quickstart: css framework evaluation

[iain duncan]

I think I will spend some time evaluating the state of the various css
frameworks for the quickstart templates. Thought I'd check first to see

a) what people think are important criteria
b) what people think are contenders or should be eliminated

It seems to me it makes the most sense to use a set of id and class tags
that are already being used by a good framework in order to add a level
of pluggability. Thoughts?

Iain


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[iain duncan]

On Sat, 2008-20-09 at 11:52 -0700, iain duncan wrote:

>
> I think I will spend some time evaluating the state of the various css
> frameworks for the quickstart templates. Thought I'd check first to see
>
> a) what people think are important criteria
> b) what people think are contenders or should be eliminated
>
> It seems to me it makes the most sense to use a set of id and class tags
> that are already being used by a good framework in order to add a level
> of pluggability. Thoughts?

Well, I spent a good afternoon looking through the leading contenders,
and pretty much ruled everyone one of them out for one reason or
another. The only thing close was Boilerplate ( and to a lesser extent,
Blueprint ) but that didn't seem to be coming with enough extras to
warrant it.) None of them were really designed with the criteria in mind
that we as programmers want.

I think I'm going to spend some time polishing up the rough stuff I've
been doing and publish it as a simple xhtml/css framework intended for
programmers, where decisions are made to reflect that we will likely be
using TAL templating, xml parsers, ajax dom swapping etc.

So if no one hears from me on this front for a bit, that's what's up.
Florent, how soon were you hoping to release a new welcome page?

Thanks
Iain



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[Florent Aide]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 5:57 AM, iain duncan <iainduncan@...> wrote:
>
>
> So if no one hears from me on this front for a bit, that's what's up.
> Florent, how soon were you hoping to release a new welcome page?
>

We will go through a few betas before 1.1 is marked as stable, I would
prefer to have the front page at least looking the same in all betas
though... but we could always warn people about this and let them play
with the beta with not too much worries.

I would like to have a stable 1.1 out by mid-october.

Florent.

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[iain duncan]

On Sun, 2008-21-09 at 17:26 +0200, Florent Aide wrote:

>
> On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 5:57 AM, iain duncan <iainduncan@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > So if no one hears from me on this front for a bit, that's what's up.
> > Florent, how soon were you hoping to release a new welcome page?
> >
>
> We will go through a few betas before 1.1 is marked as stable, I would
> prefer to have the front page at least looking the same in all betas
> though... but we could always warn people about this and let them play
> with the beta with not too much worries.
>
> I would like to have a stable 1.1 out by mid-october.

Sounds good.
Iain



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[Jorge Vargas]

On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 9:57 PM, iain duncan <iainduncan@...> wrote:

>
> On Sat, 2008-20-09 at 11:52 -0700, iain duncan wrote:
>>
>> I think I will spend some time evaluating the state of the various css
>> frameworks for the quickstart templates. Thought I'd check first to see
>>
>> a) what people think are important criteria
>> b) what people think are contenders or should be eliminated
>>
>> It seems to me it makes the most sense to use a set of id and class tags
>> that are already being used by a good framework in order to add a level
>> of pluggability. Thoughts?
>
> Well, I spent a good afternoon looking through the leading contenders,
> and pretty much ruled everyone one of them out for one reason or
> another. The only thing close was Boilerplate ( and to a lesser extent,
> Blueprint ) but that didn't seem to be coming with enough extras to
> warrant it.) None of them were really designed with the criteria in mind
> that we as programmers want.
>

I'm with you on that, they are nice tools but not good enough to learn
and then use.

> I think I'm going to spend some time polishing up the rough stuff I've
> been doing and publish it as a simple xhtml/css framework intended for
> programmers, where decisions are made to reflect that we will likely be
> using TAL templating, xml parsers, ajax dom swapping etc.
>
> So if no one hears from me on this front for a bit, that's what's up.
> Florent, how soon were you hoping to release a new welcome page?
>
> Thanks
> Iain
>
>
>
> >
>

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[Daniel Fetchinson]

> None of them were really designed with the criteria in mind
> that we as programmers want.

I think the reason is that css frameworks are used first and foremost
by designers and not programmers. Most of the time the programmer
doesn't even touch the templates let alone the css stuff. And the fact
is that designers don't think the way programmers do so css frameworks
most of the time are required to meet a different set of criteria.

