This is my first post on stack overflow so forgive me if I have made any mistakes around etiquette.
I have recently started working in REDCap and have an intermediate (or less) understanding of work with HTML/CSS. This, in hand with REDCap's lack of resources and counterintuitive design, has made things a bit difficult.
I am currently working to modify the color of alternating rows on a matrix. While other fields offer the option to edit source code, this is not the case with matrices. I have gone to work in the CSV to see if I can make edits to no avail.
My questions are:
Can these edits even be done?
Would these edits be made in the CSV, or elsewhere?
Are there any good general resources for learning about aesthetic design for REDCap surveys?
Thanks for the replies in advance, really appreciate it.
As to your last question, you would be best off speaking to your local administrators and they can put you in touch with other admins via the REDCap Consortium Community who have done a lot of custom work with modifying the survey design and aesthetics.
You will also need their assistance with my suggestions below, for your main question, since you will need some external modules to make these changes, and they can only be installed on your instance by an admin.
So, get the CSS Injector External Module and you can override the standard survey CSS with your own rules. This may be sufficient to do what you need, but if not – say, if the DOM doesn't contain sufficient classes or ids to select in your custom CSS – then you might want to explore the JavaScript Injector External Module, which you might then use to modify the DOM to include classes that you can then style with your custom CSS.
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Does anyone know if I can integrate GrapeJS into my own website so clients could build their own websites using it? IF anyone has done this, how easy is it and are there downsides?
This question is pretty open ended, but I'll take a shot at it.
The short answer is yes, you can use Grapesjs to allow clients to make their own sites; however, the details matter.
Grapesjs by default doesn't know anything about your stack, website structure, metadata, etc. You will need to either supply plugins or implement those features yourself. I've worked on a project for a company that used Grapesjs to implement single page apps and I'll include just some of the tweaks we had to manage.
Hiding certain layers that only confuse average users.
Hiding pretty much all of the styling, and using traits to allow people to pick from some predefined styles.
Take the html, css on store and generate the final html page, and store it in our static serving folder on the server.
Implement a wrapping "App" component that has traits for the different metadata we want users to control (open graph metadata, title, etc)
and those are just the big things, I'm sure I am forgetting several small ones.
For your application, you'll also need to implement a custom trait for links / buttons that allows you to link from one "page" to another. As well as, a way to allow a user to pick which page to work on.
The long answer is Yes, but Grapesjs is only the starting point.
Yes you can.
However it is not straightforward.
If you want to build a Drag Drop Editor like GrapeJS Demo, here is the Source Code - https://github.com/artf/grapesjs-preset-webpage
You can see an implementation at https://codegres.org/dragdrop
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I'm trying to get in the habit of designing the interfaces to my websites at the very beginning before I do any actual coding. I've read "Getting Real" by 37 signals and they recommend doing the interface first, before any actual code is produced.
What exactly is meant by that? Does that mean use pure HTML and CSS to design the site and add php, js logic to page afterwards, or is it okay to sprinkle in the php, js from the beginning?
What if your using a framework, should I set up empty controllers that simply call the views, or should the early stages be solely html, css?
Also, what do you guys think about design first vs later?
EDIT I'm talking about AFTER I have sketched everything with pen and paper.. I'm taslking solely about the html mockups. And I'm not too sure about using extra tools that I would need to learn to do this
I think that the majority of the benefit of designing the interface first has been achieved after you are done your paper sketches. Basically, you are just ensuring that you have a design in your head and that your coding process is somewhat end-user driven. You are also trying not to waste time on needless documentation.
Getting the HTML in place (or the skeletons of the Views in an MVC app) makes some sense and this is the main thrust of what 37signals says. I would certainly not do anything beyond this that is just going to be thrown away.
I think if you have a proper design, it is immaterial if you next move on to writing the back-end code after the HTML or if you do the CSS and JavaScript. The CSS and the code should not even need to be aware of each other.
