[Solar-talk] A CSS Framework for Solar (was: Pre-release notes)

[Clay Loveless]

On Jul 29, 2006, at 12:04 PM, Rodrigo Moraes wrote:

> Clay, hi. Nice to talk to you. And nice that you have suggested the
> YUI package. When I mentioned a CSS framework for Solar, I really
> meant to draw some guidelines regarding markup and CSS to be used in
> layouts and helper sets (well, the default settings for them), not to
> create a library from scratch - let's use something good that already.

Hi Rodrigo -- thanks for clarifying. :)  Glad to see that there's  
some support for the idea of the YUI CSS (from Antti as well); am  
interested to hear more on what Paul thinks.

The biggest problem with any CSS standardization, of course, is  
getting too comfortable with the chosen library. Many times I find  
myself working on projects that have been marked up for XHTML/CSS by  
someone else, and need to adapt those marked-up pages to functional  
back-end code quickly. As such, there's rarely time to re-work the  
markup to use a standard CSS library.

I suppose this isn't much different than relying on JavaScript  
libraries in a web application that may conflict with some other JS  
library that you're either using or may use in the future.

Speaking of which ...

> And I have mentioned this before - I like their javascript library as
> well; it covers almost anything, is robust and well documented. I miss
> some things from Prototype, but my vote for a javascript library for
> Solar would go to YUI. As you said, regarding features, stability,
> robustness etc, YUI is a big winner. But we generally prefer what we
> are using most; there are other good libraries, we have just to choose
> one to dedicate our efforts to.

... I have to disagree here. I think that Solar would benefit most  
from using the established leader in JavaScript libraries: Prototype  
+ script.aculo.us.

My reasoning for voting in this manner is:

- Rails uses P/S. If/when Rails goes the way of ColdFusion, switchers  
coming back to PHP will look for a framework that supports scripting  
libraries they're familiar with.

- Symfony and CakePHP also use P/S. For switchers within the PHP  
community, sticking with these two also seem the most switcher-friendly.

- YUI's JavaScript approach is very verbose, to a point of being  
cumbersome to work with. I've spent equal time in YUI JS and  
"Protaculous", and I find the Protaculous combo is much easier to use.

- More extension libraries, such as the Prototype Window Class  
(http://prototype-window.xilinus.com/) are based on Prototype than  
any other library.


... finally, I vote this way because I'm halfway through writing  
Prototype and Scriptaculous helpers for Solar. :) Should be finishing  
up today/tomorrow, and will post for all to review. This last item  
doesn't count for as much as the other four reasons ... but carries  
some weight for me, at least. :)

-Clay

--
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