the WSG "superior to mundane affairs", then hopefully the
answer is no!
:)
Russ


> And seriously, folks, is this the wrong place to ask this sort of
> question, or is the WSG too Olympian for that?

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Re: [WSG] printer speific pages

[Gino Ferraro]

Peter,

The best article I have found is at A List Apart
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/goingtoprint/

Being written by the CSSS Guru Eric Meyer, you know it
is going to be good.

Regards
Gino


 --- Universal Head <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 
> Can I ask to be pointed to the best tutorial for
> making printer 
> specific pages on CSS sites?
> Thanks
> Peter
> -- 
> 
> 
> peter gifford
> 
> universal head
> design that works
> 
> visit 7/43 bridge road
>   stanmore nsw 2048
>   australia
> call  (+612) 9517 1466
> fax   (+612) 9565 4747
> email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> site  www.universalhead.com
> 
>
*
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> http://webstandardsgroup.org/
>
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> 
>  

http://greetings.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Greetings
Send your love online with Yahoo! Greetings - FREE!
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Re: [WSG] Calendar Day Highlighting

[Hugh Todd]

Anton,

Hi all, I throw together a simple "calendar" that highlights each day 
on :hover, hope you find it intresting (given the tight code):
http://standardice.com/experimental/calendarhighlighting.html
Works beautifully in Safari and Mozilla on the Mac. Amazingly lean code.

Splits apart at day 11 on IE5 Mac, and mouseover doesn't work. Nor does 
it work in Opera 6 Mac. Guess they don't support mouseovers on elements 
other than DIVs?

All the best! -Hugh Todd

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Re: [WSG] Definition lists -- mid-weekly challenge

[Hugh Todd]

Sent this message before 10am today, and it seems to have disappeared. 
Will try again. This and following message.

Cameron,

Can't be bothered trying it
Boy, that sure puts this newbie upstart in his place. :)

but you could float the
image left, leave the other elements non-floated,
block, with left margins equal to the image width.
Thanks for this advice. It's put me on track, even if it's not quite 
right. So the trick is to make the dt and dd display as block level 
elements? It looks as though I was going overboard with floats.

View it here: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~hughtodd/dltest/

(Clearing the dl triggers a bug in IE5 Mac in which floats wrongly 
inherit the 'clear' setting from their containing elements, making it 
impossible to sit the text elements alongside the floating dt img. See 
http://www.macedition.com/cb/ie5macbugs/index.html#floatclearbug )

And seriously, folks, is this the wrong place to ask this sort of 
question, or is the WSG too Olympian for that?

-Hugh

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Re: [WSG] printer specific pages

[russ weakley]

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/goingtoprint/

>From the god of CSS himself - Eric  :)

> 
> Can I ask to be pointed to the best tutorial for making printer
> specific pages on CSS sites?
> Thanks
> Peter

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RE: [WSG] printer specific pages

[Mark Stanton]

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/goingtoprint/


Cheers

Mark


--
Mark Stanton 
Technical Director 
Gruden Pty Ltd 
Tel: 9956 6388
Mob: 0410 458 201 
Fax: 9956 8433 
http://www.gruden.com
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[WSG] printer specific pages

[Universal Head]

Can I ask to be pointed to the best tutorial for making printer 
specific pages on CSS sites?
Thanks
Peter
--

peter gifford

universal head
design that works
visit   7/43 bridge road
stanmore nsw 2048
australia
call(+612) 9517 1466
fax (+612) 9565 4747
email   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
sitewww.universalhead.com
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[WSG] printer speific pages

[Universal Head]

Can I ask to be pointed to the best tutorial for making printer 
specific pages on CSS sites?
Thanks
Peter
--

peter gifford

universal head
design that works
visit   7/43 bridge road
stanmore nsw 2048
australia
call(+612) 9517 1466
fax (+612) 9565 4747
email   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
sitewww.universalhead.com
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Re: [WSG] Real world use of standards

[russ weakley]

Bradley,

First of all, this is not off-topic at all. In fact, I reckon it's the most
important issue facing developers/designers on this list.

Here are some comments based on Peter's and my experience.. Take or leave as
you wish. :)

CLIENTS
We always sit down with our clients and discuss (amongst other things)
target audiences and browser levels. If we feel the client's audience is
suited to a full css site, we let the client know our preferred decision and
the effects this will have (in simple terms). Generally, this is enough for
most clients and they are happy for us to proceed. If the client is obsessed
with further info, we outline the options:

option 1:
1. faster loading - better for user and client
2. easier to maintain - cheaper for client updates
2. work better across modern and future browsers - better for all
3. provide printer specific options without any new pages needed
4. provide more accessible code - better for specific users and devices
5. ability to provide assistive options like style switchers.
These benefits will be available to around 90-95% of your audience. At the
same time, no browsers or devices will be alienated in the process - old
browsers will get all content, just with slightly reduced visual formatting.

option 2
1. table based pages - slower rendering and more code
2. harder to maintain
3. less accessible to people and devices
4. no special print options
This option is aimed at the lower 10% of your audience at the cost of the
other 90%.

