Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 4 years ago.
Improve this question
Hey. We're building a large ASP.NET website, and have hired an external firm to do the design (CSS + protoype pages). In fitting the design to the page, we've found a number of problems that indicate ASP.NET's workings were never considered. My question is - Is there a common standard (that should be) used by design firms creating what will become an ASP.NET site?
We've found things like:
Using IDs on HTML elements for
CSS/JS to find, which doesn't work
with server tags generating IDs.
IDs with hyphens in them
ValidatorSummary example built in a completely different style to ASP.NET's.
Assumptions that all buttons will be <input> tags
Margin styles on <div>s, interfering with our use of panels
The first instance is a problem. The rest are inconvient misunderstandings. As usual, there are intense time constraints, so in this sea of 'we'll fix it / get our designer to look at it / work around it', I'm largely hoping there's some fundamental building block that would have stopped most of these problems from happening.
The design firm is large, with a substantial body of large-site work behind them, so sadly the 'don't hire a one man shop' wisdom isn't the ticket in this case...
[Update]
If you're in the position of hiring an external web design firm, and have the luxury of early collaboration and wish to help bridge the gap of meeting ASP.NET's requirements, here's our current list of guidelines. Please comment below if you feel there's something that should be added:
Please encapsulate each the page in a <form> tag (ie.
place it directly after the
<body> tag), and use no other <form> tags on the page
To
display a summary of page validation
errors, please cater to rendering
the following format example:
<div class="error_class">
<h3>Please review the following fields</h3>
<ul>
<li>Home phone number</li>
<li>Surname</li>
</ul>
</div>
Please avoid driving styles off the ID or name property.
If there are HTML components that need to be turned on and off, these components should be encapsulated in a <div> element, so that the div's visibility can be set to 'false'.
If styling buttons, please cater to both <input> tags and <a ... class="example_class"> <span>Button text</span>` formats.
Avoid setting attributes on class-less <div> and <span> tags.
Thank you for bearing with us.
Most design firms I have worked with required some hand holding on what they can and cannot do with regards to designing for an ASP.Net app. You hit all the big ones, the ID thing being the biggest issue.
In terms of building blocks, collaboration early and often did the trick for us. Once we established how we needed the design to be implemented to work easily within an ASP.Net context, things went smooth. Of course, the better the designer on the other end, the easier its going to be.
I am not one for having developers chop up PSD files. With the right designer or firm, you should be able to save time and money and get it done right from the outset. Most developers I know can tweak and extend css and markup, but are much less efficient when starting from a PSD, or from scratch.
HTH.
Any time I've worked with design firms building asp.net pages I've always just had them design what it should look like. Nothing to do with the markup or css. This leaves a lot of work to be done by the developers, but avoids all the mistakes you just mentioned. I've always had designers deliver a PSD file and chopped it up myself.
If this doesn't suit your needs you can always try ASP.NET MVC. It gives you a lot more control over the markup you put on the page.
In general, people who make their living as designers do not know ASP.Net well enough to avoid it's, ahem, quirks. It's not reasonable to expect them to produce HTML and CSS which take ASP.Net's rules into consideration. The standards are actually on the designers side in this one.
For future integration, you may want to go with a firm that has their own .Net devs who work with their designers or, if you have the option of .Net 3.5, you could work with a design shop that has MS Expressions Web at their disposal.
Related
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
Do you use microformats in your web projects?
If yes then why?
If no then why?
If yes then for which things do you use?
Is there any alternate of microformats in HTML 5 ?
I haven't used microformats yet. Should i start to use now or not much need?
I’ve used microformats fairly extensively. The benefits I see are
access to data for robots like Google Rich Snippets
access to data for users via µF-comsuming tools like H2VX
(some) data validation
more meaningful markup, which makes me happy
(minor) disadvantages are
time; hand-coding these things can be a pita. Either add programmatically (e.g. generate from data in CMS) or make a bunch of snippets. If doing via a CMS then it’s (for me) a no-brainer
require extra attention to UI to do well (best if exposed, but that often involves custom icon etc)
Microformats work fine as-is in HTML5. There are new HTML5 elements that map well to some µF functions, notably <time>, but be warned that current µF tools generally can’t cope with HTML5’s new elements (“Tool support” slide).
