Trip is in denial? CSS vs HTML

uoba

uoba

Re: member
Er... no contest really.

Although sometimes the pain is hard to bear whilst initially learning CSS, the benefits are huge.

Some points:

-- You will have to learn XHTML whether you like it or not (otherwise you'll be doing the equivalent to using HTML3 against v4!) HTML will be eventually a second class citizen.
-- Learning XHTML is soooo easy.
-- By learning XHTML and CSS you'll learn to structure your code correctly, making it sometimes 25% of the code you would normally use in HTML, and ...
-- elevate the pain of table code.

Anyone else?
 
Oh yes, and it will make you stop using Dreamweaver :)
I do all my design by handcoding now, with CSS and XHTML. Man, that stuff rocks. I am making my site to the Strict doctype. :D
It is sooooo much better than Dreamweaver's glop.
 
dlloyd knows his stuff!
here is a quick rundown - xhtml is = html 4 but all tags need to be closed and lowercase (<br />, not <br> and <p>.....</p>).
Do not use any attributes on elements except for id, class, title, href, rel, alt (yes there are more but this will keep you in the blue). Don't use tag's like <i> or <b>, use <em> or <strong> and give them a style.
And css is ez! <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="./example/style.css"> links your document to a style sheet, and the sheet is a selector { attribute: value; }.
There are more tutorials on css all over the internet you couldn't ever read them all, just go read a few and you will be fine! Also for the official css standards, go to The W3
 
i'll weigh in on this subject. :)

I LOVE using CSS. Still haven't crossed over to the xhtml stuff primarily (I work in jsp and java more often for work), but play a little.

check these great sites out though:
www.devshed.com - for the css n00b. VERY insightful and easy to pickup tutorials. they get you going on the basics REALLY fast.

www.csszengarden.com - very awesome project. take the contents of one page, and basically only alter the css document. look at all the different results you can get by just changing the css!!! shows just how powerful css can be.
 
Uh, guys... what you said so far in this thread - DreamWeaver MX 2004 does...

And I haven't yet bothered to learn XHTML (not bored enough yet! lol) but I DO use CSS now. With DreamWeaver of course. :p
 
Don't get me started on MX 2004, it may work, but it's dog slow! Plus, it's only catching with what can be very quickly done by hand (and since I've been doing 80% of my code by hand recently, I realised that I work faster than using the new CSS options in MX 2004).
 
Originally posted by Sogni
Uh, guys... what you said so far in this thread - DreamWeaver MX 2004 does...
Click to expand...
Yes but:

- the code is heavier = more bandwidth = $$$ (do you imagine what this forum would spare in terms of badndwidth if built with CSS ?)
- the code won't validate = browsers understand it in Quirk mode = longer to load (same remark about this forum)
- DWMX costs $$$, professionals know this, pirates don't (not accusing you, obviously)

Less evident reasons:
- you are not learning anything with DWMX, while you are with BBEdit
- how to improve your code if you don't know what it's like ?

I can only weigh on the topic by saying that XHTML and more especially CSS are the future. Those standards make code lighter, faster, accessible, easier to read, cross-platform and this is a non-exhaustive list. Everyone concerned by webdesign knows this. Now, some people know this and stick with tables and obsolete coding anyway. Why ?

- Neither time or will to learn
- No $$$ to buy new programs
- No will to upgrade existing stuff

Of course, I don't consider those reasons as valid myself (reason 2 is the most ambiguous). But still, I can uunderstand those people.

The Web designing community moves slowly. Same for the DTP industry: some people have switched to InDesign, some stick with Quark. They know it's stupid, but either they cannot move, either they don't want to. I'm this last type of guy, I'm a Quark reactionary although I'm a progressist CSS guy on the Web. Schizoid ! :D

Post summary
Trip, move your bum and learn CSS/XHTML :p
 
I use code and design view in DW so I'm always aware of what the code is doing - and a lot of the time I'm coding in code-view while I can see the results instantly in design-view (of course not the same as a browser, but close enough without saving all the time).

I also like the fact that DW tells me if I've done a mistake in my code and spell-checks. Plus it tells me about options for a specific tag without the need of a tag dictionary. :p

I do not have DW2004 only for a demo I used that is now expired - and while using it I noticed all those new tags, XHTML compatibility, etc.

I will be purchasing Macromedia Studio XM 2004 once I have the money. :)

Pirating Software is not something I care about on my Mac. I run my business on my Mac and all the design programs I use are 100% legit. Altho I'll admit to borrowing software from others to try out since I'm not sure if it's something I care about before dropping any money on - like GoLive - nope, don't care about it, good thing I didn't drop any money on it! Actually, that's the only borrowed software I have now that I think of it! heh :p
 
Okay, I'm sure Trip plans to learn XHTML/CSS at some point, but he's just too lazy to do it now... stop badgering him about it.

Sogni, try this. Design two similar sites, one with DW and one by hand. Make them somewhat fancy using (X)HTML and CSS, but not necessarily anything really flashy. Then see which technique you like better, and which produces code you like better.

cf25: XHTML is the future of HTML. It provides for stricter control over your code, making tags all lowercase, closing all tags, using style sheets to control formatting instead of tables & tags, etc. Read more at www.w3.org.
 
I'm pretty sure he was joking... besides, you didn't need to talk about Trip in the title.
 
"what is the benefit of xhtml vs html?"

Increased semantical coherence. All tags close. Read about that on www.w3.org . Anyway, both resemble each other very much.
 
basically xhtml is just writing clean html 4 code. There are a few new elements, and some elements didn't make it from html4 to xhtml1, but the biggest difference is that you need to close all elements, and to close an <img> element, you need to do <img />. Simple!
 
Another factor of XHTML is, it's a big plan to get rid of proprietary (IE-NS-specific) browser code as well. Which is a truly good thing! :)
 
Basically you guys are saying that doing something manually by hand instead of in GoLive (or dreamweaver...which I don't have) is easier, and I just can't understand how that can be! Please enlighten me with specifics.
 
Another quick question: can I just design what I need to in GoLive, then take it into TextEdit clean up the code with *some* XHTML code and then change the file type to .xhtml? Will that please some people? Or do I have to go the extra 50 miles and do it all in text edit?
 
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