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Microsoft on page design

Who knew it was so easy?

         

photon

8:12 pm on Aug 17, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



From here [office.microsoft.com].
A good way to settle on a design layout is to find and copy another page design, one that meets your needs. There are many design ideas on the Internet.

I'm sure M$ feels the same about people helping themselves to M$ software. ;)

g1smd

8:51 pm on Aug 17, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Nice find.

In fact copying another site design is probably a good way to guarantee that you will inherit poor coding, invalid markup, and other problems; thrn compounded by whatever way your editor then tries to mangle the imported code as you edit the page.

I could agree on finding a nice layout and making your site look something like that layout by coding it yourself, but completely copying the code from the other site is something I have never done and couldn't recommend.

py9jmas

8:53 pm on Aug 17, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Warning: You are viewing this page with an unsupported Web browser. This Web site works best with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later or Netscape Navigator 6.0 or later.

When I followed the link for more information I got:

Browser Requirements

Note We are aware that some users are experiencing problems with Microsoft Office Online even when using supported browsers....


(Emphasis mine) Would you accept web design advice from these people?

pleeker

9:02 pm on Aug 17, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



A good way to settle on an OS interface is to find and copy another OS interface, one that meets your needs.

:)

Nice find, photon.

vkaryl

1:20 am on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I could agree on finding a nice layout and making your site look something like that layout by coding it yourself, but completely copying the code from the other site is something I have never done and couldn't recommend.

I half-remember the original thread. If I'm anywhere in the ballpark (instead of out in McCovey Cove....), the meaning of the quoted source WAS as you state above - when you find a site LOOK that suits you, reproduce it WITH YOUR OWN CODE.

Copying code is stupidity in action. Even downloading scripts from a legit script-source can cause problems, because much of the time the script-source doesn't really test the code - when it blows up on your site, you have to contact the author if you know who it is and how to contact himmer. Just copying code from a site you like or that looks as if it would work for what you think you need is pretty much asking for a major problem or two or a hundred.

But I'll bet I'm preaching to the choir, right? *laughing*

Bernard Marx

3:31 pm on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Shock! Horror!
...but then the original quote was taken out of context in the first place.
Maybe the paragraph that followed it should have been quoted too perhaps?:

Then you can use the FrontPage 2003 image tracing tool as a visual guide to trace the outline of that Web page. After you obtain the image, use it as a guide to help you draw your layout table and cells. The image itself appears in the background of the document window in Design view.

Lord Majestic

3:39 pm on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If I remember correctly there were at least a few court cases in the USA regarding interface (Apple vs Microsoft and I think Borland vs Lotus?), and I believe conclusion was that interfaces were not copyrightable. IMO page layout qualifies for interface.

Its not nice when someone takes your interface without saying thanks or paying for it, BUT, there are only so many things that can be done - if companies were allowed to live on laurels of double click, radio button patents then the progress of real features like logic behind Google (rather than its clean interface) would stop.

pleeker

4:48 pm on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Maybe the paragraph that followed it should have been quoted too perhaps?

Perhaps, but in the end they're still suggesting you ignore creativity and use someone else's work instead. Which many would argue has been MSFT's modus operandi all along.

g1smd

10:02 am on Aug 19, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



>> Then you can use the FrontPage 2003 image tracing tool as a visual guide to trace the outline of that Web page. <<

Yuk!

>> After you obtain the image, use it as a guide to help you draw your layout table and cells. <<

Tables and cells? Whaaat?

Yeah, Right! Get with the program.

MatthewHSE

12:13 am on Aug 20, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I learned a lot by copying other website's code into <gasp>Front Page 2002</gasp> and playing around with it. (I always thought I could hear MS laughing in their sleeves when I visited Office Update, until I uninstalled FP.) I would never do this for commercial purposes, or even for any purpose that involved actually publishing the code.

But, regardless of the fact that I learned some things this way, I would never recommend that anyone else do it. For one thing I had to un-learn most of what I learned that way. There are other problems with it too, most of which have already been discussed here.

Now I don't even have a WYSIWYG editor of any kind installed, just my good ol' EditPadPro! ;)