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Joined: 4/11/2006
Posts: 4
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I have read all threads on the asp.net forum regarding css and xhtml in Dot Net Nuke. Resently there was a change of things, as the good O'Brien made a tutorial for getting Dot Net Nuke to output valid xhtml code. Read the thread here, good reading!also there is one related thread here, make sure to read that one too. So when you now are up to speed on what this is about, lets think about what we can do about this. I have seen people posting comments like, pure css in dnn is a lostcause, do not bother. Css will make dnn break. Well in my opinion neither css nor xhtml makes dnn break. Dnn makes dnn break, with pure css and xhtml valid skin. And no I am not crazy, thank you. There have been made choices along the development of dnn, and the one choise I would like to change is to follow the excisting standards. If you take a closer look at O'Brien's tutorial you will see how few changes to the dnn that actually will make it valid. Sure this is just one example, and to make the core as a whole validate is more work, but doable. Other comments like "xhtml and css is alost cause because it is impossible to implement in a dynamic database driven inviroment" is just as wrong. There are dozens of dynamic database driven project out there today that have valid output code, yet maintain a true css driven layout and design. If you take a look at the MySQL PHP world, you will see lots of them, and funny thing, the dynamic content does Not break the framework. There are written pages on pages on standards and why to follow them, but we see all the time that companies or OS projects choose to not follow a certain standard. Sometimes that can be a valid thought through choice, but for many projects it could just as well be that they where not aware of the advatages by following such a standard, or that they do not know how to implement the standard. I am ot sure what reasson the dnn team had when they made a chioce to write the code in a way that made it not valid. Nor is it importent. What I find of high importance is to get a general debate of what can be done to meet the standard, and have valid output xhtml code from the dnn. Sure it is not over night, but the sooner the debate starts, the sooner we have solution. This is importent both for the core team, but also for individual that develop modules, and skin developer as well. I will write more tomorrow, make a little pro and con article. For now, enjoy the links and please be a good boy and place your thoughts here.
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www.portvista.com
Joined: 2/20/2006
Posts: 438
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You have to be more clear on what you're talking about. I thought the "debate" was using tables or not, but I believe XHTML still allows tables unless they've changed it.
But the problem with just blindly following the W3C standards is that not all browsers render them the same way. In some cases, you get content that doesn't even show up. For example, since I've made the switch to FireFox, I've seen many more mangled website, and these are usually tabless designs.
Blindly going pure XHTML or whatever new standard of the day is, is wrong fundamentally. You are choosing to support a standard, instead of choosing to support the browsers people are using. I can think of cases everyday where I've adding tags or done something anti-XHTML in order to support older browsers. I do it so I don't get complaints from clients still using 8 year old computers.
Web designers need to realize they are application developers, now developing for more browsers than ever. Another support to my point is, look at every XHTML tutorial website out there, and you will see some sort of IE/Netscape/Mozilla compatibility grid. Every tip and trick will have a disclaimer on what browsers this will work with. We truely are developing for the browser application, not the standard.
But I do see in DNN where they could make it more XHTML, especially in the language files where you're forced to use invalid XHTML a lot of times just to make it work.
I'd also like the DTD to be defined by the skin, and not DNN, as having a sitewide DTD makes no sense, and can break skins.
Edit: Ok I give up until DNN switches their RTE and forums to something that actually works with non-IE browsers!
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www.dotnetnuke-websites.nl
Joined: 5/4/2004
Posts: 498
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Maybe if you edit your last line and change it to a somewhat friendlier tone, you might actually have people respond on the subject of your thread. At least I would.
Peter
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www.dnncreative.com
Joined: 9/26/2005
Posts: 317
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To throw my 2 pennies into the pot... There's a new way of thinking coming about in terms of designing with CSS and compatibility with browsers. - This is coming from the yahoo developers, called Graded Browser Support http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/gbs.htmlBasically the idea is that you code your CSS for the most recent browsers, so this would be Firefox, Mozilla, IE7, IE6 (in standards compliance mode), etc. - If you programme these correctly you should have no problems. - I find Firefox to be more reliable than IE6 and always begin coding and viewing in Firefox. The next stage is then to degrade your site for the older browsers. There is a table here of what browsers they degrade their site for: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/gbs_browser-chart.html - So IE5.0 will get a more minimal look (perhaps just text and no images) Netsacpe 4 will definitely just get text etc. This way the modern browser display the site in full glory and the older browsers can still display the content without corruption but without the full fancy layout. - Have a read of the article, it's very interesting. Having a site that produces valid XHTML code will allow us to produce more reliable CSS skins. - Why would we want to produce CSS skins? Accessibility - to quote from one of my articles: A further consideration is that it is law in the US and UK to create accessible sites. American National Federation for the Blind are suing Target over
their inaccessible website, after alerting them to the problem months
ago and seeing no remedial action - even though the fixes would be
trivial.