We have not had a client choose option 2 yet. Having said that, there may be
times when option 2 is the best - if you are dealing with a high percentage
of NN4 users or a specific intranet etc.

BOSSES / MANAGEMENT
Most bosses focus on the bottom line. If you need to get up to speed on
developing with web standards, this takes time so the boss or management
will have to pay for this in some form. However, in the long run, the
company benefits (faster development, better provision of service), and the
companies clients benefit (see list above).

If you want to start pushing web standards in your work place, it becomes a
case of sitting the bosses/management down and outlining the aims, costs
(generally in staff time) and benefits to all players (boss, staff,
audience).

In early 2002, this is what Peter and I did with our employer at the time.
We asked for some time off to learn about standards, with the aim to the
benefit us and our users. We were successful.

PART OF THE PROCESS
After some time in the wilderness (while you learn the ins and outs),
building with web standards become part of your process - part of everyday
work. As Justin said, going back is VERY hard.

ONE STEP AT A TIME
The key point about standards is that they are not a black and white issue.
We are all "moving towards" standards. While some developers have made more
progress than others, we are all still learning (I know that sounds corny!).

The key, when beginning, is to focus on achievable steps. If you only
achieve the removing of all font tags and replacing them with CSS1, you have
made a huge step forward. If you make your code more valid - even if you
don¹t achieve 100% valid code - you are making progress. If you tackle some
accessibility issues on your site, you are making progress. If you keep a
basic table for layout, but use CSS for all other stying, you have made
progress... 

The big advantage that we all have now is resources. There is a huge wealth
of tutorials, blogs, books, mail-lists and people that can help you start or
continue the process.

End rave...
Russ


> 
> I have a question for you all, given that quite a few of you work for large,
> CMS-type companies and the collective level of experience here is seemingly
> very large:
> 
> How many of you have experienced working for companies/clients which
> actively embrace the standards and protocols/working methods we discuss here
> every day? It seems to me that very often dealing with clients and client
> needs makes using standards to the fullest an impractical thing at best.
> 
> I'd like to know how many of you have experienced work-places where
> standards are extremely important, and not just an afterthought in the
> production process.
> 
> This is perhaps a little off-topic, but I think it's worth a discussion
> because the PRACTICAL, real-world use of standards is surely of utmost
> importance to us all.
> 

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Re: [WSG] Real world use of standards

[Justin French]

On Thursday, January 29, 2004, at 11:06  AM, Bradley Wright wrote:

I have a question for you all, given that quite a few of you work for 
large,
CMS-type companies and the collective level of experience here is 
seemingly
very large:

How many of you have experienced working for companies/clients which
actively embrace the standards and protocols/working methods we 
discuss here
every day? It seems to me that very often dealing with clients and 
client
needs makes using standards to the fullest an impractical thing at 
best.

I'd like to know how many of you have experienced work-places where
standards are extremely important, and not just an afterthought in the
production process.
This is perhaps a little off-topic, but I think it's worth a discussion
because the PRACTICAL, real-world use of standards is surely of utmost
importance to us all.
Glenn.

I believe embracing web standards is something that starts with the the 
technical team (web developers, etc), NOT at a management or board of 
directors level.  In short, I don't give my clients much of an option, 
and in some cases, don't even bother to educate them as to what I'm 
doing or why -- I feel it's an important step for the web, and by 
making my websites as forward compatible and accessible as possible, 
I'm not doing any harm in the process (unless of course they have a 
large NN4 readership).

To me, starting a project with XHTML for semantic mark-up, CSS2 for 
presentation, and at least priority 1 of the accessibility guidelines 
is now (after a very short time) an automatic and effortless process.  
In fact, the other week I had to build something with tables for 
layout, and it took me twice as long (muttering things like "this would 
be so easy with a div and some CSS").

A couple of google searches should help you get a huge list of reading 
material, particularly this one:
http://www.google.com/search?q=business+case+web+standards

... of which I'll highlight this one:
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000266.php
There's heaps on ALA, of which I grabbed just one:
http://alistapart.com/articles/tohell/
Then read everything here:
http://www.webstandards.org/
And this:
http://www.andybudd.com/blog/archives/000143.html
After reading all that, you'll probably ask yourself "why aren't I 
doing this?", and you'll start implementing changes right away.

I don't believe it takes any extra time of effort (perhaps 5% at 
*worst*) to develop new projects with standards and accessibility in 
mind, once you're up to speed... this value can more than likely be 
recouped in bandwidth costs alone on larger websites, and there's 
always the threat of a lawsuit :)

Justin French

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Re: [WSG] Real world use of standards

[Chris Blown]

Clients need to be informed of the benefits of standards and most will
see the value right away. However compromises on design and
functionality can offset the benefits quite quickly. The old saying "The
customers always right" seems to fit here.