Do whatever gets you excited and motivated. Do whatever gets you thinking more deeply about how the app will actually work so you can catch any flaws in your original thinking. I like to code before CSS but that is just me. You might find it important to get the CSS further along before the app takes shape in your head.
Joel Spolsky likes Balsamiq as a mocking tool. I think that 37signals uses Draft (an iPhone app). I use a Sharpie. The key is not getting too detailed though.
Opinions vary, but I believe that JavaScript should come last. I believe most sites should be designed so that they work 100% without JavaScript and then have JavaScript added for polish.
Learn more about Unobtrusive JavaScript
So (for me):
Quick and dirty sketches of views
Get some HTML in place
Maybe some basic CSS for layout (or more if I need to impress somebody early)
Write the core logic
Add support for web services and AJAx calls
Pretty it all up with snazzy CSS
Write some JavaScript to add the sizzle
Let me ask you this. Do you paint a car before or after you have made the working parts? Maybe you have chosen which paint but ultimately it cannot go on until the car is finished. Maybe you don't agree with this analogy but I think coding will bring out issues that cannot be understood before a site is designed. Code first, design second.
Get a pad of paper. Each page represents one page of your site.
Sketch the interface. What controls go on each page? What controls are the same on each page? What forms are there and on which pages? What happens when user clicks on item x? Item y?
This will help you solidify your plan of both the content and behaviour of your site.
If you just start blindly coding you will end up with burnt spaghetti.
The user interface is what the users of the website will see. Before coding you probably start with some very basic sketches of the site that are not code, to identify page navigation, general placement of content and interaction with the site.
But the earlier you can show and discuss a working UI, the easier it is for the users/client to get an idea of the final product. So quickly move to the HTML, CSS, JavaScript and things like images, to identify:
The data presented on the page (HTML)
The representation of the data (CSS)
The interaction with the data (JavaScript)
Doing so helps to gradually develop an actual working UI that you can discuss with the client. This keeps them involved from early in the project. It forces them to think about the site, and make decisions about content, look and interaction.
Getting such feedback early in the project reduces the risk of building a product that needs to be changed later on. And making changes early in the project is easier/cheaper, then later in the project.
While the UI is being developed you can already start looking into data structures, software components and integrations with other systems to drive the site. But that's not what users/clients are interested in, they want to see and use the product.
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For design websites is it better to do it your self by learning HTML/CSS or using web design programs? and why?
I've bounced back and forth between hand coding and Dreamweaver in my history as a web developer.
I originally started out hand coding HTML. This was back in the day when table layout was king, and editing nested tables became a real headache. Couple this with a lack of good tools for visualizing hidden elements and this quickly became a nightmare.
I started using Dreamweaver primarily to speed up my table design workflow. Soon, however, Dreamweaver's templating system became a godsent when I started producing static websites that had no server backend. Being able to update one template and have it propagate across the entire static site cut down my cross-page inconsistencies to nearly zero.
More recently, the whole web 2.0 push has got me, and almost everyone else, back into the hand coding game. I found Dreamweaver wasn't really suitable for the compliant designs, since it was heavily table-centric. I find that most of the HTML I write these days is so straightforward and simple there's little need for an editor. Additionally, all my development is now dynamic once again, so there's no need for a static html generating template system anymore.
Learn for yourself so you can figure out how to do things exactly how you want them to be done, and not have to rely on some sort of program to figure it out for you.
Like anything else in technology, learn the core concepts first, and then use a tool to automate the things you have mastered. By doing so, you will gain a better understanding of how everything works together, and you be able to easily tell when something goes wrong. In this way you will not be bound to any one design tool, and can use whatever works best because you understand the core concepts.
In the words of Richard Feynman,
"That which I cannot create, I do not
understand."
They really serve two purposes, and either one is "better" for it's purpose.
If you learn to do it by hand, you will:
Have more control over exactly what is happening
Have less extraneous code
Be able to maintain your code more easily
If you use a program, you will:
Be able to design visually
Possibly be able to design more quickly
Not have to learn to write CSS by hand
It really depends on what your goal is.
