[Solar-talk] layout generator

[Rodrigo Moraes]

On 8/2/06, Clay Loveless wrote:
> Can you go into some additional detail on how YUI Grids are restrictive?

Yes, sure. Well, I wish I can use it, really. So I'm very curious
about your discoveries, because as I've mentioned I haven't gone much
far. More on this later.

> I took the plunge yesterday, as I mentioned earlier, and was
> successful (after a minor amount of hair-pulling) to get exactly what
> I wanted out of YUI Grids. I'm now building out a full site using YUI
> Grids and a single override CSS file, and it's going well so far.

I would like to compare YUI Grids and The One True Layout to put some
concepts on the table. What is nice about YUI Grids (and what made CSS
purists angry) is its nature to be used in generated layouts. You have
one CSS file for the structure, and your engine takes care to build
divs to be used in that scheme.

It is the opposite of the One True layout, where you have one html
scheme and your engine takes care to build the css to fit that scheme.
This is of course a more 'semantic' way - you still have some wrapper
div's but not that much.

But, although YUI Grids are less semantic (well, it is not semantic at
all),  they are but much better for generated layouts, because it is
much easier to generate working html than working CSS.

On the other hand... the One True Layout is much easier to understand
and work by hand, at least the HTML part. It's clean markup, allows
source ordered columns displaying in any order etc. Both uses damn
complicated CSS rules, but the One True Layout is a bit easier to
understand imo.

> I read the article on One True Layout, and it was interesting ... but
> seems to be an ongoing debate, and will likely remain an ongoing
> debate. A couple of interesting articles which related to it:
>
> http://www.alistapart.com/articles/holygrail
>
> http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2005/11/09/multi-unit-any-order-
> columns/

Yes, it is an ongoing debate, but I don't think YUI Grids have closed
it, not at this stage. I've been looking for the holy grail for a
while; any news on this camp make my eyes shine. YUI Grids was not
different, and I've tried it, read the docs, tested a lot of things,
looked for resources... then I put to my labs archive. I still hope I
can use it one day; I'm *really* curious about your discoveries.

> The thing that's most appealing to me about YUI Grids is that it's a
> released, version-numbered bit of code whose use is documented in the
> style of an actual manual. It's also supported by an entire team
> (even if it's a small team) at Yahoo, giant company that isn't going
> anywhere.

That's why I like YUI javascript ;-) (they are small team, but with a
huge community of followers around the globe; they build standards).
And also because it gives you complete solutions, besides a framework
to build your own.

> One True Layout, on the other, is the brilliant work of one guy (with
> some input from others), and in the midst of all of it there's not a
> concise step-by-step guide along the lines of:

You have a point. And as I said, I wish I could use YUI Grids because
of the reasons you gave. I think OTL it is stronger than YUI Grids at
this point. I've used it some time ago, and have an use for it now
(layouts customized by users). And why YUI Grids haven't made a point
with me? Well:

- I can't make 100% width layouts *and* choose columns widths.
- Grids margins (I said sooner paddings; I meant margins) are not
under control and I don't know how to deal with this.

> Did I miss the step-by-step part of the OTL article(s), aside from
> the example link?

There is no step-by-step. I think it only intended to explain the
techniques it uses, not to give a cookbook. It's understandable, given
the audience of the site where it was published. So it requires a lot
more hair-pulling. ;-)

cheers,
rodrigo moraes / brazil