CSS Generator?

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!

-Ben Lisbakken

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.

Cédric H. wrote:

I think the best way is to write the (x)html and css code yourself...

Cedric! That's not what I want to hear!!! I'm weary of necessary hackery!

-Ben

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.

Ben Lisbakken wrote:

Why not just get the browser companies to implement the specifications properly so that interoperability issues cease to be an issue?

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... :slight_smile:

[1]www.webstandards.org

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.

Best regards

Peter De Berdt

if you are on a mac, there is rapidweaver , the design works on all browsers. iWeb from apple does the same thing too

True, but none of the above allow you to create your own style (unless you’re hand coding it, but that was not what the original poster wanted :-))

Best regards

Peter De Berdt

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.

Curious what bleeding edge features you typically avoid?

-Ryan

Jeff Barczewski wrote:

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":

http://positioniseverything.net/explorer.html

Bill Capolongo bill@breathedeep.org