Government departments are _mostly_ aware of standards especially the
accessibility guidelines, so they push for standards compliant sites. It
may eventually become mandatory for Governments.

In house here its becoming more important, some are more passionate
about it than others. It is frustrating when work travels up the work
flow and someone decides to bung in invalid markup, or maybe a
particular application framework doesn't yet support the markup
correctly.

If IE wasn't such a pain, then standards are really a "no brainer",
write once works everywhere, hmmm one day.. soon I hope..

Cheers
Chris Blown 


On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 11:06, Bradley Wright wrote:
> I have a question for you all, given that quite a few of you work for large,
> CMS-type companies and the collective level of experience here is seemingly
> very large:
> 
> How many of you have experienced working for companies/clients which
> actively embrace the standards and protocols/working methods we discuss here
> every day? It seems to me that very often dealing with clients and client
> needs makes using standards to the fullest an impractical thing at best.
> 
> I'd like to know how many of you have experienced work-places where
> standards are extremely important, and not just an afterthought in the
> production process.
> 
> This is perhaps a little off-topic, but I think it's worth a discussion
> because the PRACTICAL, real-world use of standards is surely of utmost
> importance to us all.
> 
> 
> 
> *
> The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/
> * 
> 
> 
> 

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[WSG] Standards in the Real World

[Glenn]

Nick Bradbury (Top Style, Feed Demon) writes on standards compliance: 
http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2004/01/web_standards_p.html

--
Glenn
"Religion and science are opposed, but only in the same sense as that in which my thumb and forefinger are opposed - and between the two, one can grasp everything" - Sir William Bragg.

http://glenn.typepad.com/news/

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[WSG] Real world use of standards

[Bradley Wright]

I have a question for you all, given that quite a few of you work for large,
CMS-type companies and the collective level of experience here is seemingly
very large:

How many of you have experienced working for companies/clients which
actively embrace the standards and protocols/working methods we discuss here
every day? It seems to me that very often dealing with clients and client
needs makes using standards to the fullest an impractical thing at best.

I'd like to know how many of you have experienced work-places where
standards are extremely important, and not just an afterthought in the
production process.

This is perhaps a little off-topic, but I think it's worth a discussion
because the PRACTICAL, real-world use of standards is surely of utmost
importance to us all.



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Re: [WSG] Calendar Day Highlighting

[James Ellis]

Anton

This is pretty good. You may also be interested in the Mozilla Calendar 
- available as an extension to most Gecko browsers -
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ , written in XUL 
(http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xul/joy-of-xul.html).

Cheers
James
Anton Andreasson wrote:


Given the recent discussion on definition list, maybe you could build it
with those as an alternative?


Well, thanks for the suggestion but as I know what happens with 
definition lists in e.g. Google (try search for "define: css" and 
you'll see), I wouldn't want my calendar being indexed as "Definitions 
of Monday on the Web:" and "Meeting with friends at local pub" as a 
description... I might be stubborn about this, but I just can't find 
The Argument for switching to s instead of, well, wrapping it in a 
 or something.

cheers,

/Anton
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RE: [WSG] Calendar Day Highlighting

[Anton Andreasson]

Given the recent discussion on definition list, maybe you could build it
with those as an alternative?
Well, thanks for the suggestion but as I know what happens with 
definition lists in e.g. Google (try search for "define: css" and 
you'll see), I wouldn't want my calendar being indexed as 
"Definitions of Monday on the Web:" and "Meeting with friends at 
local pub" as a description... I might be stubborn about this, but I 
just can't find The Argument for switching to s instead of, well, 
wrapping it in a  or something.

cheers,

/Anton
--
What your  lacks, your  compensates.
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Re: [WSG] CSS file size question

[Justin French]

On Wednesday, January 28, 2004, at 10:53  PM, Martin Chapman wrote:

So, you're suggesting, as you state the base file, then, a CSS file 
per page that requires one?
Actually, one per section, or one per content-type... one per page 
might be overkill in the case of news articles (which typically will 
have the same format).

Your mileage may vary.

Justin French

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RE: [WSG] Calendar Day Highlighting

[David McDonald]

An idea -

Given the recent discussion on definition list, maybe you could build it
with those as an alternative?

Nice work.