There has been interesting comments from the web development community which unfortunately demonstrates an ignorance to accessibility. This is well summed up in Bruce Lawson’s blog
Another interesting fact is that 25% of all web users have some kind of accessibility problem. (This is a claim from the Danish Centre for Accessibility.) Another reason for implementing CSS is: search engine friendly skin design, small page file sizes, quicker page load times, less bandwidth used (costs savings), etc.
www.espn.com implement CSS design and (according to a book from 2003) receive 10 million daily visitors and through this made massive savings in bandwidth.
Another consideration is future proofing / forward compatibility and reducing future development / design times / lower maintenance costs: - Take for instance a site that you have designed in tables and all of the text is formatted with in-line styles etc. - A year later you want to change the design of this site. - You now have to manually edit every single page to change the inline styles and play around with a new table design.
If you implement this with CSS - You just alter a few lines of code from your CSS file to styles the text, quote boxes, images etc. for the entire site. - For the layout, your content is already placed in a "Nav" area so if you want this to be moved to the top rather than on the left, you just simply change the details in the CSS code.
The next step to this is that if your page just consists of the text rather than the design, this means you are offering more support to nontraditional devices such as web enabled phones, pdas, screen readers, braille readers etc. (accessibility)
Why do you want an accessible website? to get your site exposed to as many people as possible...
Here's some articles that maybe of interest:
creating XHTML compliant code
Become a better web standards developer
Browser Quirks and Standards Compliance Modes
I agree on the DOC TYPE feature, this would be very handy to set it within admin settings for a portal or from a skin rather than editing the default.aspx file.
If you look around the web design scene outside of DotNetNuke it is turning more and more to CSS. Designers clients are demanding CSS, fully accessible, validating sites. - What will you do when your client becomes aware of accessibility, validation etc. and demands a fully compliant website? Dump DotNetNuke? I hope not, personally I think we need to address these issues now while we are in the Transitional phase so that we can deliver the future demands of our web design clients and the web community in general.
Anyway, my thoughts for the morning, thanks,
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www.berrydigital.com.au
Joined: 1/23/2004
Posts: 1961
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You'll find Trond Rund is looking to fork DNN. He hopes that there will be enough support from other DNN members to support his own personal project, as his motiviation is purely personal. I have conversed with him and was under the impression based on his posts he was going to turn the world upside down by providing solutions.
I offered to work with him in this area since he seems present his knowledge rather vocally. He indicated he wasn't really interested, yet blatantly states here that we need to listen. I didn't just listen, I responded to his obvious interest and found his comments appear contradictory. Unless of course he's looking for other core team members.
He's more interested in doing a DNN fork, and building a feature rich product for his own purpose, and I'm still waiting for some great proof of all his talents. As far as I can see here, I'm looking very hard for your examples, areas of expertiese you believe you have, instead of whining and whinging on these forums.
You are anonymous, no identity, no website to my knowledge, and your explicit comments about wanting to fork DNN and divide the community, get a few people to muster up enough interest to help you with your own project, rather than offering to extend DNN for others to enjoy, simply make this a hardly credible thread.
Oh.. and by the way- March 11 post by you
>>>
I will get to work, and keep working over the weekend. Hopefully I will have lots of great skins done when moday morning comes. And now they will validate. Fast loading time will get a new meaning, along with a much more usefriendly design. I will link your page for all the sites I will put up using your tutorial. And I will try to drink less beer this month so I can make a donation to you. Fantastic!
>>>
Which Monday was that?
Please don't discredit the very talented and generouse DNN community, our forum readers, those who genuinely try to contribut in any way we can, with //EDITED POST// NO money in return and expect to be welcomed with open arms. I personally emailed you to see where we could make some changes, which you rejected. So don't say no one listens.
Trond, perhaps I have to admit.. php and MySQL are good for some.. 
Nina Meiers
Nina Meiers My Little Website
If it's on DNN, I fix, build, deploy, support,skin, host, design, consult, implement, integrate and done since 2003.
Who am I? Just a city chic, having a crack at organic berry farming.. and creating awesome websites.
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