Anyone used the blueprint (http://www.blueprintcss.org/) with Office Sharepoint server publishing sites?
If yes, what do you think? Any catches or problems ? does it really save time and make it easy to make the site working fine cross browsers?
I used Blueprint CSS with SharePoint (MOSS) on a project last year.
I'm a UK-based contractor and this was for a 3 month project with 1 technical resource (me). The company involved (large UK company providing services to the banking industry) had an existing intranet installation and wanted to move to a MOSS publishing site based intranet.
The design was column based with a fixed width (960px) so I took a look at the CSS frameworks available at the time and Blueprint looked simple and flexible (design tool at http://kematzy.com/blueprint-generator/ to build a custom grid).
Blueprint itself worked well, and the problems I encountered using it would be pretty much the same as any MOSS project that involves large customisations to the master page / page layouts. I did end up writing my own reset CSS rather than use the default one as I didn't want to completely clobber the MOSS styles. Gotchas:
SharePoint uses quirks mode (the html doesn't define a doctype) so adding a doctype means plenty of fiddling with the shipped CSS styles to get it all working.
The control rendering is the normal asp.net mess of nested tables etc., which combined with the quirks mode meant that getting things to stay in the grid was always somewhat tricky.
I only had to support IE (6 & 7) as it was an internal intranet, and even the inconsistencies in their rendering caused a few problems. Short of using control adapters to try and generate sane html, I think this would only get worse supporting other browsers as well.
Having said all that, it worked well with the master pages and was great with page layouts (different columns/layouts and having a 'magazine style' front page). And we got the project done with time to spare so yes, I'd use it again and recommend it - as long as you're happy to be knee-deep in CSS quite quickly..
Being an accessibility evangelist I also went down the same path of using Blueprint in an effort to make things more standards-compliant. TO be honest I would not do it again.
Trying to beat MOSS 2007 into submission and make it accessible is a lost cause. Even great projects like the AKS (Accessibility Kit for SharePoint) do little more than add a summary paramater to the swarm of nested tables rendered by woefully out-dated .NET controls.
Short of rewriting all these controls there's just no point. SharePoint publishing sites that don't use too many of these might be slightly easier to manage. But IMO you'd be better of waiting for 2010 which does a much better job of this.
If meeting WCAG is important now then you're far better off going with another CMS that does this out-of-the-box, or at least let's you do it without too much pain.
Related
I am trying to learn ASP.NET (C#) and the biggest struggle I am having is the design aspects of it. I have primarily been a windows form designer. All of the projects I have worked on have used windows forms and it was much more intuitive and cleaner to design in than HTML/CSS. I am trying to learn how to design web pages, but it seems all "design" needs to be done in CSS. How do you design something you don't see and just use pixels and references to other objects? I don't see how you design anything that way.
What is the best way for me to be able to effectively design for websites using CSS and ASP.NET coming from a more visual approach of windows forms? I have read 3 books on ASP.NET and it makes sense but all of the design is done is source views and CSS sheets. Is there another method or approach I should be aware of? I am using VS 2015 BTW as my IDE.
Please and thanks
CSS and HTML are the building blocks of the Web. Like you, I used to struggle moving from the Drag and Drop world of VS 2003 after initially starting out with just Netscape and Notepad in college. Drag and Drop, like Web Forms, is an unhealthy layer of abstraction in that it removes us from a true understanding of how the Web works.
Just accept that this is the nature of things and stop fighting it. Back in the days of VS 2003, our team would set up VS so as to never default to the designer panel when starting or opening projects. Besides, the tool was totally undependable and created a tangled Frontpage-style mess of so-called HTML.
Make the switch to pure, semantic markup and CSS. Download a good template from a site like Creative Market (I usually search using "Bootstrap 3") to learn from. Study HTML5, CSS3 and RWD (Responsive Web Design) and let yourself have some fun. Yes, it really CAN be fun.
