urban75 coding

[Buddy Bradley]

But if you think converting 5,000+ handcoded pages to CSS layouts is some sort of simple job, you're very much mistaken. It would take, quite literally, months.

I wasn't suggesting you could do it over a weekend or anything - obviously it would be a long-term project.

Oh, and right now, converting to CSS wouldn't save me a penny.

Fair enough, then.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

No, any webmaster worth his salt would design for older browsers etc - and tables are still the best way of positioning stuff on a page.

Which page would that be, then? My 22" monitor? My 3" Palm? My 2" mobile phone? My widescreen TV?

The whole point of CSS (well maybe not the whole point, but an important aspect) is that it allows you to be more platform-agnostic with what you design. Plus making updates to the appearance of a site are limited to editing one file instead of thousands.

Which "older browsers" are you still designing for, then? IE4? Netscape 3? Why bother for something with less than 0.1% of browser share?

 

[5T3R30TYP3]

I think CSS is pooh.

I've only just started using it and I liked it at first, but as far as I'm aware you can only position things relative to other things, e.g. the distance between the left of the image and the left of the browser screen. As far as I'm aware there's no way of making the image stay in the centre of the screen. This is a pain in the arse for me, because I've been trying to make a javascript slideshow with both portrait and landscape. It's fine for the portrait ones, but as soon as a landscape picture comes up, it's off to the right of the screen instead of to the centre.

 

[editor]

I wasn't suggesting you could do it over a weekend or anything - obviously it would be a long-term project.

And in that same amount of time I could put up another 500 NYC photos, write and research several new features, update some sections etc etc... now, hmmm, which is the most important?



I know and understand all the arguments for CSS layouts, but for a site like this they come way down in my list of priorities.

 

[t0bytoo]

I did a few days html work at the bbc last century.
It was a mess. The people I was working with had a thing about *not* indenting the html code because "whitespace didn't render properly in 3.0 browsers".

No that this is relevant to the div tag debate, except to add that if I were to have the displeasure of making web pages again, I'd use good old table tags any day.

 

[sleaterkinney]

The whole point of CSS (well maybe not the whole point, but an important aspect) is that it allows you to be more platform-agnostic with what you design. Plus making updates to the appearance of a site are limited to editing one file instead of thousands.

I've yet to come across a site where thousands of pages could have the same design and be altered correctly all together... . CSS is fine for styles, but positioning across thousands of pages - you're having a laugh.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

I think CSS is pooh.

I've only just started using it and I liked it at first, but as far as I'm aware you can only position things relative to other things, e.g. the distance between the left of the image and the left of the browser screen. As far as I'm aware there's no way of making the image stay in the centre of the screen. This is a pain in the arse for me, because I've been trying to make a javascript slideshow with both portrait and landscape. It's fine for the portrait ones, but as soon as a landscape picture comes up, it's off to the right of the screen instead of to the centre.

Making the image stay in the center of the screen is siplicity itself:

body {
  text-align: center; // For IE5
}

img {
  margin: 0 auto;
  display: block;
}

That's the simplest way of doing it - the auto margins will magically centre the element in the page. Obviously you'd probably have some sort of frame or description there as well, in which case you'd apply the "margin: 0 auto" to the containing DIV.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

I've yet to come across a site where thousands of pages could have the same design and be altered correctly all together... . CSS is fine for styles, but positioning across thousands of pages - you're having a laugh.

Er, no I'm not. I use CSS perfectly happily to maintain a site of around a thousand pages; the HSBC, Nationwide, Lloyds TSB sites all use CSS to position elements site-wide (I work in the banking industry in case you couldn't tell!); or look at ESPN.com, which is a mahoosive site - all CSS - The Onion, another site with tons of content... I could go on.

IMHO you speak from a position of ignorance - done properly CSS can do everything you can do with tables, plus a lot more, plus it has accessibility, speed and maintainability benefits. It is the right way to build web pages.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Er, no I'm not. I use CSS perfectly happily to maintain a site of around a thousand pages; the HSBC, Nationwide, Lloyds TSB sites all use CSS to position elements site-wide (I work in the banking industry in case you couldn't tell!); or look at ESPN.com, which is a mahoosive site - all CSS - The Onion, another site with tons of content... I could go on.

IMHO you speak from a position of ignorance - done properly CSS can do everything you can do with tables, plus a lot more, plus it has accessibility, speed and maintainability benefits. It is the right way to build web pages.

