BBC NEWS PAGES
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- johnnnnyh0
To be clear - I am not complaining - I have made a very nice living from the web/internet and agree that the learning curve has altered in many respects. I would also add that somethings have become easier for people to do and as such one has needed to keep ahead of the game just to avoid being redundant (in all its terms).
- kelpie0
holy fucking moly.
keeping it brief; I completely and utterly agree with Moth. In my work we do a lot of big e com sites, 90% html cms stuff for all kinds of clients and haven't used tables in years.
They're not for layout, the benefits of not using them are massive, so if you have to think your way around a design differently and not use conventions you have previously in your layouts, then you have to do that. Its evolution of the craft. But what the hell; opinions are like arseholes...
To the other guy (YAY paul, I think); yeah, I've been there a bunch of times - I wasn't really slagging off the Beeb as such, just railing against the very thing you described. The use of this example to kind of give people a comfort zone to roll things back to it being ok to use tables in layouts was the source of teh heat in my response.
Now play nice kids, I'm going back to work ;D
- kelpie0
arg.
ps. I can completely understand why people like tables; the grid-like aspect makes sense to us designers more than the abstract divs thing. Took me a while to get my head around what to do and not do when we went over wholesale to being strict about it. Had to change a lot.
Would be nice to be able to design in a more traditional grid based way (by which I mean predictable height and hang points rather than columns which are easy), but what the hell...
- johnnnnyh0
Grid - yes. Table layout - nope - wasn't saying do it was just saying it there are things it does . . . bla bla .
No table based layout created here since 2001(ish).
- ********0
You don't need a grid if you design your site first in Photoshop.
Who "designs" in mark-up?
- and by 'photoshop' moth means Illustrator, or another vector program... ;)madirish
- i do********
- SASMAN0
No reason not to design with mark-up if you know how to mark-up that is. In fact, the photoshop comp stage is a pretty dated process since you can get a wire frame up and running in html rapidly. If you're good that is!
- ********0
i can't work with people who just supply photoshop mock-ups, it shows complete disregard for the medium, and it's not 1998.
- your medium is seldom html though, sorry mate but this strikes me as an ignorant statementkelpie
- SASMAN0
Yeah, it's completely missing a whole part of the process and the medium. We use PS/ILL to create assets for pages, and design/build site structure using proper mark-up. It streamlines the process. Like you say, mimeartist, 1998 it ain't. Wake up moth, you need to get your head out of those design progs and get working with the medium, man! :-)
- ********0
I honestly can't comprehend some of the comments in here. Especially mimeartist - I'd would've expected more.
I'm designer, front-end and back-end php developer. There is NO WAY that mocking up a design in code is efficient. I use photoshop because it's quick and Illy pisses me off with it's shit understanding of pixels. Websites aren't vector (unless you're using flash). Ultimately, I will need to go to photoshop either way because there's gifs and pngs that need making to build the site. Furthermore, if someone is paying me to DESIGN a site - they sure as fuck are not getting the front-end development thrown in for free! If they're paying for design AND front-end dev - that's exactly what they'll get. Your clients must be laughing all the way to the bank!
It must still be 1998, because quite honestly, you all sound like a right bunch of charlatans.
- ********0
Oh yeah.... back on topic;
I happened to be in the pub last night with the developer who's working on the BBC revamp. The whole site is currently built in Pearl (1998 again....) which pretty much shows you the complexity of the task involved. It's not just the code that needs developing - it's the entire infrastructure.
- johnnnnyh0
No suprise that the BBC project is more complex (and probably involves lots of meetings too) than simply updating a template here and there. I suppose on the design a site front there is a blurred line between what you layout in a PSD file and laying out/mark-up in an html file. Depending on the project and time I would say PS graduating pretty quickly to an html page. Although it's not good, I think there is less distinction now between design(er) and the same person marking-up the page for a developer to then add more functionality.
You can see this happening with job specs for designers which sometimes ask for good understanding of html/css php/asp javascript actionscript DOM mySQL et al. which is moving away from the design angle a fair amount.
So I agree, moth, there's a distinction in the processes and the tools used. I guess they're saying a designer might create the design directly within an html page - which I guess many of us could and do in the right context. But probably having visualised it elsewhere beforehand.
- kelpie0
to each his own I suppose but I could see "designing" directly with code being quite a limiting and messy experience. I'm for separating out the two halfs - even if you do both, the design process between you and your client is more fluid and open to change and variation if its in mock up till sign off to move to prototypes. What if you're half way through coding your design and it has to change fundamentally? you have to rip up your code and you're far deeper into a problem than if you had been working in photoshop (or Illy, if you are a flash head, though with Flash a drawing tool too, I can see how you could jump straight in there - I'm not so its not my place to pontificate).
Great example of how arrogant some people are in promoting how cool and genius they and their methods are on here, this thread. That's a fair constant of NT, nice to see its survived the rework.