Is CSS my answer?

gwhite · #1 (**permalink**) 07-25-2007, 03:27 PM

We sell Internet software that gets branded to match the look of our clients websites. What we have our client do, is create an HTML page with all the branding, links and javascript for menus and such, and leave a "blank" spot for us to drop our content in. We then take their HTML master split it into a header file and a footer file and incorporate it into our templates. Not difficult but labor intensive and depending on their skills it can cause quite a nightmare cross platform and at times we have some real spacing/alignment issues.

What we are tring to find is a way that for at least 90% of the sites that the HTML can be modified with a couple of div tags (topleft/bottomright) added to our already marked up content (middle) plus a style sheet and have our template redesign time cut from 4-5 hours to 20-30 minutes. We know there is always going to be that designer that wants to use the bleeding edge stuff and we will just have to struggle with those. But a lot of the sites we are matching that were coded 3-4 years ago or are just pretty straightforward HTML. Any suggestions on ways to attack this would be appreciated.

**wige** · #2 (**permalink**) 07-25-2007, 03:48 PM

What type of content are you trying to embed? Specifically, is it table data, long text, short text, etc? Also, is the page that you split to create your template hosted locally or by your client? Finally, how often does this content change?

gwhite · #3 (**permalink**) 07-25-2007, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wige

What type of content are you trying to embed? Specifically, is it table data, long text, short text, etc? ?

yes! Seriously, we have input forms of 6-10 questions per page, then report output that is usually 4-5 paragraphs of text but may include some graphics or a table.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wige

Also, is the page that you split to create your template hosted locally or by your client? Finally, how often does this content change?

Some of our clients install the software on their servers, some we host for them, in those cases they are running off of one of our URL's it is just branded for the client. The input forms can change with each user based on previous answers, and the output report is entirely custom based on all the responses to the input forms. But the pages are generated dynamically so I can control all the tags.

**wige** · #4 (**permalink**) 07-25-2007, 04:23 PM

Oh. Sounds like fun. I think the easiest way to do this might be to provide an XML feed to the clients who have PHP and can use SOAP, and you can use the same XML feed on the pages you host yourself. Because of the variations, I would suggest making sure that external style sheets are used by all of the clients so that the template can more easily be kept in line with the rest of their sites, and add an onpage style sheet embedded in the header that would only affect the display of your own data. This embedded style sheet should override anything in the external sheet and as long as the class and ID names are structured in a way that they are unlikely to be used by an existing site you should avoid conflicts between rules.

bj · #5 (**permalink**) 07-25-2007, 05:54 PM

Might this be of help?

Layout Gala: a collection of 40 CSS layouts based on the same markup and ready for download!

With this series of layouts the html doesn't change at all, only the css, and if the css is put in an external file, that should make it very easy. So whatever mockup they give you can be plugged into one of these pups, and off you go.

Orion · #6 (**permalink**) 07-25-2007, 06:37 PM

I don't know if this is what you're after but what we do for our sites on the HTML side is really simple...

<body>
<div align="center">
<div id="site">

<div id="main">

<div id="content">
<h1>PageTitle</h1>
<p> </p>
</div>
</div>

</div>
</div>
</body>

That's it really simple you can modify that also so that you can have a top and bottom file in php if you like too...

when we have dynamic sites the content is pulled from a database into the <content> tag..
ALL design aspects are input into the header / footer files and the CSS.

A header file is usually just as simple here's a header template...

<div id="header">
<a href="http://www.domain.ext" title="site title"><img src="/images/logo.gif" alt="company logo" id="logo" /></a>
<h1>Site title</h1>
</div>

...and all aspects can be dynamically input from a database too...

not sure if that helps at all, but hope it does...

gwhite · #7 (**permalink**) 07-26-2007, 09:21 AM

Orion,

That is what we do dynamically now, but without all the div tags, will the css placement commands give me enough control that I can place the parts where I need to? Keep in mind that some of the headers and footers already have div tags of their own.

BJ,
I am sure this will work with the clients that are providing pure HTML, if they already have CSS markup will the two stylesheets work nicely with each other (I am hoping this is the Cascading part of CSS)?

Our extent of stylesheet use is to control fonts. We have not used it for placement and such. We often get these files and once we drop in our content, labels that should be aligned right, become centered, borders disappear from input form fields or on one browser everything looks great, then on another all the content goes to the top and overwrites the headers, and we can spend hours monkeying with these kind of issues. We are just trying to figure out where to invest our time to make this smoother and give our clients a quality product.

Orion · #8 (**permalink**) 07-26-2007, 10:17 AM

ah.. me thinks me understands a bit more..

YES! so long as each element that you want to control the placement of has either a style class or (better) an ID assigned to it (reason for all the divs) you can put it pretty much anywhere! Oh and you don't have to use positioning depending on where you want to put it and how you want it to act (sometimes margins / padding and floating will get things how you want them to be)...

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
firefox css problem	ozchris	Accessibility and Usability Forum	11	08-18-2007 07:41 AM
Any one the answer to this?	loseriam	Graphics & Design Discussion Forum	2	10-25-2005 09:46 AM
Please answer	loseriam	Submit Your Site For Review	11	08-25-2005 11:24 PM
Can anyone answer this	dreamerjon	Google Discussion Forum	7	09-07-2004 05:47 PM
Is This The Answer?	tebmu	Affiliate Marketing Discussion Forum	5	08-04-2004 02:16 PM