But if you come up with a css framework which is geared towards
programmers I would be happy because in my (very) small scale projects
I'm the programmer, template author and designer in one :)

Cheers,
Daniel
--
Psss, psss, put it down! - http://www.cafepress.com/putitdown

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[iain duncan]

On Sun, 2008-21-09 at 12:50 -0700, Daniel Fetchinson wrote:

>
> > None of them were really designed with the criteria in mind
> > that we as programmers want.
>
> I think the reason is that css frameworks are used first and foremost
> by designers and not programmers. Most of the time the programmer
> doesn't even touch the templates let alone the css stuff. And the fact
> is that designers don't think the way programmers do so css frameworks
> most of the time are required to meet a different set of criteria.
>
> But if you come up with a css framework which is geared towards
> programmers I would be happy because in my (very) small scale projects
> I'm the programmer, template author and designer in one :)

That's precisely what I'm thinking. Something where the html structure
and id/classes are reflective of the kind of things we typically do when
parsing and selecting elements for template generation/iteration, dom
swapping, ajax submission, etc.

I think in general designers have an understandable love of very minimal
extra attributes, which makes sense for them. But structured attributes
and extra layers with specific functionality is really useful to coders.

It will no doubt take a few tries though! ;-)

Iain



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[ianb]

iain duncan wrote:
> I think I will spend some time evaluating the state of the various css
> frameworks for the quickstart templates. Thought I'd check first to see
>
> a) what people think are important criteria
> b) what people think are contenders or should be eliminated
>
> It seems to me it makes the most sense to use a set of id and class tags
> that are already being used by a good framework in order to add a level
> of pluggability. Thoughts?

I'm curious what you'll come up with, as the idea of a good CSS
framework is very compelling to me, in or out of TurboGears.  For me the
interest is more applying a common look-and-feel across systems, which
requires some sanity in CSS, and all stylesheets will have some degree
of insanity when they are developed organically from scratch.

I'd like something that uses more semantically-oriented class names
instead of some of the garbage names I've seen before.  I think the
reason for the garbage names is that there's lots of optional ways to
lay out the page, and you use different ids or class names depending on
the layout.  It seems much preferable to have some kind of builder that
creates a basic stylesheet based on layout preferences, and all layouts
use the same ids or class names (though of course some will have more
than others, e.g., 3-column will have classes a 2-column layout does not).

A good template for a stylesheet would also have a template for a style
guide.  For any substantial site I've worked on with multiple people
(including designers and programmers) some kind of style guide is really
helpful.  Generally a page that lists all the styles, i.e., all the
recommended tags, any special classes, and advice on where to use them.

I only looked into framework briefly many months ago, and wasn't
particularly happy with any I saw, so I'm afraid I have no advice on that.

--
Ian Bicking : ianb@... : http://blog.ianbicking.org

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[iain duncan]

On Sun, 2008-21-09 at 18:14 -0500, Ian Bicking wrote:

>
> iain duncan wrote:
> > I think I will spend some time evaluating the state of the various css
> > frameworks for the quickstart templates. Thought I'd check first to see
> >
> > a) what people think are important criteria
> > b) what people think are contenders or should be eliminated
> >
> > It seems to me it makes the most sense to use a set of id and class tags
> > that are already being used by a good framework in order to add a level
> > of pluggability. Thoughts?
>
> I'm curious what you'll come up with, as the idea of a good CSS
> framework is very compelling to me, in or out of TurboGears.  For me the
> interest is more applying a common look-and-feel across systems, which
> requires some sanity in CSS, and all stylesheets will have some degree
> of insanity when they are developed organically from scratch.
>
> I'd like something that uses more semantically-oriented class names
> instead of some of the garbage names I've seen before.  I think the
> reason for the garbage names is that there's lots of optional ways to
> lay out the page, and you use different ids or class names depending on
> the layout.  It seems much preferable to have some kind of builder that
> creates a basic stylesheet based on layout preferences, and all layouts
> use the same ids or class names (though of course some will have more
> than others, e.g., 3-column will have classes a 2-column layout does not).
>
> A good template for a stylesheet would also have a template for a style
> guide.  For any substantial site I've worked on with multiple people
> (including designers and programmers) some kind of style guide is really
> helpful.  Generally a page that lists all the styles, i.e., all the
> recommended tags, any special classes, and advice on where to use them.

Sounds like you're thinking on the same page as me, so I will certainly
send you some alpha ideas. I forget how much I hate IE6 until I sit down
to redesign things, aack.

Iain



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