[NFBCS] Css, Building It From the Ground Up

Sat Aug 17 16:57:30 UTC 2019

Hello:
I've found that if you don't have a ton of time, a CMS can do anything a 
regular site can do.
For instance with Drupal, taking this idea of a real estate website, you 
can create a content type that allows someone to attach a picture, write 
up a bit about the property and show newest first with views. Views can 
even help content types expire if you want, etc. You have a lot of 
dynamic flexibility that is given through simple use of the CMS system 
without the need to write code.

That said, I can't recommend Bootstrap enough for CSS work. It helps 
make your site mobile ready (which incidentally boosts it in SEO 
rankings) and generally is easy to use. Don't write CSS yourself, use a 
framework to do it for you. This framework will have been tested with 
popular browsers in various configurations so you don't have to wonder 
if your shiny new graphic is off screen because Internet Exploder is 
stupid and doesn't support a specific css attribute, etc.

For single pages, static sites, etc writing from ground up is great, but 
when you want to start doing anything slightly dynamic, you end up with 
a mess of html code, or using PHP to render things like menus so that 
you can quickly and easily include them in a PHP island and render a 
menu without having to use an iFrame or copy the menu or use server-side 
html includes. Admittedly you could use Javascript just as easily to 
render the menu and add elements to it, but this again requires coding 
knowledge whereas a CMS just gives this to you out of the box.

Perhaps I'm getting old; I know when I was younger I used to look on 
people with disdain and wonder why it is that they're not writing 
everything from scratch, but I like things that offer the path of lease 
resistance. I'd rather put up a site and go off to do my thing than I 
would spend 12 hours writing a static site that I have to change and 
update every time I want to add content. If I'm getting paid to build 
the site, I have an obligation to the customer to point out that they 
could save money by using this system, and discuss the pros and cons 
rather than insisting that this site is written from ground up; further, 
it means that should I get squished by a silent and deadly hybrid 
tomorrow, my customer should be able to hire anyone with experience in 
said CMS to keep their site running without issues. Everyone builds 
static sites differently, so the onboarding of a new web developer for 
any reason will cost more and take more time. I'm not discounting the 
idea of building from ground up so much as I'm suggesting that there are 
bonuses to either path.

HTH,

On 8/17/2019 12:17 PM, Peter Donahue via NFBCS wrote:
> Hello Greg and everyone,
>
> 	I'll second what you said about CSS. You can make lots of changes
> site-wide by linking all of its pages to a CSS. These days CSS lay-outs are
> preferred over table lay-outs. Sites built and layed out using a CSS tend to
> be more screen reader-friendly.
>
> 	Over the years I've tried various Website creation tools and CMS
> systems and always came back to building Websites from the ground up. A
> great jumping off point is creating a basic template you will use to create
> all of your site's pages. Investing in learning HTML5, CSS, and Javascript
> allow you to creat awesome Websites that are accessible for both the
> developer and for site visitors. If you know how the site was created you
> know how to maintain it using assistive technology.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NFBCS [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Greg Kearney via
> NFBCS
> Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2019 10:42 AM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
> Cc: Greg Kearney
> Subject: Re: [NFBCS] Low-cost Accessible Website
>
> CSS, short for Cascading Style Sheets, is a method of controlling the visual
> appearance of a web page while leaving the structure of the page untouched.
>
> For example with CSS you can control the size, font, colour, alignment and
> so on of an H1 heading tag without having to call any HTML to the tag
> itself.
>
>  From an accessibility point of view this is good as screen readers want to
> interact with the page structure and not visual appearance. For page
> maintenance it is handy because you can make changes page or even site wide
> by only changing the CSS in one place and then those changes will propagate
> across the site with no further editing.
>
> CSS can be included in any HTML tag using the style attribute, it can be
> placed at the head of the HTML file in a style tag or it can be included
> into a HTML file from a separate CSS document. It is possible to have
> different CSS stylesheets for different situations such as for computer,
> mobile devices, when a page is printed and even in theory for users of
> assistive technology.
>
> You should use CSS to control the visual layout of the page.
>
> Greg Kearney
>
>> On Aug 17, 2019, at 12:23 AM, Leslie Fairall via NFBCS <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> wrote:
>> Can you explain what CSS is?
>
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