I prefer HTML/CSS by hand because you have the most control over the code. Most design programs will add additional markup that is not required. Even simple WYSIWYG JavaScript editors add extra markup. Although, not a huge difference in file size, the additional markup will add up over time. I would also argue that its easier to maintain code when you know what went into its creation.
Additionally, you'll learn a lot more by taking the time to do it by hand.
Personally, I always edit my HTML/CSS by hand using editors with auto-completion if I can, because that always makes life easier. You should definitely always learn a language as much as you can before you start relying on any program to generate code for you, because most of the time you end up fixing what they gave you.
I tend to do it all by hand.
Doesn't matter what IDE or
server-side language I'm using.
Mark up is markup. Being able to do
it rapidly by hand is valuable.
More often then not, you'll have to
edit some markup manually. By
writing it from scratch, you're
already very familiar with the structure of the markup.
You don't have to spend any time
orienting yourself to the
designer-generated markup.
Although not necessarily a rule,
those who live in the designer I've
found to be less sharp in their
markup and code craftsmanship.
I prefer the by hand approach. That way you know exactly what you're getting. Plus I haven't found an editor that produces HTML/CSS that doesn't need some tweaking especially if you are targeting multiple browsers.
Doing it by hand. Using design programs tends to insert a lot of extra markup you don't really need, which will just complicate your ability to learn.
If you do it by hand you at least know what was inserted where, and why. Plus there are a lot of good websites out there that can walk you through the basics.
IMO you will still learn using web design programs like Dreamweaver, since you have to look at the source and make it fit your exact desires,and its quicker. But doing it by hand will give you the more you write the more you learn type of thing that I agree with 100%
This is a bit vague.
I think that "better" (qualitatively) depends greatly on (1) the competency of the designer, and (2) the sophistication of the application.
Regarding "better" (as in "advisable"): using an application can be a crutch that may fail to save you in all cases. Knowing how to "raw code" html and css is valuable in understanding the limitations of the application and working around those limitations. For that reason alone I suggest knowing how to do it by hand and then keep a sharp eye on the output generated by the application, should you choose to use one.
The absolute best is when you understand what you are doing - you can only do this by coding by hand.
If you don't know HTML or CSS and you use a WYSIWYG editor then how can you be sure everything is right? You can't!
If you have a good understanding of HTML and CSS why would you use a WYSIWYG editor? They make things harder because you can't see the code and extra tags and rules get inserted without you knowing.
Coding by hand is always the best.
Why should you know about xhtml/css ?
Here is some reasons:
Respect semantics meaning
DOM compliant (you know the javascript mess)
Easier to maintain
Search Engine Optimization
You still think it takes a longer time to design/integrate a website ?
Think of use vi, eclipse, quanta, and probably some others...
By hand is the obvious answer, because your website/application will be, well, better. (And also because, if you use JavaScript, it's good to traverse through the DOM of a document you've written yourself, versus a generated one that you have to examine beforehand.) But that's mostly only because the visual tools that exist today really suck (I'm thinking of Dreamweaver). It's definitely possible to create a good visual editing (WYSIWYG) program that actually generates good HTML/CSS/JavaScript, but nothing even close has come up yet, so right now hand-coding is much, much better.
I'm not going to read the responses, so its quite possible someone has already said this, but oh well.
First and foremost, you should always write out your HTML / CSS by hand. The reason for this is that no matter how advanced an HTML editor is, it will never be as good as it could / should be. For "good" html / css, you will actually end up writing your page in a different order than what you see.
For example, a page that is displayed like:
________________
|logo |
|----menu------|
|..............|
|...content....|
|..............|
|....footer....|
----------------
"should" actually flow as follows:
<h1>title of site</h1>
<div id="content">.....</div>
<ul id="menu">....</ul>
<div id="footer">...</div>
which an HTML editor would simply throw a hissy fit if you did it through the nice pretty gui. What may be advantageous is to use Web Expression 2 or Visual Studio for its intellisense. It may help speed up (or maybe slow down) your learning curb.