You're a banker!. How could I mistake it, and a senior web designer at that!. How come you're own home page doesn't even display properly in IE6 then?

 

[Velouria]

You're a banker!. How could I mistake it, and a senior web designer at that!. How come you're own home page doesn't even display properly in IE6 then?

Because IE 6's CSS implementation is shit.

Everyone knows that

Another good reason to be a Luddite and stick to tables - fucked up browsers.

 

[editor]

Another good reason to be a Luddite and stick to tables - fucked up browsers.

Thing is, I know CSS is the way forward. I know that keeping content separate from formatting makes sense and that CSS has immense advantages over tables for accessibility and formatting for multiple screens.

I use CSS whenever I can, but if i want something done quickly and want to guarantee it'll display on just about every web capable browser ever created, tables will do the job for me.

I spent an hour this morning trying to sort out my Blogger pages to display in the right format. Five minutes with tables = job done.

 

[jæd]

Five minutes with tables = job done.

Its a "job done" for most onscreen browsers but for future proofing its better to go the extra distance and do it in css. From the pov as a backend developer css its great for getting rid of display code from data. Though ideally I would just give the frontend some xml to deal with...

Table positioning vs css usually seperates the men from the boys, and the hobbyist coders from professionals.

 

[editor]

Table positioning vs css usually seperates the men from the boys, and the hobbyist coders from professionals.

Or rather those with more time/resources at their disposal.

 

[jæd]

Or rather those with more time/resources at their disposal.

Thats the handy thing about doing 9-5... Can spend all afternoon switching a paragrah, left, up-a-bit, down-a-bit, and then back to the right.

 

[DG55]

You have to admit though, there is a certain pretentiousness around the whole CSS massive.

 

[Velouria]

Its a "job done" for most onscreen browsers but for future proofing its better to go the extra distance and do it in css. From the pov as a backend developer css its great for getting rid of display code from data. Though ideally I would just give the frontend some xml to deal with...

Table positioning vs css usually seperates the men from the boys, and the hobbyist coders from professionals.

You mean the people with enough patience to work around all the bugs in the CSS implementation in various browsers ... Why use CSS when it will screw up for the majority of your users and cause you to tear your hair out?

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

??? some fantasic sites are done in tables just because CSS is nicer code doesn't mean you can't produce a solid site tables

 

[jæd]

You mean the people with enough patience to work around all the bugs in the CSS implementation in various browsers ... Why use CSS when it will screw up for the majority of your users and cause you to tear your hair out?

You can charge more... Using CSS == brighter developers == higher hourly rate

 

[jæd]

??? some fantasic sites are done in tables just because CSS is nicer code doesn't mean you can't produce a solid site tables

Nicer code is usually more maintable and more elegant. This is the problem the Editor has. At the moment the U75 site data is tightly integrated with how it is displayed. Remove this connection and you can switch the portrayed display with ease.

And I always feel code should be elegant. Any idiot can churn out unimaginative, boilerplate code. It takes someone with quality to produce quality code.

 

[editor]

And I always feel code should be elegant. Any idiot can churn out unimaginative, boilerplate code. It takes someone with quality to produce quality code.

If you have sufficient time/resources at your disposal, of course.

But hey! Call me old fashioned if you will, but I tend to judge a page on the quality of its content, not how pretty the code behind the page is.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

You're a banker!. How could I mistake it, and a senior web designer at that!. How come you're own home page doesn't even display properly in IE6 then?

Looks fine to me.

 

[Pingu]

i think the site would look much nicerer using frames and some of those pretty flash animations....

 

[fractionMan]

i think the site would look much nicerer using frames and some of those pretty flash animations....

Me too. It needs some sound effects as well...

 

[cybertect]

Let's get old-skool - I think it's time for a BLINK tag revival.

 

[fractionMan]

Lest we forget the horrors of <marquee></marquee>

 

[Pingu]

so we are agreed then

some nice frames with a flash menu.

updates to be provided by marque text in comic sans that blinks whilst a nice soothing midi file loops in the background.

and dont forget to change the mouse pointer to something humorous with trails.


ed

over to you

 

[jayeola]

could we also have a "this site is best viewed with..." thingie

 

[Wintermute]

And snowflakes. We need snowflakes.

 

[cybertect]

could we also have a "this site is best viewed with..." thingie

Best viewed with lynx,perhaps? That would be cool.