Your other alternatives are HTML5’s microdata, and RDFa. Microdata is pretty nice, but quite new so doesn’t have many tools available. You can represent microformats in microdata, and the HTML5 spec has microdata versions of vCard and vCal. There’s also HTML5’s data- attribute, but that’s for private use and doesn’t encode visible data, so is probably not what you’re after.
I perceive these three as a continuum from easy but specific (microformats) to hard but capable of anything (RDFa), with microdata (for me) occupying a sweet spot in the middle. Google Rich Snippets can read data in any of these, but user tools are still playing catchup. The main benefit of any of these is making your content more usable by exposing more of the information, and for me that’s generally worth the time.
For completeness I’ve used
hCard
hCalendar
hEvent
hAtom
hReview (once? :)
XFN
plus some rels like rel-license
EDIT: I’ve written these articles on HTML5Doctor with everything you need to know ;)
Extending HTML — Microformats
Extending HTML — Microdata
HTH
You should ask Jeff Atwood.
HTML5 defines various semantic tags to mark your data:
<time>
<address>
<header>
<nav>
<footer>
<article>
<summary>
<details>
It also allows for custom data attributes starting with "data-" within elements.
There is support for microdata which is based on microformats to provide more semantic structure to individual and groups of elements.
And to answer your main question:
No, I don't microformats because I didn't see the advantages until I gave your question a serious thought. I am using the newer HTML5 elements such as time, and custom data attributes, but not microformats because the data was already structured on the backend, and for more structured and semantic access, I'd would've used RSS feeds with specific extensions and include a link to the feed within the document itself.
That said, here's why I still support microformats and believe they are awesome and will most likely start using it in the very near future. For me, it serves a very specific purpose and has to do with programmatic access to the elements within my web applications. RSS and Atom feeds provide the same data in a very structured manner, but it's an alternative view. Microformats, or any other homegrown standards can be used effectively to enhance applications.
As long as the elements are structured in a standard manner, I can build upon a shared library of reusable code across all applications that deals with commonly occurring data items such as names, addresses, contact details, telephone numbers, etc. to enhance all applications. For example, automatically linking addresses to Google Maps, or linkifying telephone numbers to use a native protocol such as tel: on the fly for mobile devices and various other enhancements that I can do.
Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.
We don’t allow questions seeking recommendations for books, tools, software libraries, and more. You can edit the question so it can be answered with facts and citations.
Closed 2 years ago.
Locked. This question and its answers are locked because the question is off-topic but has historical significance. It is not currently accepting new answers or interactions.
What should be the top 10 CSS and HTML questions to ask an interviewee? To test his level of knowledge if interviewee mentioned 2 yrs. experience in XHTML and CSS.
Edit:
how we can know interviewee's cross browser layout making capability? My question is only related to xhtml css coding not about design ability
What is the CSS box model?
What is the difference between quirks mode, standards mode and almost standards mode?
Tell me about hasLayout.
What would be the most appropriate markup for: a navigation menu; a picture gallery; a blog post. (Why? Can you think of some alternatives? Might be good to draw these up on a whiteboard or something)
What's the difference between <p class="main_header">Foo</p> and <h1 class="main_header">Foo</h1>?
Why is this a bad idea?: <span class="red">Bar</span>
Describe how to set opacity and how will it appear in Gecko, WebKit and IE.
How can you set few properties on to textboxes as default?
A design calls for png files with alpha transparency, what issues might you encounter?
Some of these are the same as zoul's questions except from a slightly different angle - I was aiming for questions that would lead to a bit of a discussion.
Why is it a good idea to split HTML and CSS?
What is the difference between inline and block elements?
What is a doctype good for?
What is the difference between classes and ids?
What is the difference between margin and padding?
These should be more than plenty to see how much candidate knows about browsers, standards and the reasoning behind HTML and CSS. Maybe you could throw in some floats, positioning and similar stuff if you want to test detailed CSS knowledge.
Update: The point is the kind of answer you are going to get, of course. If you ask about margin and padding and you get a clean drawing of box content, added padding, border line and margin, possibly collapsing against another box, you know the guy knows what he is talking about. Same goes for all the other questions.
