Member
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Washington, DC
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Does iWeb allow you to create pages from the template to get them up and running quickly, and then modify them using html/xhtml/css? or are are you stuck just using templates?
""The end of the world, most experts agree, will come about as a result of an accident. That's where we come in: we're computer professionals, and we cause accidents." -unknown |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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You can modify the finished pages in any text editor.
Note that you generally won't want to, though. The code that iWeb produces is u-g-l-y. |
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Washington, DC
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Less than Stellar Member
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Jeez. I was trying to use the "look" of the site on the blog section with a real blogger (wordpress) and it's a pain in the ass. A large part of that is my CSS knowledge is seriously lacking.... but still... it's not really easy for mere mortals. If it's not red and showing substantial musculature, you're wearing it wrong. |
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Right Honourable Member
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Philadelphia, PA
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....I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. Jebus Google, just buy Apple already... |
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iWeb actually produces really good code. I don't know what you all are going on about. It is miles ahead of Frontpage. Try and validate some of these pages, they validate as valid XHTMl 1.0 transitional. Not too shabby. The sites look really good as well. If a page validates why the heck do you care what the html code looks like? When was the last time you cracked open a PDF and said, "Wow that's some horrible pdf code right there!" I would say that hand coding html is an artifact of a time when standards sucked for browsers and code. Now that the tools can output a standard, and the browsers can read a standard, wysiwyg editors should be all that you need.
"Slow vehicle speeds with frequent stops would signal traffic congestion, for instance." uh... it could also signal that my Mom is at the wheel... |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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Valid Code != Good Code The same goes for any language, not just XHTML and CSS. It's easy to write a program that compiles and runs but is full of redundancies, obfuscations, and bad design. Just the same, it's easy to make a web page that validates and displays okay but has code that is full of redundancies, obfuscations, and bad design. Since when would something like, for example, this be considered "good" code? Quote:
Just to scratch the surface with this small section: it uses multiple unnecessary nested divs, uses <div> where <p> or <h{1|2|3|4|5|6}>makes much better sense semantically, has multiple vague classes, mixes hard-coded presentation with content despite the aforementioned classes, has redundant hard-coded CSS, and line breaks and indentation are totally absent or inconsistent. The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Clayton, NC
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The iWeb output is not supposed to be human readable or even understandable.
Think of it as a compiler. No, wait, better, a C++ preprocessor from the olden days before C++ compilers existed. That, machine-generated C code was horrendous to look at. It was valid, compilable C code, but definitely not what you would call "good" in the sense of understandable and maintainable. Nobody would go into the C code to make changes, they would change the C++ code. Same for iWeb. Ugh. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Clayton, NC
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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That's not a good analogy.
Compiler-created code is impossible to read because compilers are generally "smarter" than most mere mortals. Compilers usually create code that is tighter and more efficient than what humans create. iWeb does the opposite. iWeb fails to create human-readable code, it fails to create more efficient code, and it fails to create semantically-meaningful code. The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Clayton, NC
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I thought you meant "good" as in readable and maintainable, not tight and efficient. Never mind.
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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Less than Stellar Member
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If it's not red and showing substantial musculature, you're wearing it wrong. |
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Still, some of the decisions just don't make sense. Why create a "paragraph" class? That's what the p element is for. Why a "body" class? body already does that. Why use inline styling so repetitively?
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My whole point is computers are really good at parsing things. Humans are very good at designing pleasing things. We should let each do what they do best. Do I think that iWeb couldn't produce better HTML? No, I'm sure it could. Do I think it really matters? No, I don't think it does. "Slow vehicle speeds with frequent stops would signal traffic congestion, for instance." uh... it could also signal that my Mom is at the wheel... |
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RTF, .doc and PDF aren't human-readable formats. HTML is. End of story. Really, this debate has been beaten to death so badly over the years that I'm surprised it's still even brought up.
Well-formed markup is nice. Validating markup is better. But non-semantic markup is still something that could be so much better. Why settle for less? We're all using Macs, aren't we? |
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Don't get me wrong, I think there is a lot of value to have a template driven system, but I have to be able to make it the way *I* want it, working how I would like. iWeb gets a 7.5 on my scale. If it's not red and showing substantial musculature, you're wearing it wrong. |
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"Slow vehicle speeds with frequent stops would signal traffic congestion, for instance." uh... it could also signal that my Mom is at the wheel... |
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Join Date: May 2004
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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XHTML is supposed to be relatively easy for humans to understand and change by hand. iWeb produces code that isn't. Thus, we have a problem that's the "bfd." QED. There are plenty of people, from novice to professional, that want to have human-readable output so they can swap around pieces of code and tweak bits that iWeb (or another WYSIWYG editor of choice) doesn't allow you to change. Editors like iWeb that produce trashy code make customizing and integrating with outside parts nearly impossible. It's not just that iWeb produces redundant code that may be slow; the problem is also that iWeb produces code that is so redundant and twisted that it becomes impossible to edit with anything but iWeb. Quote:
XHTML, of the other hand, is by design an open format that has semantic meaning and is not meant to be locked into any one particular publishing flow. It's meant to be clean and logical, separating content from presentation to facilitate display by various readers or presentation formats. XHTML is designed to play well with traditional browsers, screen readers, search engines, custom XML parsers, and so forth. XHTML files and Word docs are polar opposites in this regard. So, the analogy fails badly. The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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"Slow vehicle speeds with frequent stops would signal traffic congestion, for instance." uh... it could also signal that my Mom is at the wheel... |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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"XHTML is designed to play well with traditional browsers, screen readers, search engines, custom XML parsers, and so forth." Different tags exist for different purposes. That's why <div> isn't the only tag in the DTD. An application from a high-profile company like Apple should be able to produce code with better semantical layout even if Joe Creator doesn't look at it himself. The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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"Slow vehicle speeds with frequent stops would signal traffic congestion, for instance." uh... it could also signal that my Mom is at the wheel... |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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