Regards,

David McDonald
Web Designer

http://www.davidmcdonald.org

Southbank, Melbourne
Australia

Mobile: 0403 332 140
ICQ: 11814164

-Original Message-
From: Anton Andreasson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, 28 January 2004 11:19 PM
To: Webstandardsgroup
Subject: [WSG] Calendar Day Highlighting



Hi all, I throw together a simple "calendar" that highlights each day 
on :hover, hope you find it intresting (given the tight code):
http://standardice.com/experimental/calendarhighlighting.html

cheers,

/Anton

PS. I was inspired by the Flash calendar at 
http://www.vcc.com.my/calendar/index2.cfm and I'll try to mimic it 
even further ;)
-- 
What your  lacks, your  compensates.
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Re: [WSG] Calendar Day Highlighting

[russ weakley]

Cool! Be good to see a version of the entire calendar. :)
Follows on from your great mimicking magazines demo:
http://standardice.com/experimental/magazines.html

Russ


> 
> Hi all, I throw together a simple "calendar" that highlights each day
> on :hover, hope you find it intresting (given the tight code):
> http://standardice.com/experimental/calendarhighlighting.html
> 
> cheers,
> 
> /Anton
> 
> PS. I was inspired by the Flash calendar at
> http://www.vcc.com.my/calendar/index2.cfm and I'll try to mimic it
> even further ;)

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RE: [WSG] New CMS / Framework

[Michael Kear]

I don't want to continue this off-topic discussion, because it'll just turn
one of the best technical lists I've ever been a part of.   

There are lots of responses to my post that I feel like I want to follow up,
but it's off topic.   I just want to make a couple of comments to clarify
what I said earlier, then I'll shut up entirely about FarCry on this list.
...

[a] I was not taking a sideswipe at Daemon.  I greatly admire the company
and they're damn good at what they do.  But they're a very advanced company.
They can easily be talking over the heads of mere mortals like me without
even realising it.  Many's the so-called "simple" thing I've seen Geoff and
others from Daemon demonstrate only to find it's far from "simple". Perhaps
that reflects poorly on me, but I know I'm far from alone.

[b] Shared hosting:  no one's been able to demonstrate that you can put
FarCry on a shared environment in a way that makes business sense.  The
companies that host it all have their own servers.  The vast majority of
hosting companies don't own their own servers, or even have dedicated
servers.  In the more usual situation there are several hosting companies
sharing the system, and to put the FarCry core files on a server not owned
by me, makes them available to my competitors on the same machine.  To take
my FarCry host business to my competitors and run it there when I have a
perfectly good CFMX6.1 system I already pay for and am working hard to fill
with my own clients makes no business sense.  All I want is for someone to
show me that I can install it and allow my clients to use it but not let my
competitors on the same system use it without doing any of the hard work.

As I said there are other points I want to take up but its all off-topic.
Now I'll shut up on this whole issue.  

Back to CSS/Standards compliance.

Sorry for pouring petrol on the fire Russ.

Cheers
Mike Kear
Windsor, NSW, Australia
AFP Webworks
http://afpwebworks.com




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[WSG] Calendar Day Highlighting

[Anton Andreasson]

Hi all, I throw together a simple "calendar" that highlights each day 
on :hover, hope you find it intresting (given the tight code):
http://standardice.com/experimental/calendarhighlighting.html

cheers,

/Anton

PS. I was inspired by the Flash calendar at 
http://www.vcc.com.my/calendar/index2.cfm and I'll try to mimic it 
even further ;)
--
What your  lacks, your  compensates.
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Re: [WSG] Floats of the Fluid and Fixed kind

[Tonico Strasser]

Chris Blown wrote:

Thanks Tonico

Looks great.
Oh, thanks. I was not involved in the graphic design process ;)

Tonico

--
Tonico Strasser ?:-)
http://Tonico.FreeZope.org
Contact_Tonico at Yahoo dot de
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[WSG] CMS Discussion

[Peter Firminger]

Hi folks,

The "[WSG] New CMS / Framework" is now getting off-topic.

I was willing for it to go on as it had a good chance of turning back to
being about Web Standards. E.g. methodologies for making sure that user
entered content (be it plain text or widget written HTML) is filtered
appropriately to be valid (even when pasted from Word), the use of CSS for
layout in the templates, support for less popular browsers, Web Services and
syndication mechanisms etc.

Please focus on these and similar issues rather than getting caught up in
the product, whether for or against.

CF-Aussie may be a better place for the FarCry discussion (the FarCry lists
seem to be more support based than discussion).

Do we have enough interest to start a separate CMS list? It's not the first
time we have had CMS discussions here and they generally waver off topic for
this list. If you would be interested in a separate list just on Content
Management (and yes this includes Dreamweaver as it is a valid tool to
manage content), please let us know at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and if we get more
than 10 interested participants, I'll set it up.

Regards,

Peter (ListDad)


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Re: [WSG] CSS file size question

[Martin Chapman]

On 27 Jan 2004, at 22:40, Justin French wrote:
all the template declarations etc.)?
I think you should have your base CSS file (things common to all 
pages), and then link a separate file for any page-specific 
requirements.
So, you're suggesting, as you state the base file, then, a CSS file per 
page that requires one?

What I have at present, is one CSS file which could be considered the 
base file... hold all declarations concerning the template files and 
standard HTML amendments (  etc. CSS). Then, I have a panels.css 
file, specifically just for the graphical panels that are used (this is 
only about 10 declarations).

Finally, if I was to follow what you say, I would then have as many CSS 
files as is needed (1 per page), and the individual page would link to 
the relevant one.