No amount of questions in a short interview would establish a person's skill level. And there is the question of innovative qualities of a person which may not reveal itself in an interview. Some people may be introverted and shy or suffer from interview jitters others may be smooth talkers with little substance. There is also the challenge of asking objective questions not opinions.
If I show up for an audition to join a symphonic orchestra and tell them I have been playing the violin for 20 years they will not ask me about the construction of the bridge or the best material for bow strings. They give me a music score and ask me to play.
I suggest creating a simple web page that requires the techniques mentioned in the answers above, showing it to the candidate and asking the candidate to re-produce it in 30 minutes using the notepad. This will sort out the experienced from the novice.
Apart from HTML/CSS/JS specific or problem-solving questions, I would also ask what sort of tools she/he is using to get a task done. It often gives good insights about 'how' someone works and gives good/relaxed room for discussion. Good developers always have good and sharp tools.
I've taken a number of tests over the past couple of years and in all honesty there are really no questions one can ask to judge how great someone is at coding in HTML and/or CSS.
First, if the interviewee claims to have written web pages over the past couple of years ask for a couple of examples. If possible get him/her to email you them, print them out and get the user to explain and critique everything about them. Completely tear through everything regarding their previous work and get them to explain everything they can about it.
Once this is done, the user should be given a small task involving the development of a web page. Give them a networked computer and clear the history, then give them a couple of web pages to be built over the space of n minutes. Tell them to document what they decide to do and what resources they'll be using and just let them get on with it. After a while check their references and look at the outcome. The user will never be able to perform their best work in such a short time but you'll be able to see how efficient they are by the quality of their work.
Once this is done, give them a broken web page and give them a small amount of time to fix it to the point of it being standards-compliant. This should be an easy task to perform for most given good use of their tools.
It's obviously not an exact science, but a range of these methods have always found suitable candidates for many companies and it seems that a lot of Web Design places rarely ask questions nowadays and will move onto simple practical exercises to ensure that the interviewee can do what is asked of them.
What do you see as the main differences between html and xhtml?
Are there benefits to using one over the other?
Technical
Ask the person to make a simple page with a header, a two column layout, and a footer with each column having a different background color extending to the footer. Get them to flip the columns around on completion.
A couple of questions that are tricky.
How do absolutes affect the flow?
How do floats affect the flow?
(they don't)
What are two practical difference between a relative and static?
Determine their interest in CSS and HTML with 'What is the semantic web and why is it important?' People should be able to speak with enthusiasm about bring information to the blind for example. People who really work in HTML and CSS and know their stuff tend to be quite passionate about how information is there for all.
IMO, Cross browser issues are becoming less important now as more people are using modern browsers that obey standards.
Ask about their interest in design. A good sense of design concepts tends to be important when working in a team - a programmer with a sense of design can communicate why such a design may not work well within a website and can explain better some of the limitations.
Ask: what do you think of flash :-)
Below are 40 questions you can ask a person specifically from HTML 5 perspective.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/702051/important-HTML-Interview-questions-with-answe
What is the relationship between SGML,HTML , XML and HTML ?
In HTML 5 we do not need DTD why?
If I do not put will HTML 5 work?
Which browsers support HTML 5?
How is the page structure of HTML 5 different from HTML 4 or previous HTML?
What is datalist in HTML 5 ?
What are the different new form element types in HTML 5?
What is output element in HTML 5?
What is SVG?
Can we see a simple example of SVG using HTML 5?
What is canvas in HTML 5?
So how can we draw a simple line on Canvas?
What is the difference between Canvas and SVG graphics?
How to draw rectangle using Canvas and SVG using HTML 5 ?
What are selectors in CSS?
How can you apply CSS style using ID value?
What is the use of column layout in CSS?
Can you explain CSS box model?
Can you explain some text effects in CSS 3?
What are web workers and why do we need them ?
What are the restrictions of Web Worker thread ?
So how do we create a worker thread in JavaScript?
How to terminate a web worker
Why do we need HTML 5 server-sent events?
What is local storage concept in HTML 5?
How can we add and remove data from local storage?
What is the lifetime of local storage?
What is the difference between local storage and cookies?
What is session storage and how can you create one?
What is difference between session storage and local storage?
What is WebSQL?
