[Solar-talk] layout generator

[Paul M Jones]

On Aug 3, 2006, at 12:58 AM, Clay Loveless wrote:

> Actually, I think what's made CSS purists angry is the non-semantic
> class names, and the requirement of so much markup in the HTML itself
> (nested divs) to achieve the look you want.

I have to agree with those opinions, and I'm not a purist by any  
standard.  ;-)  YUI-Grids are not exactly human-readable code.

Having said that, I really like the idea behind YUI-Reset (i.e., to  
force a baseline standard on all browsers to eliminate or override  
quirks).


> Justin names the use of standardized class names, and some default,
> prepared layouts as benefits.

Ah, but we can do that no matter what CSS lib we pick for Solar.   
Granted, we might need to write those standardized layouts  
ourselves...  :-(


>>> 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.
>
> Upon re-reading my statement here ... it's kind of contradictory,
> since Solar itself is the brilliant work of one guy (with some input
> from others). So, that's not really a legitimate strike against  
> OTL. ;)

I agree, in fact I find it to be a a point in its favor.  ;-)


>> 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.
>
> As I mentioned above, I've contacted Alex about possibly creating (or
> helping me create) a step-by-step, YUI-style distribution for the
> concepts he described. It'll be interesting to see what he says, and
> I think it might be wise to reserve judgement about a Solar standard
> approach until we hear back from him, or until we determine that we
> won't hear back from him.
>
> Paul ... you've been quiet in this discussion. :) Any thoughts at
> this point from you?

My only solid thought is the same as I expressed earlier; that is,  
until we have concrete examples of a CSS framework actually in use,  
we can't reasonably consider putting it in the core.

With that in mind, it does seem like OTL is more the direction to go  
in, especially if we can create some standard Solar layouts around it  
that meet most needs of everyday developers and designers.  Rodrigo's  
OTL-App is a step in the right direction, but I think we'd be better  
off to have OTL versions of the current twoColLeft, twoColRight,  
threeCol, oneCol, etc. layouts that you can just "drop in" without  
having to configure a helper.  Or layouts based on the list Clay  
noted at:

     http://www.contentwithstyle.co.uk/Articles/17/a-css-framework

To wit:

>     * Vertical navigation with one content column
>     * Vertical navigation with two columns of content
>     * Horizontal navigation with one content column
>     * Horizontal navigation with 2 columns of content
>     * Horizontal navigation with local navigation and one column of  
> content
>     * Horizontal navigation with local navigation and 2 columns of  
> content


--

Paul M. Jones  <http://paul-m-jones.com>

Solar: Simple Object Library and Application Repository
for PHP5.   <http://solarphp.com>

Savant: The simple, elegant, and powerful solution for
templates in PHP.   <http://phpsavant.com>