[loren s]

I was just wanting some input of a tool I am trying to make. Though it is my first try at code, most if not all of the code allready exsits, The sketch app from developer tools, (keynote, Omnigraffle)
Webkit and the many many programs that are made from it.

And just some ways to get the screen to talk to the text file output. As CSS built sites are really clean and flow in a most proper manor that just screams box, and that is what we would be drawing in this tool. All that is needed left is a dynamic way to move other boxes around if the margins colide, and a few other thing of course.

NOTE: this is fake, I am trying to entice developers to try and build the app, and at the same time am working on a site much like versiontracker that show cases FAKE programs. I am trying to figure out a way to get developers to build apps for people instead of developers bulding for themselves then the user. Or just a place for developers looking for a new project.

[loren s]

UP date

http://www.aprilcolo.com/oh/chimp/spots/csstweek/

[osxisfun]

is this a standalone app?

download?

i'm a little confused.

[loren s]

It is fake I want it built somehow but have hit a stalemate in my learning to code so I will just try and detail it out better instead.

[osxisfun]

ok.

remember. the idea is the easy part. go around pre-annoucing things again and some will call you a boy who cried wolf.



Maybe the MacRabbit dev has something like this in the works for his CSS tools.

[loren s]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
ok.

remember. the idea is the easy part. go around pre-annoucing things again and some will call you a boy who cried wolf.



Maybe the MacRabbit dev has something like this in the works for his CSS tools.

One no I meant knowing by it, I was just trying to code it but just can't learrn code.. Visual for me.

But yeah I talked to him a while ago and he denied me, said he had tinkered with it and thought it would take away jobs from developers, (had the same answer from someone else to) , and in hind sight I bet it would. BUT I bet it would allso help alot of developers speed up the work flow.

It's that just some tools that everyone needs are few and far inbetween when it comes to something that could really change the speed that we work. While instead they give us buggy crap that is backed by money instead, like Office 2004, when apple could sooo easily make an office app or apps of any better nature and fix so many things..

[Jan Van Boghout]

The MacRabbit dev here While I completely agree that this would be an excellent app, there are several problems which are hard to overcome with the current state of affairs.

1) Browser compatibility: write a somewhat complex CSS based page, and odds are IE WIndows will have some kind of problem with it.
2) Semantic code: it's incredibly difficult to generate semantic code if your tool places the design element in the center. It's a tradeoff between clean/condensed code, and ease of use to design
3) Complexity of the app: this kind of project may seem easy, but it would be much more complex than say Safari. Not only would it have to correctly interpret incoming files, but it would have to be able to reposition, resize, drag around, etc every element in that page.

It is basically Dreamweaver/GoLive that produces great, semantic, standards compliant code, and it has to work in most browsers. I don't see that happening anytime soon, because of all the factors above.

[loren s]

Originally posted by Jan Van Boghout:
The MacRabbit dev here While I completely agree that this would be an excellent app, there are several problems which are hard to overcome with the current state of affairs.

1) Browser compatibility: write a somewhat complex CSS based page, and odds are IE WIndows will have some kind of problem with it.
2) Semantic code: it's incredibly difficult to generate semantic code if your tool places the design element in the center. It's a tradeoff between clean/condensed code, and ease of use to design
3) Complexity of the app: this kind of project may seem easy, but it would be much more complex than say Safari. Not only would it have to correctly interpret incoming files, but it would have to be able to reposition, resize, drag around, etc every element in that page.

It is basically Dreamweaver/GoLive that produces great, semantic, standards compliant code, and it has to work in most browsers. I don't see that happening anytime soon, because of all the factors above.

Hello again ^v^

My further thoughts for it would were:

• A hack system, or css code hacks as plugins
• A premade template system or files for tried and true bare bones layout
• A A way to force proper codeing
• And lastly to be used as a "tweak" method

The hack system would be small little add ins for say something like 24 bit PNG's and transparency.

The templates could be like normal CSS layouts from places like
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tut...son/boxes.html
as an example of very good beginning structure layouts. Then all of the content inside could be organized around with margins and padding.

A way to force proper code: no clue on that one but it could be like red warnings or stuff.

Tweak tool, Aw this is what I am truly after. There is only so much style sheet hoping one can do before a bloke goes bonkers. CSS edit is great for extended preview but trying to remember all of the tag names and where they are placed is just sicking after two hours. The tool could import style sheets in and edit from there. Just like css edit, taco, subenhnet, phpedit and others have the live preview, the tool could import the boxes into the correct places.

Why I dont like Dreamweaver: First Price, I want everyone to have a real artist web maker tool for cheap, I dont know if it did this stuff I could cash out 100$. Hell freeway express costs that much and does not even half of that.

Dreamweaver does not to me out put any clean code at all, mostly yoou have to use tables or absolute postion divs to get anything to show up.

Import is sucky at best, CSS and layout for 99% of the time does not even show up.

Bloated and slow. A pure cocoa cocoa app would flow like butter with a proper control handle bar box method, akin to Keynote or Omnigraffle.