Is WebSQL a part of HTML 5 specification?
So how can we use WebSQL ?
What is application cache in HTML5?
So how do we implement application cache in HTML 5 ?
So how do we refresh the application cache of the browser?
What is fallback in Application cache?
What is network in application cache ?
What are different ways to apply styles to a Web page?
What is grouping in CSS?
What is the Contextual Selector?
What are the limitations in the use of CSS?
like the above there are 50+ awesome questions that are available here through
which any CSS related interview can get cracked. Top CSS interview
questions and answers
This also help to clear the concept of CSS.
Some good questions to ask are:
Describe how to set opacity.
What is the box model in CSS?
How do you add a CSS to a HTML?
Describe the difference between a class and an element.
What is the Doctype for?
Odd no one mentioned this yet...
Since the person claims to have two years of experience, they should have something to show for it - so ask to see recent works. Even if some of their work was internal or protected by NDA or such, if they are any good, they ought to have something they've done just to try out new things or such.
I believe real examples would be the best gauge for actual skill in this case. People can easily learn various details about HTML and CSS, but being able to apply them is a totally different matter. It should also demonstrate their ability to write cross-browser compatible code (Just open their examples in IE, FF, Opera, Safari/Chrome)
Do you know how to clear floats?
Write a simple nested list.
Ask them to make a simple layout (header, 2 col, footer) and include table data. See if they go div crazy, table crazy, or stick to what's correct.
What's the difference between a class and an element?
When they make a layout, look closely at what they name their classes. If they are layout-specific ("left-column", "bottom-section", "red-box") and not structure-specific ("column", "header", "footer", "navigation"), they're doing it wrong.
If the answer to 1. is "by using clearing divs", hit them across the face with a bat before you send them out the door.
The fancy button question seen here is the best question I've seen. It covers a range of topics without making it a written test. It's much more valuable to have them implement something like this on a whiteboard or paper to avoid getting bogged down in MDN-searchable details. Even if they don't come up with a perfect solution, you will find out how intelligently they can speak on a range of topics.
Remember, you want someone who can think and come up with creative and effective solutions. Not someone who has memorized the MDN.
About HTML5 and its features .
method of adding CSS to HTML.
New Features of CSS3.
Browser Compatibility of CSS3.
Different type of selector in CSS.
Different between class and id selector .
Different type of measuring unit in CSS
HTML5 form and different type of input type option.
HTML check box,select,radio ,button tags and its use.
Styling the simple page
Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.
Closed 4 years ago.
Improve this question
As I understand it, just URL re-writing is not the only thing one needs to do for making a website SEO friendly. You also needs to maximize the use of div (instead of tables), reduce javascripts, flashes and have a clean HTML.
I need to know how can this be achieved when one used a ASP.Net control. ASP.Net send loads of stuff to the screen which in technologies like PHP can be delivered using much cleaner code.
Can anybody tell me is there a way to force ASP.Net to render cleaner code and work with divs instead of table when one used datagridview.
Also I would appreciate if one can post the suggestions for making a existing website SEO friendly which was coded in ASP.Net C# 2.0
Making your site's pages "SEO friendly" is really about ensuring that search engines (Google), can understand the content on the on the pages. Using "semantic" html markup can go a long way to help the search engines.
ASP.NET doesn't so much make it hard to do semantic markup as it does make it easy NOT to.
Wrapping a sub-heading in an <h2> tag and styling the <h2> helps the search engine understand that a particular string of text has more weight than other text on the page. ASP.NET makes in easy to fall into the trap of just using a Label server control and applying styling to it to make it look like a heading.
GridView data controls render tables. If you repeating data would be better understood with more semantic markup, consider using a Repeater control or a Listview control if you need to support paging etc.
Step 1 to SEO optimization is understanding semantic markup. Then you can find the appropriate ASP.NET controls to achieve your optimized SEO output.
Server controls have been the main selling point for ASP.NET WebForms. It has allowed developers to quickly put up pages without thinking of HTTP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SEO or anything. Exactly this kind of knowledge you will need to consistently create quality markup that is SEO-friendly.
If you absolutely wish to stay with WebForms, you need to look at what output the controls you use render. If you don't like it then you may have to redefine their rendering algorithms or better create your own controls.