Work by switching from your IDE to the browser and back again.
I understand that this question may be subjective, this is why I need an answer from an ASP.NET dev who has actually tried using Dreamweaver in conjunction with VS2010 ASP.NET MVC development.
While working on a web site development project, I spend 60% of the time fine-tuning the markup and css, 30% of time writing JS code and only 10% goes to C# logic coding. I am looking for the way to reduce the markup-mingling time to finish the projects more quickly. Is Adobe Dreamweaver able to help me, an ASP.NET MVC developer, to implement markups provided by designers more quickly?
It's a big Yes and No and I'll try to explain because it's kind of up to how you use it.
The Design view
If you approach the whole implementation visually, from Design View, like Adobe thinks you're supposed to do it, it's a big conspiracy. You'll find yourself spending more time traveling miles across the screen with your mouse. Keyboard coding -> always faster, but not for newbies.
Live View / Split View
If you plan on using the built-in "Live view" or "Split view", it's slower than going with Alt+Tab / Ctrl+R. And there's no trick to solve cross-browser inconsistencies
What really speeds thinks up
The regular code completion, syntax highlighter, automatic tag closing (like when typing </), the xHTML templates, not using hacks on top of other hacks, not using conditional styles, ignoring everyone else in the room.
What can you do to speed up front-end dev in general
Besides outsourcing, it helps to know HTML & CSS good, and your experience and technique. If you put a div, then switch to CSS then back to some more divs, then back to some other CSS this takes longer than writing header + footer html code, then moving onto styling the divs, the menus, etc.
On top of everything, slicing images still takes time. And if you want to be able to rapidly change things in your layout in the future, or make sub-layouts based on a template, it's naturally going to take more time. And add to that, the cross-browser compatibility testing. If you have a boss and he tells you "let's support IE6" you might want to consider a career in a different company.
P.S.: Is this another hunting topic? :)
Easy question. I used to develop websites back in the days of "classic" ASP, and when I'm asked to do a quick and dirty website for family or friends now, I still resort to direct HTML/ASP and some basic CSS and Javascript - I can get the sites up pretty quickly this way. However, I've had a few requests to design and develop some sites for pay, and thought I should catch up on my web skills. I have been using .NET 3.5, XAML/WPF, etc. for Windows apps, so I'm up on .NET, I'm just behind on the web end.
To the question: If I want to design/code a site that looks identical on all (at least somewhat recent) browsers and platforms, should I be using ASP.NET and AJAX? There might be a little database activity on the site, but not much, so I don't need an enterprise level, multi-tier extendable architecture... just something that looks good and works on multiple platforms without having to code all variations for each browser. After looking at all the ASP.NET books at the bookstore, it seems they all focus mostly on data and postback stuff. Is it still a legit option to use some basic, boring html and javascript with some Flash embedded where needed?
Let me know if I need to clarify the question. Thanks for your advice in advance!
Your question is more loaded than you think, but let me try to address a few points that I think are relevant.
First, how a site looks is almost completely dependent on the HTML/CSS you use and how you code the front end of the site and only slightly dependent on the server technology. So if you want your site to function across browsers and platforms, learn to code following web standards, with semantic markup. (Search on those terms for more info).
Also, ASP.NET comes in two flavors now: ASP.NET MVC and normal ASP.NET. I highly recommend, if you are going to get into ASP.NET, that you follow the MVC platform. It closely follows similar technologies (like Ruby on Rails) and will make the transition to other MVC platforms easier on you. Also, the MVC platform doesn't try to output as much pre-made HTML as straight ASP.NET will when you use their "drag and drop" controls.
Secondly, it really depends on the sites you are building, but straight JS (or JS + jQuery), CSS, and HTML -- and please don't use Flash unless you are embedding a video -- will actually work for a number of basic sites. If you need some things to happen on the server, PHP makes for a great platform. If you are working with advanced database access, and program flow, and since you are already familiar with .NET, then stick with it... MS has some great tools and resources to help you out.
