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[Stephan Soller]

On 07.10.2010 11:02, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Stephan Soller"<stephan.soller at helionweb.de>  wrote in message
> news:i8jvip$1ed6$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> On 07.10.2010 04:26, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> "Stephan Soller"<stephan.soller at helionweb.de>   wrote in message
>>> news:i8i10k$2a86$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>>> On 06.10.2010 02:08, Arlo White wrote:
>>>>> That's because HTML/CSS is a pretty terrible language for anything
>>>>> beyond simple layouts. It shares more with Word/PDF/PostScript in terms
>>>>> of its purpose and history than it does with real gui layout engines
>>>>> (GTK, QT, etc).
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> HTML/CSS is primary made for documents not applications.
>>>
>>> So true. That, combined with HTTP's stateless nature (and the
>>> exploit-prone
>>> nature of trying to build state on top of it), is why I view "web as a
>>> platform" as being little different from using PDF as an application
>>> platform. Heck, the PDF spec is so open-ended it could certainly be done.
>>>
>>
>> Never read the PDF spec, but I don't believe that it includes a world wide
>> network of web servers, does it?
>
> Not explicitly as far as I'm aware, but then neither does HTML aside from
> URLs. And the PDF format does have provisions for files/data of arbitrary
> types to be embedded into it. So that could be used to embed HTTP URLs, or
> any other form of network-oriented links, or any other application-related
> information/instructions/data you want. Then you could build CSS/JS/CGI-like
> stuff on top of all that. And all of a sudden "PDF-readers" become a really
> shitty application platform just like what happened with HTML and web
> browsers.
>

Interesting point of view. So PDF basically equals to HTML in that 
regard. Never thought about it that way but you're probably right. :)

>>
>> To be honest I use fixed with designs a lot. Usually I just don't have so
>> much content that I have to use every part of the screen. ;)
>>
>
> I've been tempted to do that as well just because controlling resize-flow is
> such a pain with HTML/CSS as they currently are.
>
>>> For instance, try to make a resizable box with bit-mapped borders that
>>> behaves reliably (I've needed to do a lot of that for a client recently).
>>> Easy as pie with tables and CSS background images. But with anything else
>>> in
>>> CSS, I've become convinced it's just not possible.
>>>
>>
>> Actually is pretty easy in CSS. I also had to do it a lot in the past. You
>> just nest as many elements (usually divs) inside each other as you need
>> background images. Then you use one of those divs to create the border for
>> one side: just assign a background image to this side and a proper padding
>> that makes sure only this side is visible. Corners are a bit tricky to do
>> no problem if you make the main container "position: relative" and then
>> position the corner divs with "position: aboslute". However for most of my
>> layouts I found that I didn't need a variable height and therefore 4 divs
>> where sufficient. This method had it's troubles for IE 5 but in IE 6 you
>> shouldn't have much of a problem (maybe one bug, don't remember exactly).
>>
>
> Interesting.
>
>> On modern browsers you can simply user border images (as many as you
>> want). This also eliminates the need for semantically stupid HTML
>> elements. However thanks to box-shadow, border-radius and colors with
>> alpha transparency I hardly use graphics programs to design any more. I
>> just do it directly in HTML/CSS with is usually quite a bit comfortable
>> (and faster!).
>
> I usually like to minimize bitmapped stuff on pages too, just because it's
> simpler, it can still get acceptable results, and I'm no artist ;)  But then
> when the client has a design they want it to look like and it includes
> things that can only be done as images, well, then I just don't have the
> energy or patience to try to talk them out of it - I'll just toss in
> whatever I need to to make it work, even if that means tables, and be done
> with it.
>

If I get a design from a client I do that to. I don't use tables but 
most often a combination of floats and relative/absolute positioning but 
usually with quite a lot of images in it. Even if they don't have a 
finished design arguing about it often is a lost cause anyway. However 
for my own personal project (or in case I have to do the design myself) 
these new CSS techniques come in quite handy (if the environment allows 
it...).

I used it for my [personal website][1] and it was quite handy. The only 
images are the header image, icons and the background gradient. The 
gradient only because I was to lazy to look up the proper properties and 
do some cross browser testing (not sure if Opera support gradient yet 
though).

[1]: http://arkanis.de/

Happy programming
Stephan