Also get some url rewriting module (or use the one included in .NET 3.5 SP1 - the one used by ASP.NET MVC framework) and define good-looking self-describing urls for your existing pages. Also take advantage of header tags (H1...H6), search engines look at them to see what the page says it is about.
I wouldn't worry about divs vs. tables and validation, this is not clear of how relevant this is for the SEO, there are too many widely different opinions on these matters with proofs to support each point of view. What does matter, is the content. As they say, content is the king.
What I would pay attention to is the view state that ASP.NET injects into pages. It is widely known that the close to the beginning of the page the content is, the better for search engines. ASP.NET steals the beginning of a page by putting there an often huge block of serialized view state (under circumstances can reach megabytes). Try to turn off view state for your pages if you can (if your server logic can be adapted to stateless operation). This will be a very important step.
Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.
We don’t allow questions seeking recommendations for books, tools, software libraries, and more. You can edit the question so it can be answered with facts and citations.
Closed 6 years ago.
Improve this question
As a little side project, I am starting to build a new website for a certain organization I am affiliated to, which current site is simply outdated.
I am regularly a Java developer, and last time I really did some web development was back in the late 90s, when <p> was still more popular than <div> and Javascript was cutting-edge technology (JQuery is for lazy bums these days :) ).
Anyway, I feel really outdated. The website basically is going to be:
Django based
mostly serve static information pages
it will have a dynamic news and updates page (based on Django admin capabilites)
and some basic apps I'll develop myself (polls, small registration app, etc...)
My problem is designing the whole thing. I found some nice web-based CSS layout generators that got me going, but I still feel I'm wasting my time smoothing out the CSS files and aligning <div>s.
Are there any tools - the simpler and faster, the better - that you recommend I can use to speed up the design part of the site so I can concentrate on the real work?
I don't need anything fancy, just a nice looking layout and design that I can tweak a bit so the site will look presentable.
I second Brandon's suggestion to use a CSS framework. It won't give you 100% freedom to design anything you like, but it can speed up your design process greatly and free up your hands to do the coding you really want.
Suggestions Updated July 2013:
Twitter Bootstrap http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/ - complete grid, typo, UI widget prototyping framework
ZURB Foundation http://foundation.zurb.com/ - responsive grid, type, UI widget prototyping framework (similar in scope to Twitter Bootstrap, but feels 'cleaner' in some ways)
960 http://960.gs/ - grid layout system
Tripoli http://devkick.com/lab/tripoli/ - really good typography, but no grid system
YUI Grids http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/grids/ - very customizable (to the point of overkill) grid system
Blueprint http://www.blueprintcss.org/ - grid system and basic typography
BlueTrip http://www.bluetrip.org - a hybrid system, mixing the best of the Blueprint grid with the best of the Tripoli typography
I won't lie to you. This website isn't the best place to go if you're looking for reliable Web Design advice. Stack Overflow is a programming community and programmers rarely know anything about design. If you want to get some real advice then I would strongly recommend the main Web Design/Development forums on the Internet, especially SitePoint.
That being said, as a former freelance Web Designer/Developer I'll offer my input on the issue. Not that you should value it, of course. After all, this is a programming website.
NEVER EVER SAY CSS LAYOUT GENERATOR EVER AGAIN! If you're going to seriously get into designing web pages then you need to learn semantic XHTML and CSS first. Whilst many people tout W3Schools as the definitive resource I see it as a programmers answer (i.e. not very good) and would prefer that you read up on the subject using...Google. There are countless examples of great websites to pick up the basics of Web Design/Development that Google is probably the best website for the job. Also, with a plethora of new websites offering this information you know it's going to be more improved than W3Schools. You'll seriously want to get clued-up on writing your design because it'll be much harder to fix things later on in the project.
If you're going to be designing web pages it would be a good idea to learn what actually makes a good design. Check out CSS Vault for a fantastic resource of some of the best-designed web pages around, of course with all the source code intact so you can have a play around with their code and see how they've managed some of the wonderful effects they've produced. I've learnt more than a thing or two from websites that have been featured on CSS Vault. On top of that you should read up on Web Design from the big Web Design/Development sites. Two of my favourites are SitePoint and A List Apart, two names that you'll near time and time again when you hear people talk about resources. Browse those websites, check their forums, see what REAL Web Designers/Developers are using, not what programmers are using.