Finally, a lot of developers use a favorite CMS or blogging platform as the backend of simple sites that still need the ability to manage the content easily. Expression Engine (CMS) and WordPress (Blog/Lite-CMS) are often used (both PHP based) but there are tons out there.
Good luck stepping up your game!
I would recommend learning jQuery. This will give you a browser independent abstraction for your JavaScript.
ASP.NET controls will render it's controls in a browser independent way, but that doesn't mean your site will automagically be browser independent. You still need to know how elements are rendered differently in different browsers.
I'd also recommend using a CSS Reset sheet as a starting point for your CSS.
All in all, if you've been developing old school ASP, you'll probably really love ASP.NET as it will save you a lot of time and looping. You may want to jump right in to ASP.NET MVC too.
To the root of your question, I'd learn ASP.NET if you're doing anything more than a simple brochure site. If you have .NET experience, and classic web development experience, then learning ASP.NET is not going to be a big hurdle and will be well worth the effort.
I agree with Aaron Daniels' answer about learning jQuery. jQuery helps a lot with cross-browser compatibility in JavaScript and some CSS-based effects.
However, you should also look into ensuring your site uses well-formed, valid HTML, and doesn't use too many CSS 2+ features. This should ensure that your site is standards compliant, which will mean it will play well with Firefox, Safari, Opera, and even later versions of IE to an extent. You will still need to do manual tweaking for IE - it's been too broken for too long for MS to be able to fix it properly in one go - so look into conditional comments for applying a separate stylesheet for IE users.
AJAX is a handy technology for "desktopifying" your web app. It provides a mechanism for asynchronous callbacks to the web server, so you can pass data to and fro without reloading the page in the browser window. This is how the voting buttons work on StackOverflow, for example.
Lastly, ASP.NET doesn't really have much effect on the end user's experience in terms of the look and feel of the site. It is a server technology that provides for writing complex applications to be delivered over the web to a browser. Having said that, MS have put in some extra goodies to make working with AJAX a little easier.
Hope that helps!
Does anyone know of any good resources for learning about cross-browser development in ASP.NET? Specifically, what causes a page to look different in FF/Chrome/IE, what are the gotchas when developing, how can this issue be addressed in a new project etc.
A good tool for cross-browser websites is Microsofts SuperPreview. This is still in beta, but so far looks like it will be a great help with web development.
Hope that helps!
There's really not a specific resource I've found for that type of information. Generally I've found the information as I encounter the errors. But the first step is learning at least a high level overview of the rendering engines used by the different browsers. They all have their own particular "quirks", thus why a site like http://www.quirksmode.org/ exists.
Another thing related to the different engines is understanding the box model of development and how CSS is treated differently with it in each browser (and the different versions of the browsers). If you need to be extremely worried about pixel perfect matching between the browsers, you're going to have tons of fun.
Related to that, another thing is to look in CSS Reset Sheets. This gets the environment between the different browsers fairly similar. This makes development easier, but still not foolproof from messing up layout.
Usually you won't get any problems with ASP.net and cross-browser compatibility issues if you just use the standard normal server controls ASP.net gives you. When the problems start is (as CD said) when you're doing something more "advanced" like Ajax calls using the ASP.net Ajax Control toolkit or jQuery or whatever and you still have the requirement to be backwards compatible till IE6 (which causes most of the problems!).
What I experienced, cross-browser issues arise when
you're using a lot of client-side code like JavaScript (Ajax calls etc...). In such cases it is worth to look for high-level libraries like jQuery for doing most of the things.
you're dealing with CSS stylesheets for doing your page design and layout, which you should do with CSS and not inline styles!! With CSS it's a matter of learning by doing. You'll get experiences on what will work fine on most browsers and what will probably give you problems.
