Practical eCommerce

tcraw1010 · **Date:** Thu Jul 06, 2006 6:46 am **Subject:**

THANK YOU ALL for your insight and advice !!!

Sorry I have not replied earlier . . . on vacation this week. Cool

I guess I am simply going to have to bite the bullet and get down to learning CSS. I had actually tried a couple of years ago with a book - I think it was called "Getting Started with CSS - because I wanted to try to integrate a scrolling creative background into a design I was working on. (Again, mind you, I am a hobbiest web designer). Well, I couldn't figure it out and, as a result, put the book on the shelf and walked away for a while.

Seems as though, since then, CSS has continued to develop into a much more powerful tool. I will definitely have to check out CSS Zen Garden, as I am still somewhat perplexed how CSS can "replace" table layout and such. (I always thought CSS was, more or less, a text formatting function).

I also want to thank those of you with the advice on working my SEO into my site building from the get-go. The good news is, I'm still designing the overall layouy/look in Photoshop - so I will have the opportunity to work with the SEO from the first line of code up (when I begin to put everything together in Dreamweaver Cool

.

Sometimes I wonder whether just making a few modifications to an existing template is the way to go (saving a lot of hedaches and design mental-blocks). But as I continue on and realize each bit and piece of my site, the journey becomes more worth it. Nevertheless, for the site I have planned - there is still a long way to go ... the least of which is certainly not the PHP programming/functionality that I will have to integrate into the site.

Keep the fantastic insight and advice/comments comming !!!

TOM

tcraw1010 · **Date:** Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:08 pm **Subject:**

Okay . .. I'm still a bit frustrated. Sad

I went to CSS Zen Garden and looked through some of the various designs that some of the artists have created. I checked out the source code and, for the life of me, I cannot figure out what is going on to get the various layout styles/features.

I see a whole lot of text style formatting, but I can't determine which doce corresponds to the various images and actual layout design.

Unless someone can help me figure this out, it looks like I'm heading right back to my tried-and-true tables. Confused

kabucas · **Date:** Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:31 pm **Subject:** css

With normal css layout, you name the div tags to something that is easy to figure out it contains.. its been a while since I been over to cssgarden.. but if you use firefox with the developers tools.. this is a little easier to see...

This is one case where trying to reverse engineer the site is harder than learning the basics first.. sure cssgarden sites show you amzingly complex css desgins... but do not do much for learing..
Try these sites

http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_reference.asp
http://cssvault.com/resources.php (this one has great links but the layout is buggy)

tcraw1010 · **Date:** Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:30 am **Subject:**

I took a look at that first link and it does appear to be very helpful in learning the structure and syntax - THANK YOU !!!

Also, a friend of mine has lent me his "Learning CSS2" DVD from Lynda.com - which looks as though it will be very helpful as well.

I tell ya, sometimes I wonder how professional web designers/developers can do it - with all of the things they have to know.

bgetting · **Date:** Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:13 pm **Subject:** A Whole New World

I hope this doesn't deter anyone, since learning CSS is crucial. However, it does require an almost complete change in the way that a designer looks at coding a web page, slicing photoshop graphics, and everything else. I found it hard at the beginning as well because I had learned the table method originally and was comfortable with it.

I can promise that the more you play with it, experiment, and learn you will be rewarded. While it might seem intiimidating, it is worth it and will get MUCH easier as time goes on.

You may also want to look at having someone take your photoshop design and create a template for you. For the most part, templates are usually only one or two web pages, which shouldn't cost too much. You save on the design, get to manage your own site still, and benefit from a professional web developer.

Better yet, put everyone here to the test! When you get your photoshop design finished, post a link to the PSD file with a call for help and a challenge to readers of this forum to create the most search engine friendly, browser compatible, lightweight template. I'd be interested to see what comes out of that, and I might even give it a shot myself.

tcraw1010 · **Date:** Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:33 pm **Subject:**

You know, I might just do that .... as long as no one steals my business idea. Wink

tcraw1010 · **Date:** Fri Jul 14, 2006 10:03 am **Subject:**

Since CSS is embedded within HTML, I assume it works fine with programming scripts as well (i.e. PHP, JavaScript, ASP, etc.) - correct ?

kabucas · **Date:** Fri Jul 14, 2006 10:24 am **Subject:** css

You got it... The shopping cart I uses the lamp server.. (linux, apache, mysql, and php) so it uses css along side everything you mentioned.. (less the asp)

I am working on converting a lot of the tables into just CSS.. but I may be wasting my time as a new version is soon to be coming out (with more css)

The one thing that you will struggle with in CSS, is getting the same results on every browser.. depending on how fancy you get, you have to use hacks..