Thanks for advice and reassurance (and taking the time to answer a 
long-winded e-mail!)


Justin French

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Kind regards
Martin Chapman
--

Web development, identity and design.

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9 Tynwald Road
West Kirby
Merseyside
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Tel: +44 (0)151 625 1443
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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RE: [WSG] New CMS / Framework

[Gary Menzel]

I dont know if any of the Daemon guys are on this list (maybe Ben Bishop
is) to reply to this, but while I am sure Mike has done the homework he
needs I was concerned about a couple of the statements and thought I would
comment/clarify..

I am not sure what is meant by "too far-removed from coldfusion to use".
FarCry is a CMS as well as a Framework.  But I have found that with any
CMS you have to learn a new environment.  And FarCry is built on all the
current CFMX type of technology - lots of components and object
orientation.  So if these technologies are still unfamiliar, it may be
difficult to extend FarCry.  You DO have to know CFMX well.  But it is
still all Cold Fusion.

As far as "spectra-head" - I never liked Spectra (hated it in fact) but I
love FarCry.

> IF you want to do anything different,
> you better be willing to learn an entire new vocabulary.

Every comprehensive CMS I have ever used has required me to think in a
different way and has always had it's own vocabulary.  I am not sure what
is meant by "anything different" either.  With the new site we have
released, we are doing LOTS of different things (including running a HTTP
request out to a third party provide to deposit content right into a
container on our splash page) than what FarCry provides.  We have even
integrated some legacy items from our old site into FarCry.  You only have
to look at the FarCry reference sites to see HOW different every instance
of FarCry can be.

http://farcry.daemon.com.au/go/features/farcry-sites

> I don't think it was ever designed with shared environments in mind

I disagree with this statement.  The FarCry core (which you should only
ever deploy once in a shared environment) has been deliberately designed
to have multiple FarCry applications running on the one box.  When the
instances are installed correctly, the Admin Console is able to
automatically switch between the instances based on the domain name of the
site.

> finding out how to set it up for shared environments

The FarCry developers list has posted many solutions to setting up FarCry
in a shared environment.  While I can understand that the solutions may
not have worked for some people, there is no "lack" of information on how
to go about doing it.

> There is a lot of the app outside the site, and that is a worry in
> a shared environment.

I would also disagree with this.  I think it reduces worries for a shared
environment.  You don't want multiple copies of a core piece of code
running if you want to maintain a standard platform for all your FarCry
instances.  You want the core code in one place - outside of where any of
the "clients" can touch it.  Only the system admin should be updating the
core code.

However, requiring the shared code to be under the control of the site
administrator means your shared host must agree to host FarCry.  There are
several hosting companies in Australia that are prepared to do this.

Would you want to run multiple versions of Cold Fusion on the same box and
control them yourself ?  Nope, you leave that up to the administrator of
the shared box (and they dont want you to touch it).  So too would you
leave updating FarCry code in a shared environment to the sys admin.


> One of the main reasons for having a CMS is you want to allow
non-technical
> people to update the site safely.   I tried my test app on a dozen
> non-technical people, and not one of them could find out how to add a
page
> without having to be shown where it was.

FarCry Admin (where you add in new stuff and maintain old stuff) has been
well recieved by our non-technical staff (who maintain all the general
content pages as well as many of our back database systems which have all
the admin tools created as plug-ins to the FarCry Admin Console).  They
love it and don't have any problems using it.  Yes, they needed some
training, but it was minimal and would be expected with any new system.

Every document that is edited is done so in DRAFT mode and the document is
then submitted for approval by a central place.  That is pretty "safe"
from my perspective.


Am I a FarCry evangelist??  Yes - certainly.



Gary Menzel
Web Development Manager
IT Operations Brisbane -+- ABN AMRO Morgans Limited
Level 29, 123 Eagle Street BRISBANE QLD 4000
PH: 07 333 44 828  FX:  07 3834 0828



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Re: [WSG] RE: New CMS / Framework

[Justin French]

On Wednesday, January 28, 2004, at 09:05  PM, Geoff Bowers wrote:

Building a comprehensive CMS API is a deceptively difficult task.  
There
are so many open source frameworks, let alone commercial ones, to suit
every language preference -- I definitely recommend against starting
from scratch unless your requirements are very modest.
I'm aware it's a lot of work, but it's the only way I'll get what I 
want (judging by the plethora of CMS's I've already tried under $1000). 
 I've done plenty of background work already.  For a lot of this, I 
just have to glue the pieces together.

Justin French

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[WSG] RE: New CMS / Framework

[Geoff Bowers]

Justin,

Building a comprehensive CMS API is a deceptively difficult task.  There
are so many open source frameworks, let alone commercial ones, to suit
every language preference -- I definitely recommend against starting
from scratch unless your requirements are very modest.
Building something for a client is a lot different to building something 
for use with any client.  It's an order of magnitude more time consuming 
to build something truly generic.

