A serious drawback of CSS

I am experimenting with CSS since 2001. As I moved from frame based sites to
CSS sites, I realized that the major drawback of CSS is that you cannot
anymore have your header, manu, footer and content panes in different files,
but you have to *repeat* them in *each* page you do. If I have to change any
common section, I have to apply the change in many different files at the
same time. Maintenance is now a real mess.

Of course, when I can take advantage of PHP or other server languages, I can
use their import statements to get common sections (as copyright) from a
single file, but I cannot always rely on PHP availability. Often I have to
code client-based pages, and in such a case I have to duplicate a lot of
stuff. That's crazy. XHTML has no import statement, nor there is a way in
CSS to specify division content from another file.

What can I do? Please, do NOT tell me «use PHP, ASP or ColdFusion». I cannot
always do that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Dario de Judicibus - Italy (EU)
Site: http://www.dejudicibus.it/
Blog: http://lindipendente.splinder.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Dario de Judicibus" <nospam (AT) nowhere (DOT) com> wrote:

I am experimenting with CSS since 2001. As I moved from frame based sites to
CSS sites, I realized that the major drawback of CSS is that you cannot
anymore have your header, manu, footer and content panes in different files,
but you have to *repeat* them in *each* page you do.

Frames are a horribly broken concept, one of the main *causes* is that a
single page consists of several separate files.

If I have to change any
common section, I have to apply the change in many different files at the
same time. Maintenance is now a real mess.

Of course, when I can take advantage of PHP or other server languages, I can
use their import statements to get common sections (as copyright) from a
single file, but I cannot always rely on PHP availability.

You can if you install it locally and use it to build static pages,
although using a preprocessor is a more common approach.

Often I have to
code client-based pages, and in such a case I have to duplicate a lot of
stuff. That's crazy. XHTML has no import statement, nor there is a way in
CSS to specify division content from another file.

And that's a good thing, importing code fragments via (X)HTML or CSS
would result in all existing UAs not being able to handle content that
would use such a feature. There is off course also the principle issue
that CSS is for applying *presentation*.

What can I do? Please, do NOT tell me «use PHP, ASP or ColdFusion». I cannot
always do that.

You can use a preprocessor, template based authoring systems usually
allow inclusion of code fragments, swapping out code blocks is easy with
a good quality S&R function, and lastly the aforementioned locally
installed scripting solution.

--
Spartanicus

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 16:48:00 GMT, in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets , Spartanicus
<invalid (AT) invalid (DOT) invalid> in
<nf1at19vhsok284sa7p725egbi4k124cr7 (AT) news (DOT) spartanicus.utvinternet.ie>
wrote:

"Dario de Judicibus" <nospam (AT) nowhere (DOT) com> wrote:

I am experimenting with CSS since 2001. As I moved from frame based sites to
CSS sites, I realized that the major drawback of CSS is that you cannot
anymore have your header, manu, footer and content panes in different files,
but you have to *repeat* them in *each* page you do.

Frames are a horribly broken concept, one of the main *causes* is that a
single page consists of several separate files.

My first, wrong, thought was that separate files was a good thing. But
as you imply in the rest of your post, it is good as a creation tool,
not for client side delivery. Libraries are great stuff. We mostly use
them for scripts and such, but in concept it would work for HTML (you
can already have multiple css files) as well. Just, as you say, do it
with a pre-processor or something.

It occurs to me that that concept is the biggest problem with WYSIWYG
editors. Not that they produce bad code but that they stop you from
seeing that is code to then be processed. When you see you are writing
code to the process for display it is no big deal to have a processing
step in the middle make the display file.


[snip]

--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

Matt Silberstein wrote:

It occurs to me that that concept is the biggest problem with WYSIWYG
editors. Not that they produce bad code but that they stop you from
seeing that is code to then be processed. When you see you are writing
code to the process for display it is no big deal to have a processing
step in the middle make the display file.

A good graphical HTML generator could understand the language used by the
processing tool and perform such processing on the fly, automatically
switching files as the cursor moves into different sections of the page.

--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:10:01 +0000, in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets , David Dorward
<dorward (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> in <dr39p1$cko$2$8302bc10 (AT) news (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote:

Matt Silberstein wrote:

It occurs to me that that concept is the biggest problem with WYSIWYG
editors. Not that they produce bad code but that they stop you from
seeing that is code to then be processed. When you see you are writing
code to the process for display it is no big deal to have a processing
step in the middle make the display file.

A good graphical HTML generator could understand the language used by the
processing tool and perform such processing on the fly, automatically
switching files as the cursor moves into different sections of the page.

Do you know of such a thing?

--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

Matt Silberstein wrote:

A good graphical HTML generator could understand the language used by the
processing tool and perform such processing on the fly, automatically
switching files as the cursor moves into different sections of the page.

Do you know of such a thing?

No, but its a nice idea.

--
David Dorward <http://blog.dorward.me.uk/> <http://dorward.me.uk/>
Home is where the ~/.bashrc is

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 20:43:00 +0000, in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets , David Dorward
<dorward (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> in <dr3f7d$ct4$2$8300dec7 (AT) news (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote:

Matt Silberstein wrote:

A good graphical HTML generator could understand the language used by the
processing tool and perform such processing on the fly, automatically
switching files as the cursor moves into different sections of the page.

Do you know of such a thing?

No, but its a nice idea.

Tease.

--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

On 2006-01-23, Dario de Judicibus <nospam (AT) nowhere (DOT) com> wrote:

Of course, when I can take advantage of PHP or other server languages, I can
use their import statements to get common sections (as copyright) from a
single file, but I cannot always rely on PHP availability. Often I have to
code client-based pages, and in such a case I have to duplicate a lot of
stuff. That's crazy. XHTML has no import statement, nor there is a way in
CSS to specify division content from another file.

What can I do? Please, do NOT tell me «use PHP, ASP or ColdFusion». I cannot
always do that.

build the files in pieces and use a script to combine them, put the
combined files on the server.

--

Bye.
Jasen

Dario de Judicibus wrote:

What can I do? Please, do NOT tell me «use PHP, ASP or ColdFusion». I cannot
always do that.

It's been a while, but I think html-tidy (from www.chami.com ) has an
include facility. You're quite right, it's essential to maintenance.

Chris

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2006-01-23, Dario de Judicibus <nospam (AT) nowhere (DOT) com> wrote:

What can I do? Please, do NOT tell me «use PHP, ASP or
ColdFusion». I cannot always do that.

build the files in pieces and use a script to combine them, put the
combined files on the server.

Consider using "make". Write a Makefile which defines your automated
processes to be applied after a source code update, via your
processing chain, HTML validation etc., and finally upload to server.

Of course, "make" is usually thought of as a tool for software
development, but don't let that distract you.

There's a bit of a learning curve, but it can result in a flexible and
convenient final process. You could define make "targets" like "make
check", "make publish" etc. Via the "dependencies", your Makefile
will show which published pages "depend" on components which have been
updated (as shown by their file's timestamp), and will rebuild only
those pages which are affected by the changes, if it's done right.