I really recommend Transcending CSS Design if you are already familiar with HTML / CSS. Otherwise grab a CSS book first even over an HTML book. Styling through CSS will teach you proper semantic HTML (or should,anyway).
I like to code by hand because i can keep my code clean and tidy that way. HTML is not very hard anyway.
If you decide to code by hand you will need an editor that supports syntax highlight, and you will need to validate your code as often as possible to avoid errors (this is good practice anyway). This extension for Firefox will ease your work a lot: users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/
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I'm supposed to do a presentation for my co-workers on a web framework I evaluated. These people are developers and hate long and boring PowerPoint stuff, so I got lots of little code snippets. I also put together a small sample application. My question is, how do I present the code so people can follow?
Some things I thought of:
Put the code on PowerPoint slides, looks pretty bad and unless it's an image I can't get syntax highlighting to work. Having my code in images is a pain and doesn't scale well to different resolutions.
I played around with the S5 XHTML presentation format and integrated a JavaScript syntax highlighter. It's a bit clunky but workable (I'll get some grief for ignoring the company's CI for presentations since I wouldn't use their templates. Don't even ask...)
I could put together a script (notes) and "live-code" in front of my audience. I don't like this so much because it keeps me so busy that it's hard for me to give a good explanation while I write. And there's also a high chance of me causing errors and make them wait.
A screencast? But then I wouldn't have to be there... Maybe narrate it?
So what would you do?
I could put together a script and
"live-code" in front of my audience. I
don't like this so much because it
keeps me so busy that it's hard for me
to give a good explanation while I
write. And there's also a high chance
of me causing errors and make them
wait.
I like this option, if you can get your demo streamlined to the point of not holding up the audience. You can do what TV cooks do when the recipe takes more time than they have; start the coding, then jump ahead to one that's 90% or 100% done.
If you have a colleague you can get up to speed, you can have them do the coding while you talk and point out what they're doing.
You can use your IDE, which will give the syntax highlighting and show your audience how to compile, deploy, test, etc. I would recommend using an oversized font though, just for the session, so that everyone can see.
Does your IDE allow opening/closing regions or code segments? In Visual Studio you can create code regions that you can expand or collapse. If your IDE has the ability to do this you could create your code samples as regions and then open/close them as you go through your presentation. You could switch back and forth between your presentation and code samples in the IDE, but wouldn't have to code on the fly. Using open/close allows you to hide the code you're not referencing to keep things less cluttered.
I actually saw this done at Agile 2008 and it seemed to work pretty well.
You can only fit so much information on a PowerPoint slide but that's actually a good thing: people can only look at a certain amount of information and get something meaningful from it.
So if you can't fit it on a PowerPoint slide, you need to rethink your approach.
Code snippets are good. They don't need to be highlighted. Just put them in Courier New (or some other fixed width font) and it'll come across as code. Code snippets don't have to be complete either. Just boil them down to the essential concepts (using comments or ellipses to indicate missing code).
Programmers being programmers, they'll probably ask questions when it gets to the technical, which is good.
Also, if the programmers are familiar with something similar try and relate all the concepts back to what they know. It makes it easier to grasp. Like if you're explaining Spring MVC and they know Struts, explain the Struts equivalents. It can be useful to put that sort of thing in table form (even as a handout).
That's what I did for exactly that (a Spring MVC primer for Struts programmers).
If you want your audience to see a lot of code snippets, especially lengthy ones, you could print them out as handouts or provide them as notes in PDF or text files (people can follow along on their laptops).
Actual presentation slides should contain the smallest amount of text (including code) necessary to convey your ideas. If there's a lot to read from a distance, your audience will get tired after awhile and might have trouble following along. Let people read the full code sections on their own laptops or handouts, while calling attention to just the critical parts in your presentation slides or script.
