Does anyone know of a program that lets you graphically design a
website, and have it output the html + css including any css hackery
to make it work on all browsers. (all browsers specifically means
making it work on IE bleh!).
I would die for a program that does this without writing spaghetti
code!
I think the best way is to write the (x)html and css code yourself…
Some generators like ( NVU http://www.nvu.com/index.php ) are quite
good ( valid xhtml and css ). But you still have to write hacks ( IE,
IE7, …) yourself.
also, does anybody know of a program that reads your mind, suggests
better ideas, and then actually draws the photoshop’d mockup for you?
i’m just joshin’, but seriously, ben, i think a lot of us would be out
of work if such a program existed. also, no search query that i can
think of is turning up anything remotely helpful, and that’s using
google and a few others.
Why not just get the browser companies to implement the
specifications properly so that interoperability issues cease
to be an issue?
Like, what the Web Standards group[1] tries to do?
But, it’s a little more complicated than that. If you’ve followed along
with Dave Hyatt’s blog back when Safari first launch and/or read the
Firefox/Camino dev blogs, you’ll read about how certain parts in the
W3’s spec are just very vague. And from this vagueness in the spec,
you’ll also see some very interesting arguments and different
interpretations between the browser developers on what they think the
spec means on a particular rule and why the other guy’s implementation
is wrong.
Additionally, building an XML, HTML, CSS, and Javascript rendering
engine ain’t exactly trivial… Take a look at a nightly Safari build
and note all the test case files in that sucka…
Does anyone know of a program that lets you graphically design a
website, and have it output the html + css including any css hackery
to make it work on all browsers. (all browsers specifically means
making it work on IE bleh!).
I would die for a program that does this without writing spaghetti
code!
Well, that’s always going to be the problem, isn’t it. You’re
basically asking a computer app to write semantic XHTML. This is
quite hard for a program. When you write your XHTML by hand, you
interpret the design and divide it into logical semantic parts, very
hard for software. You could have a look at Freeway Pro, it’s an
Indesign like editor and renders to XHTML+CSS. However, just like any
WYSIWYG editor, the code generated is a lot more bloated than if you
would write it by hand.
And to promote this activity, I try to only use pure xhtml and css,
nothing browser specific. Also helps if you don’t use the latest and
greatest features but a version or two back, that way there is a
better chance that things are somewhat supported.
Following this approach you can do a pretty good job of avoiding
browser specific versions. You don’t have access to every latest and
greatest feature, but for the most part it is stuff you can live
without. It just isn’t worth the headaches to manage multiple versions
of things. And I never really trust anything that tries to
automatically work around things either, it all works fine until that
next version of a browser comes out and breaks it.
Just stay with pure xhtml and css, don’t use the latest bleeding edge
features and save yourself most of the headaches.
And to promote this activity, I try to only use pure xhtml and css,
nothing browser specific…Just stay with pure xhtml and css, don’t use the latest > bleeding edge features and save yourself most of the headaches.
This is excellent advice, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t still
landmines all over the place.
Differences in how browser developers interpreted the specs, and CSS
bugs, particularly Internet Explorer bugs, keep things interesting.
For example, “the weird and wonderful world of Internet Explorer”: