Anything else like Skybound Stylizer out there? [closed] - css

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Closed 11 years ago.
I hate to say it but I'm crack addicted to Skybound Stylizer 5.
It's a rare purchase for me because I normally only go with open-source or software that has 'per user' licensing. The license and DRM on this thing are horrid. It does a hardware check (including a check for the existence of a battery) and only lets you install on one laptop and one desktop. Of course, I've got a work desktop and laptop as well as a two home desktops and two home laptops. I'd love to use the thing at home but there's no way I'm going to pay for another separate license when I'm just one guy with multiple machines no one else uses but me.
Aside from my loathing of the license type and DRM, the $79 price seems reasonable (no problem there).
I've tried searching for hours and can't find another CSS editor that visually works on the rendered pages. I'm using Rails and the whole Stylizer concept of being a multi-engine web browser that lets you target elements on the rendered page is a life saver. Nothing else I've seen would really add any benefit above Rubymines CSS editing (which btw - thank you for the per-user license Jetbrains).
If someone else had something similar, I'd gladly pay twice the price for a per-user license. Funny - I'd be happy paying $150 for a per user license, but the thought of paying for two $79 license because (my gosh) I use two different laptops annoys the crap out of me.
Thanks!

Disclosure: I work for Skybound.
Firstly, I'll openly apologize for our potentially over-zealous piracy protection system. We were having serious licensing abuses with the previous version, and needed to do something about it.
Having said that, we tried to walk the line between being flexible and opening the door to licensing abuse. The activation system is based on your actual processor ID, so you could technically activate on an iMac, then activate on Windows through BootCamp, then inside a couple of VMs, and then do the same thing all over again on a laptop. We also de-activate licenses without too many questions asked if you need to move to another computer. I'm not aware of too many other activation systems that are this permissive.
Unfortunately, there isn't anything else like Stylizer on the market. It's an easy product to build poorly and an extremely difficult product to build well. CSSEdit (our competitor-ish) would probably be the closest, but Stylizer caters to a more serious user, hence the higher price tag.
To the commenters suggesting that the OP "go learn CSS", I suggest you experience the speed advantage of things like real-time preview, point & click editing, etc, (heck, even go try CSSEdit), before making this common and completely-off-the-mark judgement. These products are the tool of choice of some of the most qualified CSS experts in the industry.

Firefox + Firebug + CSSUpdater
http://www.cssupdater.com

I use CSSEdit that allows you to edit the code and have live previews as well as override style sheets - best thing I have EVER used for this job.
http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/

Did you try Browserlab?

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sharepoint vs wordpress? [closed]

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Closed 9 years ago.
I need to develop a small Real Estate Agent website for my friend where i can put across my content across tabs like
New poperty, Any Queries,Contact Us, About Us etc. AFAIK , i have two options to quickly develop it i.e wordpress or sharepoint.
i have gone thru some stuff over net to help me to decide among two. Now i am inclined towards wordpress. Reasons are:-
1)Share Point is good for application which are rich in business logic
like one with with named users, permissions, groups, file
structures, and document sharing.Good for applications which needs to
scalable.
Probably we can do every stuff on wordpress also, but we need to
depend on third party libraries apart from word press. But sharepoint
probably provides many utilities/features in single bundle.
2)I am java guy and laymen to dot net, so it would better to work on
wordpress(PHP based) than on sharePoint.
My assumption is that share point comes under freeware(share point fondation) and paid version also. But not what extra paid version
provides over freeware? I referred to link http://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-vs-sharepoint to come at my understanding
One of main differences about the sharepoint foundation and the paid version, is that the foundation don't include the publishing features on this link http://www.sharepointchick.com/archive/2011/06/23/sharepoint-publishing-features-functionality.aspx you can read more about them and then decide if they will be useful for you or not.
If you will create a site where you need to manage a lot of data and store tables and things like that I definitely recommend you the SharePoint.
If you will create a site just to show some information the wordpress is what you should choose.
Do you have considered Office 365, it includes all the features of the paid SharePoint server version, and also includes the public facing websites that are very easy and cheap to brand with tools like www.bindtuning.com
I'm a Sharepoint developer but i think using WordPress for this application can be the better solution.
There are lot of third party templates for Real Estates application based on WordPress.
With few dollars you can get a good starting point and thanks to your php knowledge you can customize it if necessary.
If you want to obtain the same result with Sharepoint, i think you have to write a lot of code.

Squiz Matrix vs Other CMS [closed]

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Closed 11 years ago.
According to:
http://intendance.com/2011/03/31/enterprise-content-management-open-source-squiz-matrix/
They have stated:
Most other open source content
management systems options such as,
Drupal, Typo3, Mambo, Joomla rely on
their developers community for
extensions/addons maintenance and
upgrades with no guarantee that they
would continue to do so. While having
large community is great, the
enterprise approach provides a
framework you can extend to your own
uses. Most users of Squiz Matrix want
this flexibility. They not only want
to roll out websites that feels like
they came pre-implemented in their
CMS, but also editing interfaces and
processes that match their internal
work processes. And all this needs to
be done without writing server-side
codes. This one area is where Squiz
Matrix Excels compared to other
traditional open source CMS.
What does this mean and is it true?
Here's essentially what I believe that paragraph means, if I translate (after reviewing their product)...
... starting with the last half of their paragraph first (because it'll make more sense that way)...
People who manage a CMS (web site) want to be able to drag and drop cool plugins and add-ons to their site without having to learn how to code. We can do that. But you want your plugins to "feel" like they're actually part of your site (and not a tacked on after-thought). Ours do.
We're better than the other guys (like Drupal, Typo3, Mambo, Joomla) because... Yes, they also have all those cool plugins and add-ons that'll work for you (without coding)... BUT... Because they're "open source" and not "enterprise" you can't rely on them! Who knows where those open source plugin developers will be in a year or two!
... this one sentence has no translation...
While having large community is great, the enterprise approach provides a framework you can extend to your own uses.
If I were to try, it would sound something like this...
A tip of the hat to open source for providing great support and development! But "enterprise" is better because you can do whatever you want with it to make it better (like you can with Microsoft Word and you can't with OpenOffice).
Since you asked "is it true" I think that's a matter of opinion. I would say, "no", if you choose a good open source CMS with a vibrant community. I would say "yes" if you choose a sub-par tool with absolutely no community following (like this one)...
I will note also that it's a little difficult to gauge exactly how robust their plugin collection might be when you're left with this kind of jargon to figure it out: https://www.squiz.net/resources/integration-datasheet
Again, masterful writing!

Which screen reader would be best to test site accessibility and how to configure that? [closed]

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Closed 10 years ago.
Which screen reader would be best to test site accessibility and how to configure that screen reader to test website (or default screen-reader setting would be ok) and which browser should be used to test accessibility with screen-readers?
Free or commercial it doesn't matter . Which can give best testing then site should be accessible in whole world as much as possible with all other screen readers?
my purpose is to make site as much as possible.
I will preface this answer by stating I’m a totally blind individual who uses Jaws as there only screen reader. I've played around with NVDA as well but have l9imited experience with it. Jaws is the most widely used screen reader at least in the US. If you can only use one screen reader I would pick it with the default settings. Both Internet Explorer and Firefox work with Jaws and both are widely used. Another screen reader you could use to test accessibility is NVDA this is an open source screen reader that works well with Firefox but not internet explorer. I would say if cost is an issue use NVDA with the latest version of Firefox, and if your site is accessible using that setup it will most likely work with Jaws. For a complete list of screen reading software see this
Installing and starting a screen reader isn't enough to do good accessibility testing. You won't know how accessible your site is until you turn off your monitor and unplug your mouse. Getting good enough at using any screen reader to do that will take time. The only sighted people I know that are efficient screen reader users either work for the screen reader companies, or do assistive technology training as their job. So while you can use a screen reader to test your site's accessibility the learning curve for a realistic test is quite high.
To answer your question directly, I would use JAWS with default settings in your target browser. If you can only afford one license, then use NVDA or Chromevox for your developers and give your Accessibility expert the copy of JAWS.
Keep in mind that while making sure your site works perfectly with a screenreader is very important, this only helps the blind. There are many other types of disabilities (e.g., hearing, motor, and cognitive disabilities) and to truly be accessible, your site needs to support those users too.
WCAG 2.0 is the best standard for making your site accessible to as many people as possible. There is A LOT of WCAG 2.0 documentation though, so I would start at webaim.org, http://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist if you are new to it, but do use the real thing http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ when you are ready.
Also, keep in mind that even if it "works" with a screenreader, it may be annoying (blind users rarely read top-to bottom, make sure you put in solid structure with headings and ARIA lankmarks) or it may not be giving a blind user the same amount of information that a sighted user might get. For example, helper text next to text inputs will be missed by a user tabbing through a form (fixes: hide a copy in the label with CSS, make the helper text the actual label, or use ARIA-describedby) - a good way to make sure it more than just "works" is to have your JAWS tester not be familiar with the site.

How powerful is Drupal really? [closed]

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Closed 10 years ago.
I've been using Drupal for a long time, and know that it's robust and has tons of features. My question is, is it a framework that you can build REALLY big sites on? And can anyone give some examples of REALLY big sites that have been built with Drupal?
To answer my question about whether or not it's a good idea to build really big sites on Drupal, imagine having to redo facebook as a drupal site. Would it be possible (realistically)?
The Onion and WhiteHouse.gov are Drupal-powered, and I'd say they're fairly huge sites. The founder of the Drupal project keeps a list of some prominent Drupal-powered sites.
imagine having to redo facebook as a drupal site. Would it be possible (realistically)?
Yes but I wouldn't. You should probably define "Big." Do you mean big as in tons of pages or DB storage? Do you mean big as in amount of visitors? Do you mean big as in famous? Drupal is a fine CMS and if scaled properly I'm sure you can handle a large load of visitors. But the main point here is that it is a CMS (with extensibility) and not a good framework for making something completely custom. If you need something truly unique then you should use a real framework like CakePHP or CodeIgnitor, etc.
I went to a conference in London a few months back on the subject. A major UK based charity Comic Relief which has a big TV appeal every 2 years and hit £80million ($100 million) in donations this year. It is run off Drupal, and has a very unique scalability problem in that it only really ets traffic and takes donations on 1 day of the year.
So by using many different database techniques and servers such as reverse proxies it was able to stay working through out the donation day.
It is very possible to make BIG sites on Drupal.
I've been working with drupal for some time now and it's nice, but have in mind that it does a lot for file scanning/including - 80% time spent on bootstrapping I think I heard some where. But in terms of handling lots of traffic it's performing fine.
i've worked on a very big drupal site and there are serious performance problems, even with two db servers and memcache. the site holds up fine, its just not efficient. most likely its the way we've written everything, but even some very talented drupal guys are scratching their heads. bootstrapping is an issue indeed, as is using amfphp
for something like facebook you need a framework, not something that requires 15 additional modules to set up just a blog ...
Go read the blog of, and listen to the podcasts from, Lullabot - they've been involved with some pretty large sites based on Drupal.
One large Drupal user I'm aware of (sorry, don't know if it's a Lullabot site or not) is Sony Music - they're using Drupal 6 to roll out sites for their artists. See Sony Music sponsors major multilingual improvements in Drupal 6 for more.
Essentially, I believe that the ability of Drupal to scale up will be more than 99% of websites ever need. For the other <1% of sites, there are ways to make things faster.
It's a problem I'd like to have. :-)

Tips needed for a skills-presentation website [closed]

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Closed 11 years ago.
I want to create a dummy presentation website that would show my .NET webprogramming skills; I could put a link to this dummy website on my blog and show it at interviews.
If you would need to create a presentation website that shows your web programming skills, what functionality would that website contain? Or if you were a hiring person, what would you like to see in such a website?
I need a few examples of web applications that I could implement in there. Someone told me already I could make a digg it system so for now I'm looking into that.
Anything in frontend, backend, any tip could help me.
Andrei,
It's aweful hard to look at a .net site and see programming skill behind it. A beautiful looking site can have a real mess of spaghetti code driving it, and a brilliantly engineered site with bad graphic design can look like it was made in the 1990s.
That said, I think your best opportunity is do do something with the MVC framework. Clever use of routing is a benefit clear to all, and mastery of jQuery (not really .net, I know...) would impress a potential boss/customer.
Of course, proper unit testing and good architecture is, in the short term, invisible. It's like a good foundation on a house. Nobody notices a good foundation, but everybody knows when a bad foundation breaks and your house collapses!
John
Have a look at this question. Hopefully it will enlighten you.
What contents should a professional programmer’s website have?
Whatever you decide on Andrei, make sure it's not trivial and also let the interviewing folks know before you come into the interview. You don't want to be scrambling for an internet connection etc. In fact, if you bring in your own laptop with all the tiers running on it, all the better.
Know your basics... .NET programming is good and all, but make sure your skills at integrating XHTML, CSS, XML, and ECMA show through. A lot of builders hide a horrendous site with flash/silverlight... If I were to ever look at someone, they would have to be able to create functionality and re-usability throughout the site without accessing the server for everything (Aside from AJAX). Really, from those 4 items, you can make nearly any site. After you have those down, create a link to a page showing off the flashy skills. They aren't always as important.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to provide a little feedback. Your advices are extremely valuable for me.
I already have a blog (http://www.andreicristof.com/Blog/), so this presentation website is not a 2nd blog; I intend to show that I have .net skills through various .net applications, so its a website where people can login and see the backend and all that, but also I shall be focusing on making a nice clean frontend that validates, and is not flashy (I don't like flashy, I'm a fan of clean websites).
Again, thank you and if anyone has other tips as well, please let me know.
Regards,

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