If they don't like Powerpoint, don't use use it. We use Camtasia screen recording to record 'live' demos for presentation to customers (live in quotes since it doesn't have the disadvantage of crashing halfway through your presentation :-). They always prefer to see it in action rather than what they think is fudged functionality.
It's pause-able like your Powerpoint slides and has the advantage of syntax coloring since you just record bringing your up in your favorite editor. It's also dynamic which is much better than Powerpoint (although I've seen some people do crude animation with multiple Powerpoint slides, always funny to watch in action).
This basically maps to your screencast idea but, if you want a reason to be there, do a large number of small screencasts to show interspersed between your real presentation, narrating (in person, not on the screencast) if necessary.
Personally, I'd prefer to send a fully narrated Camtasia off to the target audience but that's because I'm not totally over my early-career phobia of public speaking :-).
In a pinch, you could do a real live demo since your audience (is videance the equivalent for video presentations?) are programmers and will understand any problems you have.
I had this done to me, and thought that it was the best possible solution:
Get another person to help you out. While you are talking about the code, let the helper type the code. This way everyone in the room will be looking at the code, while listening to you explain it.
This of course involves finding someone who can help out, and understand the code just as well as you do. But the results can be great.
If you could do it all in a screencast and you wouldn't have to be there, then do a screencast and don't be there. Nobody complains when a meeting gets canceled. Just distribute the video, maybe with an accompanying report with notes or links so people can read more about the tools you're demonstrating.
And you'll get more credit later as your co-workers and managers talk to other people: "Hey, did you see the presentation Bibac did? No? You should; I'll send you the address after lunch."
If you're demonstrating code in the presentation, then also consider having the finished project available so people can try it for themselves.
When I give presentations involving Visual Studio I put code snippets on the general tab of the toolbox. During the presentation I drop/drag these code snippets into a code file, markup page, etc.
The Separation of Layout and Content is the domain of CSS and HTML - so far well understood. Now about separating...
I'm looking for hints and Best Practices to get started with the task of providing a "skin" or "theme" for a content management system.
Background:
We are starting to embrace a Portal Server/Content Management System and are starting to change the look and feel to match our needs.
Our designer has so far mainly worked with full control over HTML and CSS, tweaking either one in order to get pixelperfect layout. With adoption of the cms there's a lot precreated HTML (very semantic, almost no tables :) that needs to be skinned with CSS and Images. Though it is possible to change the HTML fragments, I'd prefer to do so only as a last resort.
As this provides the challenge of "how to get started" my question is about any tipps how to proceed or articles that can help managing or organizing this task - e.g. best practices in designing, how to slice this task or what tool to use.
It seems bad practice to just save a dynamically generated page to disk and make changes locally. This would be somewhat ok for the CSS files but changes to HTML elements must be retrofitted to the fragments that they are generated from. I'd like to keep this out of the designer's realm if possible. Also, the thought of Dreamweaver (or any similar tool) making implicit tweaks to the HTML structure is frightening for me.
For the curious: The mentioned CMS/Portalserver is Liferay, but the question is really language- and tool-agnostic.
Edit: FireBug (as Josh suggested) is awesome for trying on-the-fly changes to css. Is there more - either in the area of tools or in-process and self-organization?
If you're looking for practical examples of separating style and content, then I'd suggestion the CSS Zen Garden. Trawling through the HTML and CSS is inspirational and enlightening and should help with what you're trying to do.
My #1 tip would be be to make everything as semantic as possible and use lots of classes and ids to hook your styles onto.
Usually, Whenever I am in a situation Like this, I bring up the page in FireFox, inspect the different elements using FireBug and see exactly what css is applied to them. THen I'l just modify the existing css until I get what I like. You can even play around in firebug and modify the CSS without "saving" those changes.
Have look at CSS Tidy, we normally use this to clean up the CSS and reorganise for development and production. However, I personally prefer writing HTML/CSS by hand before using this. It is just a matter of individual preference I guess.