On the subject of CSS Frameworks; they do help! The problem with using them is that you'll often spend so much time looking for a worthwhile framework that you could have finished most of the CSS for your website yourself. You'll either love them or hate them, but many people will say that they're not necessary.
Once you've got your mind set on what a good design looks like and you've got the resources you need to make something of value I suggest that you get to work! In reality when you're designing a web page all you really need is a text editor with a save function, an image manipulation program, a browser window and FireBug. An IDE helps a lot of people, but if you do use one then you'll definitely want to work in its text mode. I use NotePad++ or Emacs exclusively but a lot of people like to use Aptana Studio, so it may be worth a look.
When you're getting to actually building the code behind your website you can't really go much worse than your favourite IDE/Text Editor and a source control tool. As a Java programmer you're better suited to talk about programming so I won't lecture you on a subject you already know.
In the end, Web Design is going to take time and many of the tools that we choose to use that we claim will "save time" save very little in reality. If you're not a design guru then it will take you a substantial amount of time to create a great-looking website. It's a fact of life. Call me old-fashioned (a funny word coming from a 21 year old) but I still think that the quickest way is to sketch a design out on a piece of paper (a image program if really necessary) and to just get out there and make the damn thing! Again, I'll have to take this hunting for the silver bullet mentality as a programmers trait, one that really won't help that much when designing, because designing a web page is vastly different to writing a Java program.
In short, ignore everything you read here, read what REAL designers are doing and just make the damn thing!
There's one piece of advice that saves more time than any other when it comes to rapid development of CSS styled sites and that's KEEP IT SIMPLE
Use an attractive simple layout that doesn't require pixel perfection and that can 'gracefully' degrade in less compliant browsers (IE6). Minimise the amount of CSS and fix the basic bugs mentioned by meouw above. Then get on an concentrate on content and functionality...the real work
In my previous employment I created dozens of templates for websites.
The most useful too I ever discovered is the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar.
It has a wealth of small useful tools. My favorite feature is the ability to edit the CSS and see the results in real-time. This saves on the whole edit - upload - refresh cycle. Watch out for ie CSS inconsistencies though!
Off the top of my head, these are the most important gotchas.
double margin bug [google: double margin bug]
incorrect (but more intuitive) box model [google: box model]
incorrect (but more intuitive) float clearing [google: clearfix]
FireBug is another really usefull Firefox plugin for more in depth analysis.
I've always found Open Source Web Design to be a good resource when looking to get started trying to design something.
- http://patterntap.com/
- http://www.dotemplate.com/ (interesting concept of customizing template)
- http://www.templatemonster.com/
- http://www.freelayouts.com/websites/html-templates
- http://www.templateyes.com/
No idea what the site is going to be, but have you thought of using a pre-build CMS like Drupal, Joomla etc etc.? You can then tweak templates etc, rather than worrying about making it from scratch.
This question is pretty old, but since we're in 2012, it's only proper that I answer my own question with the exact thing I was looking for, back in 2009.
Twitter Bootstrap
Have you looked into any CSS frameworks? If you are competent enough with CSS something like a framework could help speed things up.
Don't forget firebug :) if you're worried about tweaking the design it's really great. With the inspect feature allowing you to real-time edit the CSS of your page.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
I second Jens Roland's list of CSS frameworks.
But I would also suggest you have a look at websites such as Smashing Magazine. You might find this article of interest, amongst a lot of others. They tend to do a lot of nice and long mash-ups for the web developers that will at least give you inspiration if not a direct solution.
A colleague of mine has been trying to convince me all week that Dreamweaver, 5 years after I was last forced to use it at gunpoint, is actually now worthwhile for knocking up a design quickly and painlessly, and is also now competent at producing the HTML for that design.
I refuse to invest the 10 minutes it would take to find out based on my previous experiences of it, but you might like to give the demo a quick run around the block :)
I'd recommend finding a CMS package, since you're using Django, look into django-cms. It has TinyMCE and Markdown Support so updating your pages should be easy. Also django-cms integrates well with the Django admin interface.
