RE: html macro library

I would agree on the css layout, but depending on your environment you
need to watch backwards compatibility issues for many of the tags.  If
your on an intranet with control over your desktop versions then it's a
lot easier.  

We have developed sites where we have to detect what browser they are
using and send a different css file depending.  I have to admit though -
the css formatted sites look slick codewise.

On the other topics, I still fail to see how having all that code is
better than just coding in the <a href="" class=""> tag.  I guess if you
had a macro that would create a table from an arraylist or something
that would be cool.

Aside from it being simpler in the template, there is less complexity in
the background.

My 0.02USD


-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Burton [mailto:billb@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 3:02 PM
To: Velocity Users List
Subject: Re: html macro library


Hello Kevin,

Kevin Bolton wrote:
> I'll take the short answer, in so far as you know, to be: "No.  There 
> are no macro libraries for HTML code".  Thanks much for your answer.
> 
> In response to your other questions/points....
> 
> I am trying to avoid writing html by hand.  I don't care to remember 
> (or use some reference manual) html syntax.  Additionally, it's the 
> inconsistencies I'd inevitably introduce into the HTML hand coding 
> those tags I'm trying to avoid.  By using a macro library, all of my 
> html would be correct every time.  I would get the additional 
> validation from Velocity since Velocity would complain if I call a 
> macro that doesn't exist or call one with the wrong number of
arguments.

You should seriously investigate learning and using CSS for layout and 
overall look and feel of your pages.  This will greatly simplify the 
HTML that you do write and reduce the need to create macros in Velocity.

For a typical page that has a heading, left navigation and footer, the 
old way used tables and can get complicated with all the nesting.  The 
new way uses CSS for layout.  You just specify each section with a <div>

tag and specify the appropriate CSS to position and style the way you
want.

Some links:
   http://glish.com/css/
   http://www.mako4css.com/
   http://www.bluerobot.com/web/layouts/
   CSS in forms:
     http://www.webweaver.org/dan/css/cssforms.html

-Bill


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