I'm looking for a way to convert from SKETCH to HTML and CSS,
I'm hoping I could then fix the whole code to better suit my needs and add some JS to it.
Outsourcing
If you want to outsource, there are a lot of outsourcing development company for that, such as ReliablePSD or HTMLPanda
Sketch Plugins
There is few sketch plug-in to do so, but the generated code is unstructured with absolute positions
SaaS Tools
There are several SaaS tools or editors, but we have tried and found it's not easy to use. There're also few tools for App (react native & flutter)
If the tools help you to automated generate the code, then there might be possible messy or wrong structure because it's hard to decide the right responsive behavior only by the one screen of the visual design.
We have challenged this problem and after a few iterations of the development and analysis. We find the root cause of the messy code is because of the wrong structure.
The wrong structure is because most of the tools try to guess or use the existing Sketch group structure which is intended for visual, not for responsive layout.
So our solution decides to leave those key problems for users but provide a very quick and intuitive way to code web by the visual editor. In our early experiment, it indeed much faster but you still need to do basic editing in order to export the structure and quality code. (React or HTML/CSS).
There is Launchpad a tool to generate website from sketch file. (not completely free)
That said converting from Sketch (or other design tools) is a manual thing. If you right-clickon layer you can use Copy CSS Attributes which will help you get the CSS needed to reproduce in browser (it's not always perfect)
You can use Desech Studio to import you sketch file to get the converted html/css. But the conversion will not be pixel perfect because it will try to nest elements and position them with css grids. So you still have to adjust the margins and sizes afterwards.
There are other tools, but I haven't found anything that positions elements with flex or grids. They use position absolute instead, which is pretty hard to work with when doing the responsiveness.
I believe we have better solution in 2022 for this question.
Before, conversion tools use "absolute position" and wrong group structure to produce messy code.
You can use pxCode plugin (figma to html) which can produce clean and responsive code.
How pxCode works?
require users to SmartGroup to ensure the HTML structure is 100% correctness which is crucial for the responsive behaviors.
use CSS flex and flow content rather than absolute position
pxCode allows users to adjust responsive settings based on the structure in flexible ways which can control CSS quality by using MediaQuery
Furthermore, pxCode support React and TailwindCss also if you would like to use.
Related
I've recently been going over some HTML and CSS stuff to get more into web development, I have been designing sites on and off for a while now and I would love to start actually developing some.
I've seen Bootstrap mentioned so many times all over the internet and I was wondering if someone could help me out and point me in the right direction... I've been learning the fundamentals of HTML/CSS and as I understand it, Bootstrap is a html/css UI framework?
I have my own UI designs in a PSD file, how would I get them to work within Bootstrap?
Is it a matter of slicing up my images and adding custom CSS into Bootstrap?
I know that I am a long way off from this, but this is the type of stuff I want to be doing:
http://heyflat.com/themes/todo/index.html
If you can point me towards the type of stuff I should be learning in order to get there I would much appreciate it, so far I will continue with my html/css stuff but I would love to start using Bootstrap and customizing it seems essential to me for what I would like to be able to achieve...
Thank you for reading :)
Updated
Overall, my process has not changed much except for how I think about converting PSDs to HTML and CSS. I look forward to the day I discover a tool as flexible and comfortable as Photoshop that can output directly to good HTML and CSS. That day has yet to come to me. Here's the process I follow, utilizing Photoshop and Bootstrap.
I find that Photoshop is a great way to imagine, share and iterate over a visual design because it frees me to experiment in ways that are currently either impossible or too time consuming to realize just with HTML and CSS.
Once a design is agreed upon, I begin planning how the target design will be realized with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
I consider the browsers of my target audience. For example, IE8-, does not support rounded borders. If IE8- users are a large portion of my audience and those rounded borders are critical to the design I may take the time to slice out images and add extra HTML and CSS.
I decide if I am going to use a framework like bootstrap. Browser support must also be considered when deciding on a framework. If a framework has examples like bootstrap then I can checkout those examples in various browsers. If using a framework then I commit to doing it their way. That is, I use their grid system, html and class names for everything. I only add my own when the framework cannot meet a specific need. I do augment their classes as needed using a separate stylesheet but always in appropriate, low risk ways, bootstrap encourages this. I will probably never augment the grid system except perhaps through their customizer, but I have never needed to do that.
