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legolas558
Tableless output (moved)
09 June 2007 00:31
Anonymous Quote:

If somebody is interested in tableless Drake-Output:
The frontpage is already finished, the rest (labels for 508) comes in a newer version:
My Drake-CMS Demo in Germany
valid xhtml transitional, few changes and its strict smile
Please visit in firefox, the template needs a workaround, i got only one or two hours
Sorry for the advertisement, its a free hoster

greetings
Marc
 
legolas558
Re : Tableless output (moved)
09 June 2007 01:03
Anonymous Our CSS is going to change radically in the next v0.4.4, I hope this will not cause too many troubles to your templates...

Anyway it won't be difficult to update them, and the CSS of v0.4.4 will be almost definitive till v1.0 (it will be simpler, too).

We are really interested in table-less output, specifically those of components (modules, drabots).

Now two questions:
  1. would you be interested in working on the core Drake CMS components (and modules/drabots later, if you wish) with the purpose of removing unnecessary tables? We would of course assist you with the informations (already published on the Developer manual) needed for the new CSS restructuration (which I am doing with R.Savarese); we usually talk about this on the drakecms-developers mailing list or via IM

  2. are you interested in mantaining the templates that you would like to publicly release on the Drake CMS project SVN? We could also arrange a release for them

About XHTML 1.1 Strict: we are also interested in that! See the most recent message which I have recently posted about WCAG on the drakecms-developers mailing list (currently 500 server error from SF.net sad).

If you are going to collaborate, you will be listed as a project member and (at your option, if you can/want use SVN) given SVN write access so that you can directly apply the fixes for standards compliance to the Drake CMS core.
 
siedlerchr
Re: Tableless output (moved)
09 June 2007 01:53
Anonymous Your template looks good... the pages load faster and I like it, it is very easy...

I will wait vor the new css codes and then I will do my own template...
 
marc
Re : Tableless output
09 June 2007 06:59
Anonymous Edit:

the link above is down, it was only a demo.
Shortly my own page starts, there you can pursue the changes in the in each case current version.

Greetings
Marc
 
legolas558
Re : Tableless output
09 June 2007 16:46
Anonymous Actually there is not such PM feature (yet wink).

Don't worry about the dictionary, as far as we understood each other that's ok.

Welcome aboard Marc!

(to other readers: I have contacted Marc and he's going to be an official Drake CMS project member)
 
phpmaster
Re : Tableless output
10 June 2007 11:35
Anonymous smile

1. Using HTML tables
2. Table-less design = css boxes
3. Use both, for maximum options

I also 'got afraid' I could not use <table> anymore.
So I have learnt howto use CSS Boxes, the basic use.
But now I read from Experienced & good CSS teachers

it is not always bad / wrong to use tables
... not even in XHTML.
XHTML Standard accepts the use of normal tables!
... but you put most attributes in your CSS Style


And I have found, at this stage of CSS version
there are times when you have to limit yourself in coding layout
or make 'crazy fixes' to get it together 100%
when using Only CSS Boxes.


Read for example this nice article
Quote:
This should really be a defence against slander and libel. People tell lies about layout tables, and here is a response to the most important of those lies. It takes the form of a defence against a criminal charge because that is how too many people see it.

http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/articles/layout_tables/defence.htm

This is not the only article like that, you may find, if you www.google.com a little bit.
There are 'fundamentalists' in everything. Not only in Religion
and foreign Affairs Politics. Like making war will solve terror.
But to be fundmentalist, is not to be Open.
It will restrict your self and put onto you SOME LIMITATIONS.
... you are not free to use a better method, alternative, in case of need. smile

Rigidity is opposite of Flexibilty

Bottomline:
- CSS is great and <div boxes are super> !!!
- In some few cases, we run into trouble, and the easy thing is to use <table> Perfect!
- It is not the case of 'either or'. It is for me the actual situation,
that will decide when I use CSS Box or TABLE

Regards, phpmaster smile
 
legolas558
Re: Re : Tableless output
10 June 2007 16:41
Anonymous Great post phpmaster, thanks. I have read those pages (I also read something similar in the past, and from both the points of view).

I would also to restate my compliments to Marc for having experimented table-less output with Drake CMS, but as written in our CSS conventions we reserve the right to use tables when other CSS techniques are not satisfactory.

