On 12/07/2004, at 9:22 AM, James Ellis wrote:
Hi
I do just this for a reseller based product. One set of markup styled with CSS based on the client's 'look n feel' requirements. All done with floats and works off the bat with all modern browsers and some older ones like IE5.x for both platforms.
It took me a while to do it but once done I haven't looked back as previously the markup was copied per reseller. Takes a day or so for me to work up the style for a new site based on the client's spec.
It can be done, you just have to make the markup as free of any style as possible. i.e just boxes in a page.
Exactly. A framework will not work, but having CMS's offer default templates which have very clean, simple mark-up and a simple default style sheet will make is easy for developers to come in over the top with style sheets which can re-skin that content, and if needed, add to the templates.
However, if the CMS vendor doesn't have a visually pleasing default skin, they probably won't get enough sales. It's a fine line, which requires a lot o though on behalf of the template designers.'
In other words, it probably should not be done by one of the lead programmers, unless they're also well versed in clean mark-up, CSS positioning, accessibility and standards. You could consider designing them some new default templates :)
FWIW, that's why the blogger re-launch included skins designed by some of the industry leaders, like Zeldman and Bowman.
Cheers James
Justin French wrote:
On 10/07/2004, at 1:29 PM, Geoff Deering wrote:
Do others think about CSS, design and layouts from the point of view of
flexible, extensible frameworks? I'm sure a lot of us try and design our
own sites like that so that we can reuse our own components.
I think it's possible for such frameworks to exist, but the reality is that each user of the framework will fall into one of two categories:
1. They're using the framework, but the framework is overkill with many containers and elements which simply aren't needed in the scope of the project, or
2. They're trying to use the framework, but technical limitations won't let them achieve the visual or business goals they've set.
Plone, Textpattern, etc could all have nicer default layouts and frameworks, but the reality is that nearly every project is different, and needs it's own solution. ZenGarden-like interchaning stylesheets on many similar sites would be great, but it's all pie-in-the-shy to me -- it will be overkill for some, and too limiting for others.
--- Justin French http://indent.com.au
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