Next I implement the design. I may find that some elements need to be sliced out of the PSD, but most, like drop shadows, rounded borders and gradients, can be rendered using CSS. Some aspects of the PSD may need to be tweaked to accommodate responsive behavior or to make implementation simpler. As has always been the case, I target standards compliant browsers first and adjust for the others later. One of the nice parts about a good framework is that there is usually very little that needs tweaked.
I review the document at various resolutions in browsers my target audience use, and consider and implement additional tradeoffs as needed. For example, if it is not critical that those rounded corners show up in IE8- then I will keep it simple, render them using CSS, and let IE8- alone. I still verify that it looks acceptable in IE8 and IE7.
Steps 4 and 5 are generally not sequential but steps I bounce back and forth on. Also, make sure your client is on board or you can get them on board with how you are supporting various (not-so-modern) browsers and your reasons for doing so (shorter load times, less development time, easier maintenance, and so on).
Bootstrap 2 examples: http://getbootstrap.com/2.3.2/getting-started.html#examples
Bootstrap 3 examples: http://getbootstrap.com/getting-started/#examples
I know that is a very embracing question, but I have just started with Ruby on Rails, and still have a long way with CSS and HTML.
There are lots of books about CSS and HTML patterns, but I would like to know what is really applied to actual webpages.
For example, what's the best way of doing a simple webpage with a lateral menu, a logo on the top, and some text below?
Ok, it seems stupid, but there's lot of ways of doing that, or not ?
So, how can I learn this patterns and what are the real patterns ?
Would appreciate suggestions of books, articles, etc.
you can find some good css templates here:
http://www.csszengarden.com/
Actually in html and css there are not patterns in the oo sense.
I find this tutorial very useful:
Design and Code your first website
The nettuts website has a lot af very good free tutorials.
A very good book to begin is:
Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML
It varies from developer to developer. So I'll just tell you what I'm doing!
I'm actually following a very common pattern - separate ANY layout from the contents!
Into the HTML goes...
Text
<div/> containers with IDs to be layouted
And in the CSS goes...
Layout for the ID'd and class'ed <div/> layout containers
Colors, Background images
Fonts
It allows to rapidly change the whole page design without even touching the HTML! And it decreases both your server's traffic and the load time on the client pages, because the CSS file can be cached, since it does not change as much as the HTML does!
The CSS Zengarden nate posted is a very nice example of this pattern. The same unmodified HTML with dozens of CSS files with totally different looks!
This pattern also allows the same unmodified HTML to be displayed with automatically selected CSS files on huge displays, on small netbooks and on mobile devices. Can't be any better if you ask me!
You might want to check out some CSS libraries.
I don't personally like using them because I have ways that I like to do things and sometimes they aren't flexible enough for what I want to do. But since you're just starting out they might help you get something that looks good up really fast without having to worry about float drop bugs or margin collapsing or any other CSS quirks that are easy to hit but hard to recognize if you haven't seen them before.
An example would be the Yahoo User Interface (YUI) Grids CSS that will help you set up many different kinds of grid layouts. To find more, I would search for "css framework" or "css library".
Another YUI resource I think would be really useful for you would be their design pattern library, which documents different ways to display common interface items and gives you resources to go implement them. This can help make your interface look familiar to users and can keep you from feeling like you have to redesign a drop-down box or something.
The rule of thumb should be to do all design in CSS and HTML is just HTML without calls to design. That way, like referenced above, you can change design rapidly.
A good reference for how this works is the Zengarden CSS site at: http://www.csszengarden.com/
This is a site I used often as I learned the ins and outs of CSS design.
A graphic designer created a web page design and I have it in PSD now.
What are the tools or techniques used to easily convert this image into HTML.
to get the best result you need to code up the html yourself integrating the relevant graphics when needed. if you are unable to do this yourself there are quite a number of companies that will take a PSD and code it into HTML for you. One example being www.psd2html.com - do a search on google for more examples.
check http://www.bolducpress.com/tutorials/from-photoshop-to-html/ for a great tutorial about "slicing" which is one technique to "convert" a psd-file to a webpage.