A piece of paper to sketch your design
A text editor (preferably set up to save directly to a development server local or otherwise) to write up the initial HTML/CSS
FireBug/IEDeveloperToolbar to inspect each element that looks wrong and edit its CSS directly in the browser until it looks fine, followed by commits with the text editor
If you're doing any JavaScript development, use an advanced editor that highlights errors and warnings as you type. This kind of functionality has until recently been the province of static language editors only, but the free NetBeans 6 achieves this amazing feat. Traditionally, you first discovered JavaScript typos and simple bugs when first loading the parent page into a browser. The speed-up you get from being able to short-cut these iterations is profound.
NetBeans 6 also highlights CSS errors and is a more than capable editor for most all languages a web developer is likely to use these days.
You can also use www.zbugs.com - it will help you speed up a process of compressing and gzipping your CSS and Javascript files
We are contracting an external consultant out to generate XHTML (Transitional) and CSS for most of the major pages of a new project we are currently working on.
I've been asked to put together a list of guidelines for them so that we can be sure that a certain level of quality can be expected. As a bit of technical background, we will be incorperating the raw HTML they provide into an ASP.NET web forms application (utilising the usual master pages / external stylesheets / jquery). Javascript should not be a consideration, but formatting and organisation of CSS should be.
I've made a start but quickly realised that this is probably not a unique situation and that a tried and tested list might be out there somewhere that I can at least use as a template! Has anyone got any experience of this?
From a technical standpoint, pages must pass validation is probably the first test I'd have.
I would expect the site to be able to be used by someone with JavaScript disabled, and someone using a screen reader (this is quite a good one as it should also highlight issues with inappropriately used tables and other things such as missing image alt tags, inconsistent use of header tags etc.).
One good test I always make for myself is opening the page and ctrl+scroll.
The zooming gives you an immediate idea about how flexible and liquid your design is.
In IE this tends to fail no matter what, but there you could also try to make the font bigger and see what happens (pay attention to buttons stretching vertically for example)
Give them a list of browsers (browser version and OS) you expect them to support.
Should the accessibilty guidelines be adhered? You could agree on supporing some of the points in the Checklist for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The list is actually quite usefull, since it will not only insure that your site works for people with disabilities but also for browsers without JavaScript, CSS, Images. The list also contains some general good practices for building sensible web sites.
Since you're using ASP.NET make sure that they only include one <form> per web page. Or at least, be prepared to make some workarounds, if you allow them to use more.
If you're planning on using AJAX show them ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit so that they don't spent time on things that have already been built.
I would insist on that they use some proven frameworks like YUI css reset and jQuery.
One thing that makes passing an HTML / CSS template between multiple front-end developers is proper structuring and indenting of the markup. The same way books are broken down into volumes, chapters, paragraphs, sentences, words, spaces, and periods, there is a hierarchical structure that makes HTML and CSS easy to read (and on the other hand a way of coding that makes things a total mess)
As a rule of thumb:
<body>
<div id="first">
<p>
Some text goes in here...
<p>
<ul>
<li>A list item</li>
<li>A list item</li>
<li>A list item</li>
<li>
<ul>
<li>
A link
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div> <!-- #first ends -->
</body>
This kind of adherence to structure can really cut down on time by making scanning code super easy for whoever is working on it– regardless of whether they wrote it or not.
Apart from validation the following points should be keep in mind
- Accessibility (Who are the audience)
- CSS based design (Where semantics are well designed)
- Be consistent with your naming convention (css and id naming. This will be beneficial in the long run when any change needs to be made, when a new css has to be applied etc).
Check out the following best practices from yahoo developer library...
http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html
Also since you are using ASP.net be careful when naming usercontrols as the client side ID that is generated could be quite long and unexpected(asp.net generates the id at runtime);
Some good info could be found at
http://woork.blogspot.com/2008/11/useful-guidelines-to-improve-css-coding.html
Indeed, make sure that the page passes validation.
Also pay attention to semantics, the page should be in a logical order when CSS is disabled (which is the case for some browsers and screen readers). Make sure that headings are actually <h#> tags and that all images have appropriate alt tags. Also make sure tables are only used to display information and are not used for formatting. The menu should be constructed as a list not as divs (semantics).