I speak from experience having been involved with the FarCry CMS 
architecture since its inception. With that in mind I thought I might 
take the opportunity to respond to Mike and perhaps add some general 
insight into CMS API's -- you'll have to forgive me for keeping this 
off-topic thread alive.

it very closely (I've got a lot at stake and some practical 
background with CMS)  and decided that if you want to do what the
developers of FarCry have designed in, it's a piece of cake.  IF you
want to do anything different, you better be willing to learn an
entire new vocabulary.
FarCry provides a set of services and an API to access them.  These
services provide functionality that the standard set of CF tags and
components does not.  In order to leverage an application framework, the
code needs to adhere to certain coding guidelines.  For convenience,
aspects of the API are given names and with any large code base this
establishes a new vocabulary.  All but the very simplest application
frameworks involve learning a vocabulary of terminology.
FarCry is designed to work out of the box as a solution -- its great to
hear people are finding it easy to use.  But extending the solution
requires learning the API "vocabulary" -- no way around that really.
I don't think it was ever designed with shared environments in mind, 
and finding out how to set it up for shared environments has been a 
long and wearying road for me.  I'm still not willing to attempt 
setting it up on my server.  There is a lot of the app outside the
site, and that is a worry in a shared environment.
FarCry is an enterprise solution converted to open source -- so your
right: low cost, shared hosting environments were not an initial
priority.  However, it's worth noting that there are now several
commercial shared hosting options for FarCry today -- including AusTiger
(Newcastle), FastHIT (Perth), and Paladin (US).
One of the main reasons for having a CMS is you want to allow
non-technical
people to update the site safely.   I tried my test app on a dozen 
non-technical people, and not one of them could find out how to add a
 page without having to be shown where it was.
FarCry is a very sophisticated solution -- logging in with all the
options switched on can be daunting without training.  That's why its
possible to reduce non-technical users' visible options to a minimum, or
even write your own "dumbed-down" administration interfaces.  However,
we have found over the years that clients generally prefer access to
powerful options and are prepared to do training to have them.
Hope that helps,

-- geoff
http://farcry.daemon.com.au/


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Re: [WSG] New CMS / Framework

[Ben Bishop]

While ideally I would address nearly every point in Mike's email, it 
would benefit probably few of the members on this list and have little 
effect on his opinion of Daemon.
Most importantly and likely, it would serve as a catalyst for an 
extended debate of off-topic technologies.

For anyone interested in the open source FarCry CMS, please see:
http://farcry.daemon.com.au/
For discussion of its excellent features and near limitless 
extensibility, I would encourage you to find out from real developers 
(some of whom have never touched Spectra) around the world at:
news://lists.daemon.com.au/farcry-dev / 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Please allay any fears about shared hosting by speaking with 
professional web hosting companies such as:
http://www.fasthit.net/
http://www.austiger.com.au/

Or email me directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Regards,

Ben
http://www.daemon.com.au/
Committed to web development communities since 1995
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Re: [WSG] New CMS / Framework

[Chris Blown]

Might be a bit OT, but here is my 2 cents worth.

I've likewise spent years working with/on CMS's, one big problem is in
fact, the different server platforms the CMS has to cater for.

Its easy to say "you can install  on IIS or
Apache" and you mostly can, but each have their own particular issues,
which are not unlike different browsers really. Some things can really
get on your nerves, /* cough.. */ Sun One ASP /* cough */

I admire your ambition to develop your own CMS and all the power to you,
best of luck.

Cheers
Chris

On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 18:59, Justin French wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 28, 2004, at 05:21  PM, Mark Stanton wrote:
> 
> > That's a very big call - best of luck to you. But before you jump in 
> > can I
> > suggest you look at http://farcry.daemon.com.au. Ok its Coldfusion 
> > based &
> > not PHP, but CF will cost you a few thousand dollars & that is a tiny
> > amount to pay for a product (farcry) of this quality.
> >
> > This is seriously a mature, powerful product & there is an extremely
> > active development community behind it. Please do yourself a favour & a
> > have a long hard look at this even if its just to review what a good 
> > CMS
> > should do.
> 
> I certainly can't see myself getting into a CFM application -- it's 
> just too far removed from what I do everyday with PHP and Perl, and 
> throws my years of experience virtually out the window.  But I do like 
> to keep my options open.
> 
> However, I've checked out the website, and it does look like it 
> promises a lot.  However, the lack of a live demo, and the fact that I 
> don't have anywhere I could install it myself really makes it difficult 
> to evaluate it on any level at all.
> 
> I've spent years working with/on CMS's, and I know that the only way to 
> get a feel for an application is by getting your hands dirty, not 
> reading documentation and marketing material.
> 
> 
> Thanks for the input and suggestions though!
> 
> 
> Justin French
> 
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> 
> 
> 

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Re: [WSG] New CMS / Framework

[Justin French]

Hi Ralph,

http://www.opensourcecms.com/
This site has open source CMS's that are php/mysql based. They have  
actually
set up and installed CMS's on their server and allow you to go and use  
their
system.
I guess I should have also specified that I know about  
opensourcecms.com, and have reviewed almost every option, all of which  
feel short of my expectations.  Hence the reason I'm starting from  
scratch.  Nothing in the comments of Dave's post cut it either  
(although some came close).

