I'm sorry, but again you misunderstand me.  And I misunderstand you.

Regardless, I never said that I don't use CSS - I said that it is only so powerful.  You can't build a building with paint and you can't paint a building with bricks.

I also agree, YaBB could be modified to use template system much like vBulletin's - easily too.  But that is simple, and useless.  Further, modifying some parts of YaBB SE and YaPP would be quite annoying given their current architecture.

Now, let me get back to work on SE 2's template system.

-[Unknown]

I agree with this.  I would like to take the time to pull all the HTML into a more editable place instead of scattered throughout the php files, tho.

Just to be clear, I was not suggesting that the site be based on CSS, I was suggesting that CSS be more utilised than it is.  Thats all.

Quote from: Gobalopper on January 23, 2003, 03:26:45 AMDon't forget that 90% of the browser market uses a browser that sucks at CSS.

Safari, Apple's new browser, sucks ass at complicated CSS.

Quote from: mephisto_kur on January 23, 2003, 05:06:19 AMThats what they get for not going with Chimera.

ROFLMAO

It has nothing to do with Chimera.  It was the engine they decided to use, and even then that does not control CSS.  Chimera and Mozilla use Gecko but Apple decided to use KHTML.

But you can override a div's style with one of your own. Something as simple as a <p style=yourstyle> will temporarity override the <div> style until it hits </p>.

EDIT: Actually, I'm pretty sure you can nest <div> tags, so you can just put a set of your own inside the other guy's tags.

Mad Moya

Unknown, no reason to get huffy about it!

Actually, I thought you were talking about inserting YOUR CODE into someone else's code and not being able to override their <div> statements.

Now I think you're saying... hmmm... I guess I don't know quite what you saying. You want an easy way to change THEIR <div> or other styling codes to something else, but they're sloppy programmers and didn't use a stylesheet/CSS, so there's no easy way to do it without going through it line by line? Is that what you're saying?

If so, I agree.

Throws up hands in frustration and mild disgust

Alright!! Enough!! lol.. would anyone mind terribly if I steer this topic back to the point I was trying to make before?

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Quote from: mephisto_kur on January 22, 2003, 08:34:01 PMFirst, I'll point out that what was asked for was the ability to recreate the looks of the site above using my favorite portal.  I know it could be done with the abilities of an average modder - admittedly with lots of time to mess with it.

You are talking about something entirely different from what he was talking about.  I still believe it is within the realm of an average modder.  Look at BoardIndex.php.  All that file is is one giant template.  There is no reason why you wouldn't be able to go in there, slice it up and have php code point at different templates for different fucntions - your kind of templates, not mine.  BoardIndex.php and Display.php and all of the other files that display anything are showing the user *just html.*  Funny thing is, there are many calls to the CSS of the template (My kind, not yours) in these files.

Actually, Unknown and I were very much on similar wavelengths on this one. I think both of us were simply trying (unsuccessfully, I can see) to point out that Portals can not be made to look like just any imaginable site without modifying the code a fair bit.

They are not terribly flexible, and I'm standing by that point.

If you want to prove me wrong, here's a new challenge (a practical challenge this time, not a theoretical one): Show me a site that was developed using a Portal, that doesn't look like a portal. And this time, no major code modifications -- at the very least its got to credit the Portal software in the copyright tag.

irbrian, I see your point, and I'm right there with you on the separation of code and style, but programmers then run into a problem.

Most of what is presented is information from a database. And since each presentation is using different tables/fields, it's impossible to remove the <table> tags from some of the code. Well, not impossible if you write code in the "template" to create them on the fly, but not practical to cover all situations. A well designed table, used for this purpose is actually preferable to people visiting a site with various impairments (visual, aural, mobility) because information is presented in an expected manner and their speech readers or alternative input devices know how to find their way around a table.

And since the data is different on nearly each page, each table needs a certain amount of styling built in (left align that column, center that one, <th> here, <th> there, etc). Therefore the table ends up inside the code instead of outside it.

With that said, I think most forums and portal packages out there go way overboard with tables... to the point it impairs accessible access to a site (confusing input devices with nested tables for instance). A table is a structural layout tag, not a "let's have cool borders" layout tag, and nested them 3 deep for various effects is not the way we should be doing it.

I used tables as an example, but it's not the only offender of imbedded html, just the worst one. When they hard code their style classes into them, it gets worse.

OTOH, portals are designed for folks to get their site up and running with minimal fuss. If someone wants complete control over style in every page of a site, then they probably also know enough css/stylesheet to do it themselves and avoid the portal packages in the first place.

If someone makes a portal that gives you complete control over every aspect of style, you end up confusing the newbies, make it overly complicated for the average person, and only really make the "I want complete control" folks happy. And you lose a larger market share than if you made a few key decisions for them instead.

The trick is to find the happy medium. Since most of these packages are GPL, we try to appeal to the larger market. I'm sure if you offered to pay someone, they'd be more than willing to custom write a portal for you.

I for one, am doing my best to get rid of NTS (Nested Table Syndrome) in whatever I write.

Have fun, Mad Moya