Thread

Moderator’s note: Moved to The Lounge.

What if you are not looking for CMS or web APP development just quality rapid Web PAGE development.  Is there an open source tool or framework to do that.  Obviously Pagemaker (but not free).  Aptana is cool but very limited in WYSWIG.  Any suggestions?

Depending on your knowledge and experience, any simple text editor, and a browser will do. If you need point and click, then there are still plenty of editors available, many with live preview (Mac or Windows), some free, some not so much.

After building a few dozen pages of a web site, and having to make changes to each when a tweak is required, users begin to understand the beauty of a CMS.

For a quality Rapid development I would suggest frameworks. I personally am partial to the 960 Grid. It is lightweight and really helps with cross browser support as well. There are others as well. Yaml, YUI, and others.

I like the idea behind the 960 grid but haven’t found that using it is any more rapid than starting from scratch with a completed design and layout. It’s almost trivial to use CSS to layout the framework for a good design, whether using an official, pre-constructed layout or not. Besides, as soon as I adopt the 960 grid for everything then another new framework/standard will come along. It’s how my friends pick stocks. They watch what I buy then buy something else.

😛

You are correct that in the future we will probably move to a wider format (1140px anyone?), but I disagree with your thought that the CSS is driving the design. The grid is driving the design as it should any design within reason. That said I have not seen a framework that was as easy to use as the 960 partially because it is pretty durn simple. And what happens when we widen the width of the sites we develop? Just slap in a new CSS that changes the standard widths and the site would update no? The grid would stay the same but the widths of each column would change to be a bit wider. I recently took a design and went from nothing to completed website in less than 2 days. They weren’t even full days. And I consider myself pretty handy at CSS….

YMMV.

I’m with Marcus on this one. I built my new design using 960.gs and found it much faster, even with the time I spent learning the system it saved me time, mostly because I didn’t have to go back and fix anything in IE.

In the future I intend to use 960.gs as much as possible.

You are correct that in the future we will probably move to a wider format (1140px anyone?)...

I’ve toyed with a framework for 1140 and others. Mac and PC screens are wider these days, so something beyond 960 should pop up on the horizon soon…

but I disagree with your thought that the CSS is driving the design. The grid is driving the design as it should any design within reason.

I don’t remember implying that CSS “is driving the design” since the CSS layout gets applied to the design. Though one could argue that design should include the constraints of both HTML and CSS (and often that’s not the case, requiring an education process for the designer).

I do agree that a grid helps to drive the design portion of web site building, though.

That said I have not seen a framework that was as easy to use as the 960 partially because it is pretty durn simple.

Agreed. Now if we could only get some kind of certification process going for designers so they would adhere to the standard.

😉

And what happens when we widen the width of the sites we develop? Just slap in a new CSS that changes the standard widths and the site would update no? The grid would stay the same but the widths of each column would change to be a bit wider. I recently took a design and went from nothing to completed website in less than 2 days. They weren’t even full days. And I consider myself pretty handy at CSS…

Theoretically, yes, and that’s even an objective to work toward. One problem I’ve run into, and I don’t expect to go away, is using a set framework grid (whether 960 or larger or whatever) while ad sizes continue to be dynamic and change. Some ad sizes these days don’t fit well in some grids.

Apologies. I misunderstood when you stated…

It’s almost trivial to use CSS to layout the framework for a good design, whether using an official, pre-constructed layout or not.

To os.hybrid there are generally two trains of thought. The first is people (not saying you Ronnie 😉 that like to just keep snippets of code that they have a tendency to reuse with minor modifications. And then there are others that do that as well but really like the structure of a framework and the additional capabilities it provides. What you have to do is try some on for size. I tried 2-3 frameworks and a roll your own before settling on 960 and fell in love. So give it a shot.

To os.hybrid there are generally two trains of thought… that like to just keep snippets of code that they have a tendency to reuse with minor modifications.

Well, that I do plenty. I love to recycle, whether it’s a whole framework, snippets, or whatever.

And then there are others that do that as well but really like the structure of a framework and the additional capabilities it provides. What you have to do is try some on for size. I tried 2-3 frameworks and a roll your own before settling on 960 and fell in love. So give it a shot.

I did one with the 960 grid and it came out OK until there was a need to change some of the ad sizes. That’s likely an ongoing problem, though. I’ve also worked to put together my own grid going beyond 960 and slightly thinner gutters but haven’t finished it yet. We’re doing the first big revamp of Mac360 so that might be the place to start…

Update:

Regarding the 960 grid, I found an online grid generator called Grid Designer that works similarly to the 960 Grid (and others). It allows specific adjustment of Columns, total grid width, Gutters, and Margins. Then it adds typography adjustments, and exports finished XHTML and CSS.

This is very sweet as it follows on the principle in the 960 Grid (and others) but with more control over Margins, Gutters, Columns, and Width, which is very handy since many site designers have different ideas about layout, and advertising sizes don’t always fit within the structure of the 960 Grid (and others).

I like this…