And if you really have some spare time on your hands, check out Column  
Two
archives found at
http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/ 
cat_content_management.html
which should keep you busy for some hours  :)
Certainly will :)

Justin French

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Re: [WSG] Image Gallery alternative

[russ weakley]

Hi Robert,
Your option looks great!

The funny thing is that when you get down to fine details of semantics, you
can argue about a range of different solutions to any problem - divs, dl's
and ul's could all be used successfully in creating image galleries.

Bottom line - we should all be striving to avoid options that are obviously
un-sematic (is that a word?). This would include using dl's and blockquotes
for indenting, stying 's to look like headings (this used to be one of my
tricks before I saw the light)... Basically avoiding the use of any element
that has no meaning or incorrect meaning if the CSS is not present.

:)
Russ


> 
> I was searching the web for a good way to do a thumbnail gallery and
> came across the discussion on this list between Russ Weakley and Justin
> French.  I came up with this alternative to the ways that they wrote
> about (Russ - each image in its own DL, Justing - each image in its own
> DIV).
> 
> What I did was to make it a plain UL with the gallery class applied to
> the UL, and the image and description being in a LI, which is floated.
> 
> It looks to me like less markup in the HTML portion, but a little more
> in the CSS.
> 
> Here's the code (using the same content as used by them):
> 
> 
> body
> {
> margin: 20px;
> padding: 0;
> font: 90% arial, sans-serif;
> background-color: #fff;
> }
> 
> ul.gallery
> {
> list-style: none;
> margin-left: 0;
> padding-left: 0;
> }
> 
> .gallery li
> {
> border: 1px solid #000;
> background-color: #ddd;
> width: 102px;
> text-align: center;
> padding: 10px;
> float: left;
> margin-right: 1em;
> }
> 
> li img
> {
> display: block;
> border: 1px solid #000;
> width: 100px;
> height: 100px;
> }
> 
> li a
> {
> display: block;
> font-weight: bold;
> margin: 5px 0 3px 0;
> }
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Unordered list for image gallery
> 
> 
> 
> Title here
> Description here
> 
> 
> 
> Title here
> Description here
> 
> 
> 
> Title here
> Description here
> 
> 
> 
> 

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RE: [WSG] New CMS / Framework

[Mark Stanton]

http://demo.daemon.com.au/

I do understand where both you & Mike are coming from, I guess I just
wonder how often a particular problem needs to be solved... Having said
that, it looks like Mike has had a lot more experience with it than I
have.


Cheers

Mark


--
Mark Stanton
Technical Director
Gruden Pty Ltd
Tel: 9956 6388
Mob: 0410 458 201
Fax: 9956 8433
http://www.gruden.com


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Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature

Re: [WSG] New CMS / Framework

[Justin French]

On Wednesday, January 28, 2004, at 05:21  PM, Mark Stanton wrote:

That's a very big call - best of luck to you. But before you jump in 
can I
suggest you look at http://farcry.daemon.com.au. Ok its Coldfusion 
based &
not PHP, but CF will cost you a few thousand dollars & that is a tiny
amount to pay for a product (farcry) of this quality.

This is seriously a mature, powerful product & there is an extremely
active development community behind it. Please do yourself a favour & a
have a long hard look at this even if its just to review what a good 
CMS
should do.
I certainly can't see myself getting into a CFM application -- it's 
just too far removed from what I do everyday with PHP and Perl, and 
throws my years of experience virtually out the window.  But I do like 
to keep my options open.

However, I've checked out the website, and it does look like it 
promises a lot.  However, the lack of a live demo, and the fact that I 
don't have anywhere I could install it myself really makes it difficult 
to evaluate it on any level at all.

I've spent years working with/on CMS's, and I know that the only way to 
get a feel for an application is by getting your hands dirty, not 
reading documentation and marketing material.

Thanks for the input and suggestions though!

Justin French

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RE: [WSG] New CMS / Framework

[Ralph]

Hi Justin

You might want to try the following sites:

http://www.opensourcecms.com/
This site has open source CMS's that are php/mysql based. They have actually
set up and installed CMS's on their server and allow you to go and use their
system.

Since you will be making a choice of what CMS your organisation will use,
you might want to see http://www.cmsreview.com/index.html to help choose
which CMS might be right for you...