Use the Slice Tool to slice up the psd file into chunks of graphics that can be layed out on a web page. Then choose Save for web... to save these chunks into individual jpeg, gif or png files.
Have it sliced if you must, but better build carefully planned HTML by hand, or have it done for you.
There are slicing tools that others will be able to tell more about. I personally think there is no better way really than creating the basic HTML and CSS by hand. Because what you build now is the foundation for your entire web site, and any future extensions to it, it is really worth the effort.
If you go this route, you would pick a normal HTML editing program or platform and sketch out the basic structure according to the layout you have.
If you have little experience with HTML and need to get the job done, try out a slicer. If you have time and/or money, work it out by hand, use a high quality template as a basis, or have it done professionally.
Whilst I would agree with all of the comments above, if you want to do this yourself or don't have the knowledge/funds, you can do it with the likes of Dreamweaver/Fireworks, but as everyone has said, you won't get good HTML and unless you use it properly you'll have problems if you ever make changes to your page as changing sizes will break your layout.
I'm about to begin working on a web page with a complex table-based layout (coded years ago).
One of the things I'd like to do is convert the layout to a proper CSS layout with divs and spans.
Can you suggest a good approach for tackling problems like this? Should I use a CSS framework like Blueprint? Just get in there and hack on it until it looks right? I already make heavy use of Firebug and the IE Developer Toolbar.
There generally isn't a silver bullet in converting between table and CSS. Every site is different and has different requirements. The only real answer is: simply start the markup from scratch.
The best advice is to write the markup entirely first. Make sure the markup is accurate, semantic, and represents your data entirely. Do not write the stylesheet... yet. After the markup is done, create the CSS. This way you have semantic markup and CSS is purely controlling the presentation.
CSS frameworks often don't advocate this approach to semantic markup because they force you to add additional tags to comply with their approach. Consequently, CSS frameworks are sometimes more trouble than its worth.
Do the markup, then the CSS.
Before you start, ensure you are using a CSS reset. Eric Meyer and Yahoo YUI are both excellent. This will help to make all your browsers look the same.
Also, install the HTML validator too. This will ensure your HTML is looking good and ready for adding the CSS.
Then grab a copy of Firebug and install it in firefox. This is excellent for seeing which CSS rules are doing what. You can disable individual rules by clicking s cross by each rule.
Now, visit some web pages which validate correctly and see what rules they have used in their style sheets.
Web sites to try are www.alistapart.com, CSS Zen Garden, SimpleBits etc.
The converting process will be a painful headache! I suggest you to start a whole redesign.
I don't know is this can be of any help, I build CSS Framework called Emastic (supports fluid and fixed columns) and you can simulate tables if you want here is the example Emastic Table
I second the commenters who say you should re-design the whole thing from scratch. Clean up the HTML and then make the CSS.
I'd like to add a reason to do so. Usually table-based designs are at least a few years old and therefore look quite passe. Take advantage of this opportunity to improve the design. Either a slight refresh or a complete overhaul depending on your taste and needs.
Iterative way works as well. Start with small blocks, converting them to CSS. This should simplify your table structure, hopefully leaving only the "basic grid" in tables and all the rest in CSS.
From there, pick an existing, tested solution if it's a simple layout (for 1 to 3 columns, there are tons of tested solutions out there). If it's more complex, go with Blueprint.
I wouldn't use a framework. Learning a new framework is only useful if you use it over & over again. Each framework has its own bugs and weaknesses. Use
display: table-cell;
to make a column. These will line up like float: left;. See http://quirksmode.org/css/css2/display.html
In some cases, using regular expressions could speed up your process.
For instance, something like this:
<table.*>\R*.*<tr>\R*.*<td[^>]*?>(.*)</td>
would match the start of a table and provide the contents of the first cell in $1 for a replace:
<div class="container">\n\t<div class="row">\n\t\t<div class="span6">$1</div>
Of course you'd need to customize to match your particular use case. If you have a number of similar pages, you might try hand coding one first and then using something like this to make converting the others simpler.
Another approach would be to use something like this jQuery plugin: https://github.com/ryandoom/jquery-plugin-table-to-div
It is intended to modify following rendering, but could be used during development to take a given table and provide a simple DIV based form of it.
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.