Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Design implementor needed

4: Re: Design implementor needed (response to 1)

Posted by Deds Castillo on 01/29/08 09:29 AM

I agree with Don. If you are just relying on graphic artists with limited knowledge of CSS+HTML then there'd be a good chance that some elements of the design is almost impossible, or at least would require more work than you would want, to implement. There's also the issue of CSS browser compatibility so a fancier design would probably require you to insert one or more hacks to make it work on some browsers, more notably IE.

When I was tasked to reskin Solution Grove's blog based on a PSD file, I wasn't able to make it 100% identical due to some elements which I found hard to convert to CSS+HTML. I do admit that I haven't done much work in this area so what I found complex would probably be very simple for another who makes a living based on that person's CSS+HTML knowledge. Also this design took a lot of time in searching for and figuring out the hacks to make the 3-column layout (with free flowing left) work in IE6 and IE7 so that's one of the gotchas as I didn't think it would be a pain initially. 😊

5: Re: Design implementor needed (response to 4)

Posted by Tom Jackson on 01/30/08 08:06 AM

This is close to the transform I was thinking of, but I was more interested in the the process used to chop up the image, and how it gets chopped up so that you can reuse it.

I don't have a great example, but here is one page:

http://rmadilo.com/files/merchant-system/examples/edit/edit.html

It actually doesn't use css, although it could. The example is just a form wrapper with image type submit buttons. The buttons are ugly, no doubt, but they are constructed out of a rectangle image with text and rounded head/tail. Since this button has to fit into a variable width form, and the buttons are also variable size, there is a widget that figures out the details. But another detail is the process for creating the buttons and drop-shadow around the form allow you to change the color (or create new buttons) very easily, without going back to the designer.

Alternate color images here:

http://rmadilo.com/files/merchant-system/source/merchant-system/www/graphics/

The form widgets are here:

http://rmadilo.com/files/merchant-system/source/merchant-system/tcl/adp-tags.tcl

Here is an image series and the scripts which handle their creation (slightly different application):

http://rmadilo.com/files/converter/