And if you really have some spare time on your hands, check out Column Two
archives found at
http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/cat_content_management.html
which should keep you busy for some hours  :)


Ralph


-Original Message-
From: Justin French [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, 28 January 2004 5:10 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [WSG] New CMS / Framework



Hi all,

Inspired by the needs, comments and wishes of Dave Shae's "Wanted: CMS" 
post on Mezzoblue 
, I'm taking 
up the challenge, and building the CMS I've always wanted (which it 
looks like Dave and others wanted too).  Off the top of my head, with 
no warranty whatsoever, I'd like it to be distributed under a license 
similar to MT's multi-license for personal/commercial/pro use, or even 
GPL.

More (and less) than a CMS, what I'm aiming at is a framework which 
provides a simple CMS, but more importantly offers a killer API for 
plug-ins and extensions.  I'm 100% convinced that the perfect CMS 
doesn't exist, but I hope that I can build one that meets basic needs, 
with unlimited scope for extensions.

I'm NOT building another blog tool (although there will be a blog 
plug-in), and I'm not building a bloated portal system that can do 
everything and anything (although the plug-in API would allow for it 
all)... what I'm building is a system that answers *my* common 
requirements, and hopefully those of a large number of developers out 
there in the process.

My assumption (and my need) is a system where the developer (me for 
example) sets up the site, creates the content models and templates, 
creates the CSS, hooks in new plug-ins (or even builds a new one), then 
hands it over to content writers and editors to run on a day-by-day 
basis.  As such, my target market isn't really website owners, but 
website developers acting on behalf of website owners.

Naturally the content-adding back-end will need to be usable by regular 
office staff, but the areas that the developers deal with (creating new 
content models and templates) will be quite raw (no need to write a 
template engine when PHP already is one, etc).

It's quite possible I've got this all wrong, and this isn't what other 
people want at all, but that's OK, because I still want it for me and 
my clients.  Even so, I'm keen to get the ball rolling on a wish-list 
of features (keeping in mind that this is supposed to be lightweight, 
allowing as much freedom as possible to develop add-ons) from everyone 
out there.


To start the ball rolling, here are a *few* of mine:

- LAMP based (possibly with a DB abstraction layer)
- page (rather than post) oriented, with regular dir & file hierarchy, 
simple SE friendly URLs, etc
- extensibility through a simple but open plug-in API
- works on a basic install of PHP (no recompiles and external libs)
- different content models (a news post is different to a recipe, blog 
post, tech article, etc etc)

Feel free to keep emails private or public, and if you want to be 
involved in Beta testing etc (and get a freebie in the process), just 
let me know.


Thanks,
Justin French

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RE: [WSG] New CMS / Framework

[Michael Kear]

I've looked at Farcry and like lots of my colleagues, I've decided it's too
far-removed from coldfusion to use.  Unless you're a spectra-head, the whole
dictionary of terminology is different and very arcane, I find.  I looked at
it very closely (I've got a lot at stake and some practical background with
CMS)  and decided that if you want to do what the developers of FarCry have
designed in, it's a piece of cake.  IF you want to do anything different,
you better be willing to learn an entire new vocabulary.

I don't think it was ever designed with shared environments in mind, and
finding out how to set it up for shared environments has been a long and
wearying road for me.  I'm still not willing to attempt setting it up on my
server.  There is a lot of the app outside the site, and that is a worry in
a shared environment.

One of the main reasons for having a CMS is you want to allow non-technical
people to update the site safely.   I tried my test app on a dozen
non-technical people, and not one of them could find out how to add a page
without having to be shown where it was.

In short, FarCry is a brilliant CMS, except that I think the development is
a spectra-head's dream, and they haven't had enough input from non-technical
people.   It's like a lot of stuff coming from Daemon - they always make me
feel like I'm a lesser class of mortal because I don't fly in the higher
stratosphere where they live, and I don't know every nuance of every
Macromedia product. 

My advice:  Look at FarCry.  If you need the features they've built into it,
and if you have your own server, fantastic. It's going to be quick and easy
to get up and going and you can spend your time building content.  If you
want anything different to what's provided in the product as delivered, you
better know a lot about spectra or be prepared to dump all your CF
terminology and learn new terminology.  If neither of these ... keep on
looking, or write your own.  

I've written my own with less than half the features but it does exactly
what I need and it took a fraction of the time to get going as my trial
FarCy install did.


Cheers
Mike Kear
Windsor, NSW, Australia
AFP Webworks
http://afpwebworks.com



-Original Message-
From: Mark Stanton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, 28 January 2004 5:22 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [WSG] New CMS / Framework

Hey Justin

That's a very big call - best of luck to you. But before you jump in can I
suggest you look at http://farcry.daemon.com.au. Ok its Coldfusion based &
not PHP, but CF will cost you a few thousand dollars & that is a tiny
amount to pay for a product (farcry) of this quality.

This is seriously a mature, powerful product & there is an extremely
active development community behind it. Please do yourself a favour & a
have a long hard look at this even if its just to review what a good CMS
should do.


Cheers

Mark


--
Mark Stanton
Technical Director
Gruden Pty Ltd
Tel: 9956 6388
Mob: 0410 458 201
Fax: 9956 8433
http://www.gruden.com


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