[Typo3-dev] any extension developers need html/css templating?

[Kasper Skårhøj]

Hi Ben,

I don't want to discuss tables and divs anymore. Are you still refering
to this by this reply when you talk about "CSS"?

What I wanted from you was an answer to why the hardcoded class tagging
in extensions from the kickstarter is not good enough (if that was what
you meant). I mean; The kickstarter will spit out some auto-generated
class names encapsulating plugins, eg. all plugins from an extension
"myext" will be encapsulated in a <div class="tx-myext-pi1"> or so.
Probably you think that <div class="forum"> is a more readable idea but
it is not unique and the idea of my recommendations are that if classes
used in extensions are unique for the extension we don't even HAVE to
make customizable HTML templates for them because from CSS you can
change anything you liek since there is a unique identification of all
classes used!

I call this sofisticated usage of CSS; You don't need HTML templates and
CSS is in charge of it all. Isn't that dreamland?

- kasper


> What is meant here is that a lot of classes are involved in some of the 
> extensions. That is why it is so cool if the extension has an external 
> template you can manipulate yourself as a non programmer. I had a very 
> good cooperation with Zach Davis this way. I modified the template to be 
> semantically correct and implemented classes and id's where needed. A 
> lot of stuff can be manipulated generically from a container div 
> (div.forum h3 {color: red; font-size: 24px; margin: 0;}). In the case of 
> chc_forum I included some colors and other values as constants that is 
> written to an inline style which in it's turn is transformed into an 
> external css file. So if you are lucky someone will have provided you 
> with a proper setup. If you are not that lucky there will be at least a 
> template you can layout yourself and where you have to add styles 
> yourself. I have gotten used to preparing several stylesheets like 
> extensions.css, csc.css and main.css. With the right comment inside the 
> stylesheet it is not that difficult to manipulate your layout. If the 
> person that built the extension coded everything in php files you have a 
> serious problem. I have written to several extension authors asking them 
> to change that. They see the advantage, but that is probably not done 
> overnight and the extension most likely suits there particular needs.
> 
> Bottomline is that you have to spent time to learn something. TYPO3 is a 
> good example. The benefits of css-coding your layout in a webstandards 
> way are so evident that I feel you HAVE to spent some time to learn 
> this. You can start out with very easy CSS and get into more complex 
> stuff later. That is the good thing. It is very scalable. The biggest 
> benefit is that you are no longer building your webpages only for a 
> browser, but for devices that are able to display webpages like 
> cellphones or what have you. It is very easy to manipulate your css to 
> get a print stylesheet or get your display right for the visually impaired.
> 
> gRTz
> 
> ben
-- 
- kasper

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