Jason

tcraw1010 · **Date:** Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:53 am **Subject:**

Okay, so apparently designing in CSS (in Dreamweaver Cool

is much easier than I thought it would be. You can actually design in a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG manner with DW's layer functions - which utilize CSS <div> tags authomaticaly.

The issue I'm now wondering about is compatability with older browsers - such as IE 4.0 and earlier. Granted, there aren't likely many people still using older browsers - but they're out there, nevertheless. (I liken it to many web designers still insisting on designing for 800x600, when it's more than likely most people view at a resolution of at least 1024x768).

What have you done to address this compatibility issue?

kabucas · **Date:** Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:15 am **Subject:** css and dreamweaver

Have you visited this site for some great tutorials?

http://livedocs.macromedia.com/dreamweaver/8/using/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm

Click the layout using CSS..

I have the perfect reasoning to base my site on 800x600 ... My custom base is mainly old ladies.. who more than likely are still using win98 and 13"-15" monitors.. Another reason is for printing.. granted most printers these days auto-fit page content to the paper size, but older ones will not.

You can easily base the site on percents and not px width.. this will fill the page of everyones monitor with content (if you have any) .. It also increases the font sizes in the same way

Good luck
Jason

dibber · **Date:** Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:28 pm **Subject:**

Hi all,

I just wanted to add this link:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/tableless_layout_dw8.html

It's a nice little article/primer; especially if you've got the right tools or want to take a test drive...

bgetting · **Date:** Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:45 am **Subject:** Sample Up

In case this helps anyone, I put up a really quick mock page for someone over on the SEO forum, and I thought it might help to post about it here.

This is the thread that I am referring to. The layout that I did is just a quick thing, but it does outline how to get a nice, consistent layout without using tables. There are some other tricks in there, but mostly I wanted to illustrate how to get around tables.

This is a great thread here, I'm glad everyone is posting links for others to learn from. That is the goal here. As with all programming and web development, there are different ways to do everything. I think that the more posts and sample we get up here about CSS, the more we will all learn. For now, I would be happy to hear crtiques of the CSS used in my sample, and definitely welcome questions and improvements.

Just wait until we start a thread like this on JavaScript. Very Happy

bgetting · **Date:** Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:49 am **Subject:** Another quick note

Also , I wanted to mention this thread in our forums, which I hope everyone will visit and just drop their two cents into. Mitch Bettis, who is our managing editor, is soliticiting information about what cart people are using and why they chose it.

Since this type of information can really help us learn more, and is probably research for an upcoming article in the magazine, I would really appreciate it if you all wouldn't mind clicking over to that thread. If you have the time, of course.

Thank you very much for your participation.

tcraw1010 · **Date:** Fri Aug 04, 2006 1:09 pm **Subject:**

Hope you aren't all disappointed ... but I honestly did TRY to design using primarily CSS, but it simply didn't work out.
So, I am using tables - with some CSS thrown in for various elements.

After I get through with this project, I will try to devote some more time to learning CSS layout design techniques. I just need to get this project done so I can get it out there - and trying to struggle through with CSS layouts will only delay the process (for me, anyway).

Just an update. Wink

ChrisMarket · **Date:** Wed Aug 16, 2006 12:12 pm **Subject:**

Learning CSS is great, but there is a program called Top Style, that makes CSS easy.

It doesn't cover all the functions of CSS, but it makes easy.

For people like me who still refuse to move into the world of dreamweaver and uses home site. Top Style Makes my life easy. I would hate to have to completely learn a whole other web langauge.

here is a link to Top Style's Site http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProductCatalog.aspx

For Mac Users who Blog, Check out Marsedit, another good program.

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