Generally, just for ASP.net, it is extremely important to have the page/control/custom server controls lifecycle in mind. You should have a good idea about that, but there is plenty information around on the web. Most issues you'll experience with the ASP.net ViewState will be due to incorrect handling of the according control's lifecycle (i.e. attaching dynamic elements to early/late, reading the ViewState in the OnInit of your page and wondering why your values are empty etc...)
This really should be more a concern of HTML markup and CSS than ASP.NET specifically. That will help your search.
For me this has been an issue of learning the hard way, along with a lot of Google searches.
Quirksmode.org is a good reference as Agent_9191 suggested and there are other more specialized & detailed references scattered throughout the web.
However, if you try to read and understand all the incompatibilities between browsers it's easy to be overwhelmed. So often times I really need specific examples to learn from.
For that, I really like alistapart.com. There is a ton of good stuff on that site when it comes to creating layouts in a cross-browser compatible way.
For the ASP.NET specific side, the most important tip I can think of is to avoid the more complex ASP.NET controls as much as possible. The more markup the framework generates, the more stuff you will need to unwind. And honestly, one can do everything one would need to do in ASP.NET using repeaters and user controls at the end of the day. Which is what one had to do back in the 1.1 days to get anything resembling decent markup.
Now, if you can't avoid the more complex controls, I would also check out the Css Friendly Control Adapters. They can help slim down some of the other stuff.
Past, now irrelevant back story: I was trying to make some changes to BlueBand and get 'up and running pretty quickly' but after looking at it further this is no longer an option due to tables that a previous developer introduced into the layout. I'll have to live with this and make what tweaks I can.
So, looking towards future greenfields projects...
Are there any recommendations for CSS frameworks that work nicely with SharePoint publishing sites? (Examples are BluePrint, YUI.) They should not interfere with standard out-of-the-box controls such as the Site Actions menu, rich text editor, and publishing toolbar.
Real world experiences welcomed, please!
What would you like to use a CSS framework for? As far as I can tell you could use one for making a cross-browser reset but everything else just depends on your layout. If you're planning to throw out the standard SharePoint layout it means that you need to start from scratch. The good news is that it's not much different than creating a layout for any other website. There are some things you need (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa660698.aspx) while working with SharePoint but as for CSS it's all up to you.
Heather Solomon has a great blog/guide on wiring up SharePoint CSS classes - take a look:
http://www.heathersolomon.com/content/sp07cssreference.htm
Cheers,
Adam
You will run into a lot of trouble trying to hack the blue band theme into a table less layout.
You may get some mileage from the free Accesibility Kit for Sharepoint.
It comes with layout pages, CSS and even control adapters for those who care about the HTML of thier site.
Still, getting rid of the tables produced by SharePoint is not really compatible with "up and running pretty quickly"
You should start with the minimal masterpage. That will be the masterpage that's connected to the publishing layouts. You can then add in all the html/css you desire to your masterpage and layouts to make them look like anything you want.
If the users who are browsing those same publishing pages also need access to your list forms (new,edit,display) you will have to edit those files and attach them to your masterpage (either through SP Designer or a Feature to do it automatically). Or, customize the application masterpage to be nearly the same as your publishing masterpage and deploy them both as a feature with an HTTP Handler that changes the masterpage for the application.master at runtime.
Also an FYI, there are many issues once you start customizing list form pages for a site accessible to anon users, so do your research first on that one if needed.
We have used 960.gs with some success. Just include it in your master page, and wrap the main content area with a - or use container_12/container_24. Then in your individual page layouts, you can leverage all the columns/push/pull/alpha/omega goodies that make 960 so great. This works in 2007 and 2010, just takes a bit more work in 2007.
You can use any framework you desire when working with Sharepoint, however, the primary concern is how much control you have over web parts. OOB web parts use table based layout. If you have full control over how the web parts use the markup they product then you are one step closer to using a framework with little headache.
To alleviate some of the table based layout used in web parts you can look at accessibility toolkits to convert the web parts appropriately.