background tweak colour

**remi** · 07 April 2009, 05:55 PM

Originally Posted by covoxer

Please think before you write something.

John, this is not very pleasant from your side...

Originally Posted by richinri

...all style and JavaScript should be unobtrusive

I'll second that, Richinri. It's not always possible, but unobtrusive JavaScript is the best practice to avoid the problems of traditional JavaScript programming and should be the goal.

Remi

**richinri** · 07 April 2009, 06:10 PM

Thanks Remi - you gave me tears of joy!

**covoxer** · 07 April 2009, 06:42 PM

Originally Posted by richinri

According to standards programming practice all style and JavaScript should be unobtrusive - meaning they should ALL be separated into their respective files (JavaScript, CSS, XHTML) unless it can't work any other way. Virtually all schools now teach programming this way and all knowledgeable books on programming.
The "old" way will work but is considered outdated practice. I have noticed a tendency here to put inline styles and JavaScript everywhere. Doing this with JavaScript in particular can break your validation. They are talking about eventually eliminating inline styles completely. Food for thought since this is a learning forum.
In this particular case, it will work both ways, correct? My suggestion would be to use the latest and best programming practice.

I said "in this particular case". Didn't I? But you don't think, just blindly follow rules that you don't actually understand.
Now, to make it clear - in this particular case:
1. The tweak with similar SCC embedding is used so you already don't have a purely separate CSS even if you do what you suggest. Also, WD inserts whole lot of inline styles.
2. This recommendation goes to user who wants to reduce his work with code to minimum. Creating and editing one more file just for this simple setting is overkill.
3. In case of non-programmer user and XWD work flow the best practice is to embed as much as you can into WEB file to avoid unnecessary burden of manual file management.
4. The link to the CSS file in your example is not updated automatically if user changes exported file name. You have to use files folder if you want your CSS file to be published with WD.
5. Background may be different in different pages of the same site thus, in your case increasing number of files to maintain.

Now to you misunderstanding of standards and practices:
1. WD produces XHTML 1.0 Transitional. This is strictly defined standard which will never change. So everything that's valid for this standard today will stay valid forever.
2. Best programming practice is the one that produces best maintainable code. In these circumstances your code is a maintenance nightmare and provides no practical advantages.

Now, instead of doing something useful I waste a time to explain obvious things just because you don't want to think on your own.

**covoxer** · 07 April 2009, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by remi

John, this is not very pleasant from your side...

Don't be confused, you know me.

Considering that he groundlessly accuses me in bad programming practice, it could be even more unpleasant.

**richinri** · 07 April 2009, 07:02 PM

I agree that change is difficult. I had one heck of a time getting away from table based layout and kept thinking of reasons why it was easier. I also agree that some times, perhaps in this case, it was easier to do it the "old" way. But here is what I discovered about programming websites - it is always "easier" to do it the quick and dirty way once, then twice, then again, then it is too late to go back and change it all.
Programmers are notoriously sloppy - most in the business will tell you that. It was only when I saw how easy my websites became to find, fix and change things that I began to see the beauty of taking that little extra time in the beginning to build the proper foundation.
Some keep thinking it is only the inexperienced user that will use XWD - I have contended from the start that that may not and, I believe, should not be the case. I speak to that crowd.

**covoxer** · 07 April 2009, 07:24 PM

Rich, all you say is absolutly correct for website programming. But XWD workflow is based on design, not on programming. You still can't grasp it. So even if we use some programming fragments they have to be optimised for the main workflow. You can't apply your programming habbits to one line of code in the project that you don't programm the usual way. Don't you understand?
As I say, there's no advantages in using most common programming practices with XWD simply because 90% of code will not follow them anyway.
You win nothing, you lose maintanability. Think about it. Programming for XWD is different.

You are talking about ease of maintaing you projects (sites). Yes, if you maintain them as a set of HTML files, images etc, then it's better to keep separate CSS. But XWD projects are maintained as WEB files. So, as you say: "how easy my websites became to find, fix and change things" - is not applicable to XWD, you search, fix and change WEB designs within XWD.

**richinri** · 07 April 2009, 08:15 PM

Understood. But I contend there will be many that will want to bridge the gap to a middle road between XWD and 100% standards programming, especially if they design for the corporate world. The corporate market, many times, dictates certain practices - particularly in the area of unobtrusive programming. I say what I do to let those guys know that they CAN use XWD without throwing out what they have learned or need to do to satisfy the corporate demands if they exist.
BOTH sides, I believe, belong in this forum since both sides exist in the real web world.
Yes, XWD maintains via the .web file, but in certain key areas (unobtrusive programming, PHP includes etc.) it doesn't necessarily HAVE to. So, as shocking as this may sound, neither of us is wrong.

**Markku** · 07 April 2009, 10:06 PM

I design for the corporate world and in my corner of the world the code made by any wysiwyg application (incl. dreamweaver) is never used for production. I make wireframes and designs and other people do the coding according to standards and mostly by hand.

So that argument around corporate world usage does not apply - not where I live. Really how often and in what scale is one guy responsible of the design phases and also the coding (with a wysiwyg app)? Sorry, but I don't see that with bigger clients and bigger vendors. It is always team work with many disciplines involved.

In professional "website business" WD is great for the design phases; making wireframes, doing the final layouts and presenting the whole "cake" with working interactions. The coding is done after and with other tools.
For personal home sites WD can handle the whole process from design and up to deploying the files to the server. I would imagine that within these latter users whether standards are followed precisely or not is not so important.

In my mind WD does great what it was meant to do.

**richinri** · 08 April 2009, 08:12 PM

You are preaching to the choir! However, a careful review of this forum with it's various tweaks and scripts shows it is already doing more than was probably expected.

Originally Posted by Markku

In my mind WD does great what it was meant to do.

**suunto** · 08 April 2009, 08:25 PM

Originally Posted by Markku

I design for the corporate world and in my corner of the world the code made by any wysiwyg application (incl. dreamweaver) is never used for production. I make wireframes and designs and other people do the coding according to standards and mostly by hand.

could you put a couple of links so its possible to see the sites your talking about that don't use even dreamweaver?