hi all,

as good as dream weaver is (let the flaming start lol) I find it a pain in the ass to have to save the style sheet to preview how it looks when Ive done some tinkering.

Any web designers here have some recommendations for some good stylesheet designing software for the pc please?

On the mac I use a rather excellent program called CSSedit which lets you xray the page and tinker with the style sheet on any website.  Great for learning with.

Ill recommend Textpad, a browser Window and the F5 key.

I dont believe in using WYSIWYG software for web dev, it often ends in bloated unmanageable code and doesnt teach you good practices or techniques.

Not what you were after but thats my recommendation nonetheless

ill agree with you however is the problem of being a Noob to css I need to see how things work at the moment.

Clockd 0Ne is right WYSIWYG software for web dev is really the worst thing you can do as it does not help you at all.
IF you use it then you want to develop your skils further you just end up going back and starting all over again because WYSIWYG stuff as he said do bloated and stupid crap stuff to get it to look how you want and you can do it for half the code, simpler, faster and easier yourself once you understand it.

As Clockd 0Ne may tell you I can do as much as other people do in even less code and as he will also tell as you learn the basics become really straight forward and easy but later as you get more adventures it does become a challenge but it is not impossible and if you know people you just ask them on how to do something and then once you know you know.

The only real issue this days is making it work for all browsers but again as you learn that does become less of an issue. The only thing that will annoy you use IE6 and getting things to work in that because the browser is just crap I mean who in their right mind would create a browser that does not understand png transparency ^^

You can google but you need to get a code text based bit of kit that will heighlight and indent the different aspects of css and html but do not go to the dreamweaver approach (spacer spam king) it may take you a little longer but in the long run you will be better for it I promise

wow left hand typing, that took bloody ages to do

I agree with you on all points there about long winded code that DW provides but I really do need a good starting point.  Im trying to do a basic menu system in DW thats pretty much close to killing me.

Ill get a mock up done of the menu and see if anyone might be willing to help.  Its a simple idea but the multitude of ways to acomplish it is mind boggling however that being said.

The menu is a table .. (please.. no more about using divs for now lol) and what id like to do is...

Set the height to be 20px for each menu item
To have a background image.. basically a rectangle thats 5px wide on the left in black and then to the right of that a nice grey, with a dashed underline

Then when you howver over it to get the color to change.  I know it sounds easy but im getting frustrated..

http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/css-menu-generator.shtml
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/
http://www.cssdrive.com/index.php/examples/exampleitem/dashed_vertical_menu/
http://www.cssdrive.com/index.php/examples/exampleitem/blue_blocks_menu/

Should help

youre right, it did help and i got somewhere.. but...

display: block;

is that FF friendly because it seems to leave a massive bit of spacing between each item?

http://www.softlookup.com/display.asp?id=7724

SynEdit is more than a text editor.

Quote from: shiftlockedyoure right, it did help and i got somewhere.. but...

display: block;

is that FF friendly because it seems to leave a massive bit of spacing between each item?

Are you putting
 or

around each tag?

If so... dont!

display: block; should deal with that You can also get rid of your table cells... in theory

Quote from: Clockd 0NeIll recommend Textpad, a browser Window and the F5 key.

I dont believe in using WYSIWYG software for web dev, it often ends in bloated unmanageable code and doesnt teach you good practices or techniques.

Not what you were after but thats my recommendation nonetheless

Textpad is godlike...

CTRL 1 and CTRL 2 for java development

Hooked up C++ to it so it does CTRL 3 and CTRL 4 for C++ development.

I also am a fan of SciTE its a damn nice editor that comes with most common and some obscure language syntax styles automatically setup. I carry it around on a usb key to use places, and use it pretty much constantly in work to do all my development in it (perl and bash scripting)

Quote from: shiftlockedyoure right, it did help and i got somewhere.. but...

display: block;

is that FF friendly because it seems to leave a massive bit of spacing between each item?

Mate youre a perfect candidate for our new programming and web dev. forum

More on the display property:
http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/properties/classify/display.htm


You really need to learn a lot of the fundamentals, the difference between block level and inline elements, how the display property works, what the benefits of each are. Unfortunately to be good at web design is not the 5 minute pickup with Dreamweaver that everyone seems to be led to believe these days. Its taken me two years of work to get to what is now a professional level (and neXus would still argue with me about whose methods are better  :mrgreen: )

Read, practice, read some more and then practice. Playing around for yourself is the best way to learn - its been my my livelihood for two years and I knew less than you when I started. :-)

One thing that has struck me about this forum is that it would be so easy for people to slam me for being a noob and here you guys have been helpfull.. Thanks

I know that DW is the dirty way to get things done and I am picking things up slowly.

This is the code thats used to do the menu system

{$menu_content}

All this is because Im helping a friend re do his skateboard shop and ive wanted to do a bit of tinkering with sites for a while so thought that this would be a good step in the right direction

I know you said you are using tables for your menu, but give this a go!

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/taminglists/

When i am doing any dev work I tend to use a program called ConTEXT and whatever browser i have to hand.  Context is a very cool little editor, lightweight and you can add or remove whatever highlighters you like.  

Edit : Anyone that says Notepad is the only way to code is a cockend.  The only reason to make something more difficult is to pretend you are better.  

Really we need to see the CSS that is going alongside that code to be of use to you shiftlocked.

Out of curiosity is there any need for the
line break after {$menu_content} ? It appears redundant.


For what its worth I still use tables for 90% of my site layouts, Id recommend if you are comfortable using them that you stick with it and then decide later once your CSS proficiency has progressed if you actually want to change to use other methods. Some methods with divs or lists can be easier than tables at times, but you could also waste a lot of time trying to get them to be cross browser fool-proof if you are starting out, so aim to get comfortable with what you are doing, then tinker with new methods.

Beaker, try working professionally with sites and content built originally with dreameaver or some other WYSIWYG and you will soon curse them too. For the hobbyist they are fine, its not about being an arrogant cock, they really can cause grief