csuguy - 9:57 am on Aug 13, 2008 (gmt 0)

One of the big advantages of CSS is that you can stick all of the styling info somewhere other than the content. This makes editing both the style & the content much easier. Let's face it - font tags were a pain to use and edit, and code was a mess. When we took out the font tags and the majority of other styling tags like <b> and <i>, the editing process was made much simpler in that regard.

However, in our rush to separate style from content, we ended up mixing up the structure of our pages with the style. Because of this, editing the structure of a page with even a moderately complex layout becomes a real challenge. And this isn't even because the code maybe that difficult, but simply because different areas of coding are being mixed together. Comments help some, but in large files they aren't overly helpful. And CSS files get real big real fast when you are relying on them for everything but content.

I believe that these 3 should be separated. CSS files should NOT contain anything but the most insignificant of structural data. If CSS is necessary for the structure, inline styles should be used! Whether using divs or tables, the structure of the page should be very easy to see just by looking at the html code within the body tag!

Of course, then the problem becomes the separation of content from structure! While not completely separate with the traditional CSS-Div methodology, it is true that - for the most part - the structure of a page and the content are kept fairly separated. However, there is an easy solution to this - Compilation Pages. By breaking the structure into 2 separate files and putting the content of pages into a 3rd file, you can dynamically piece together your pages using server-side programming. Easy Server-Side Programming at that! Then, when you want to make a site-wide structural change you simply change the code in the 2 structural files.

By breaking down the code into 1 css file (or more if needed) and the structure into 2 files (or more if some pages have a different structure) and putting the content of all your pages into separate files, you create a website which can instantly change its styles, structures, or content in the blink of an eye!

What do you think?

Ryan