The current development is progressing in the following way:
  1. restructuration of CSS, that will have a much more easy to understand model that will exploit CSS inheritance

  2. review of all components, modules and any other output generator in order to reduce tables in favor of <div>s (this might be tricky to accomplish if (1) is not yet finished)

  3. we do not plan to edit the official templates (their index.php files) to totally remove the tables, but since now Marc has joined and he will probably develop new official templates we might also see one or more table-less templates (in separate releases or even into the official distribution, if they have the same flexibility as the normal templates). This, combined with (2), might lead Drake CMS to an almost full table-less output but even if we encourage the usage of alternatives to tables, we are aware of the fact that CSS has still room for improvements and we will not deprecate tables.

  4. as already explained, there are places where not using a table (think about the event calendar module) would not be feasible

  5. we also want to reduce tables in order to improve readability (both human and for parsers) of the XHTML source: an output which uses <div>s is much easier to mantain than one which uses <table>s

  6. as documented by our features tracker, we tried to achieve table-less output but realized what has been written above and in our documentation: technology not yet mature enough

NOTE: these positions do not mean that the discussion ends here, but instead offer a hook to the current status of the discussion: we are always open to new designers and new ideas, if somebody tells us that we are wrong about something and proposes a better idea (and we hope that he will also join and help in order to develop his new idea smile) we will of course change our mind, we are not (yet) stubborn project leaders sideways
 
phpmaster
Re : Re: Re : Tableless output
10 June 2007 14:19
Anonymous smile
thanks, legolas

I try to share my experiences and stuff I know
as good I can
it might help some people

In this case, by your last post,
looks like we think the same.
this does not say, that that other ways of thinking/doing are 'bad' or so

in time, we may get improved CSS versions


.. one key thing, is if most major browsers
like IE, Mozilla, Opera,
will accept to code according W3C CSS standard

right now, things are not optimal (especially Bill Gates Microsoft IE7 is a Sinner. angry)
This certainly gives us webpage coders some problems.

Personally I usually
test all PHP HTML XHTML I offer for Public,
using:

- 1. Firefox latest
- 2. Opera latest
- 3. Internet Explorer 7
- 4. Netscape Bowser 8.0.4, based on Firefox


cool When my CSS/HTML page/pages looks same,
in all these major Browser ( maybe 98% of all Users/visitors )
... Then I can relax smile

====================================================


A lot of work YES!
I can tell YOU, you have to experiment and Be Smart.
coding/recoding change coding/recoding again

And I have this Firm Policy: NOT USE Any 'fixes' !!!!
no fixes in java, not in HTML and no FIXES in CSS.[/b]


When we start using 'fixes', we will fix this thing For Them
angryAnd they can go on breaking agreed, recommended CSS standard angry
in Internet Explorer 8 etc.
... such standard 'crimes' Against Humanity,
should not be encouraged


Regards, phpmaster smile
 
legolas558
Re: Re : Re: Re : Tableless output
10 June 2007 15:16
Anonymous Yes phpmaster, I think we share the same position.

Unfortunately I cannot personally test on all those browsers (I am mostly a core coder, so I rely on other testers).

I am also against 'fixes' or 'hacks' of any type, but unfortunately today's javascript is a mess, mostly due to IE5/IE6 implementations (I don't know how much standard compliant is IE7's, but surely better than its predecessors); so until all browsers will consistently implement ECMAscript we will have to use 'hacks' to differentiate between IE and other browsers. This is true not only for Drake CMS but for almost any other web application which uses javascript sadThe subset of commonly supported/consistent functions is too much small to do anything useful with javascript, so nowadays javascript code is full of IE-specific checks sad
However, we always try to minimize the usage of such hacks and priviledge functionality for standards-compliant browsers; respecting the standards is a matter of opening the market, while not respecting it is a matter of exploiting a monopoly.

If it were for me, I would code without any hack at all (and this is the guideline for Drake CMS anyway) but since Drake CMS currently covers Firefox, Opera, Avant, MSIE6 and MSIE7, we have to be very careful. The worst standard-compliant browser is MSIE6, as far as I have seen.

Anyway, there is no browser-specific feature of Drake CMS; we use the 'hacks' to fill the holes of the non-standard-compliant browser, where necessary, and always prefer alternative standard-compliant solutions.

If future versions of IE will introduce new issues, we might also consider dropping the support for it (it is not a choice that I can do alone, and you probably have understood my position, but the whole Drake CMS Team would be enquiried).
 
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