But really, small simple and sleek, that is what I am after.

Oy I wrote to much, but I really do not see why someone will not or has not tried it yet.

The idea is simple for the beta, make a draw box tool and draw a box on the canvas, where you put the boxes will create a div box and margin cords in the code view readjust and the cords will change to flow the placement of the box ( see already cleaner than four tables and nested tables or absolute postion tables like other aforementioned apps ) . Simple peasy. After that then we can worry about code browser support.



OH and here is what kicks we in the mouth, Apple tends to make tools when they see that the developers are just not getting it yet, like Keynote and Motion. So it could be that they see a webdiesgn tool is in the works (RUMOR) But this site speaks a million words of Hmmm *maybe* http://www.apple.com/education/hed/students/
So if they beat developers to the punch I will just cry with pain and joy. I want this app I think it would make life so much eaiser for deveolpers and artists. I had even thought when Core image comes out that it could import Photoshop layers for easy placement of those files instead of having the export each element of the images or result to the Awful slices method.

[iOliverC]

Originally posted by loren s:
OH and here is what kicks we in the mouth, Apple tends to make tools when they see that the developers are just not getting it yet, like Keynote and Motion. So it could be that they see a webdiesgn tool is in the works (RUMOR) But this site speaks a million words of Hmmm *maybe* http://www.apple.com/education/hed/students/
So if they beat developers to the punch I will just cry with pain and joy. I want this app I think it would make life so much eaiser for deveolpers and artists. I had even thought when Core image comes out that it could import Photoshop layers for easy placement of those files instead of having the export each element of the images or result to the Awful slices method.

The students website is just made out of Flash, why does using Flash suddenly result in Apple having a web design app in progress?

[osxisfun]

off topic:

if i were president i would ban flash for one week.

after that week people could decide for themselves if its worth it.

[loren s]

Originally posted by iOliverC:
The students website is just made out of Flash, why does using Flash suddenly result in Apple having a web design app in progress?

if you click on one of the links in it you will see that the other pages are html, and not tables layout like the rest on the site like the apple.com front page. Like http://www.apple.com/education/hed/s...lay/photo.html

Just for note my other post at apple.com discussions board got deleated, though it does not take much to do that it just makes me think, even though I worded it so it had so mention of apple making an app.

No matter, flash is good if done right and clean and solves alot of broswer compatibility issues for things like menus



Ya compare the front page http://www.apple.com/ source code to this page http://www.apple.com/education/hed/s...lay/photo.html

The second page has different structure a cleaner css structure. No clue what it means but it 'could' be a new tool in the works, ( grasping at straws here ) But hey it is a start for apple non the less

[loren s]

Sorry had to add this,

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/24873

NVU new version is out, while it is great to have one of these, it is still not cocoa and is left over code from carbon mozilla.

Comments.


"New View"? dejtrak
Version: 0.50, 12/2/2004 11:02AM PST
It is NOT "New View" ! it is: EnVy You (N - v - u)! Don't you agree? The product is excellent! No comparisson! What a price!!! We have got WYSWYG finaly!!! DEJTRAK More Info
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Impressive tersonodesign
Version: 0.60, 12/2/2004 02:03AM PST
Whilst NVU ain't quite up to the standards of Dreamweaver or GoLive, it beats the hell out of Contribute and Freeway Express. For home users it's a real no-brainer.

My only real criticism of it is that it tends to be a little sluggish, but no doubt that will improve as time moves on.

I hesitated to give it 5 stars as it's still a beta, but frankly given what it offers against competition costing anything up to $150, it'd be churlish not to give it top marks..... =] More Info
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Nice product, even better price imani08
Version: 0.50, 11/21/2004 11:27PM PST
Pretty robust product right now. Seems to do everything it claims to be able to, and does it nicely without adding a lot of extra HTML code when you switch over to souce code view. Great if your web building needs are simple to moderate.

Only note, like another user, I couldn't quit, had to force quit. More Info
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Great app at a fantastic price liamd
Version: 0.50, 11/5/2004 09:26AM PST
I have tried all the commercial website building apps out there for OSX (including DreamWeaver), and this is the only one that was easy enough to use but feature rich enough for me to actually make some proper headway with a website I am building. It actually reminds me of some of the old simple WYSIWYG site builders on OS9, but does more than enough to compete well with the other apps out there. More importantly, when I have tested the resulting pages on all browsers on Mac and Win, this is the first app I have used in which the page looks exactly the same on all. Some nice little extra features (such as indicating pixel width in the toolbars) are v helpful. By the time this reaches version 1.0, I can see it being a real killer app. Like a previous reviewer, I have noticed you have to quit twice for the whole app to close. Unlike previous reviewers, it has not been slow runs quickly on my 1Ghz G4 eMac. More Info
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Not bad for a WYSIWYG HTML authoring application Tim McNamara
Version: 0.50, 10/17/2004 02:58PM PST
NVu seems easy to use and is quite intuitive. The page editing I have done with it has resulted in correct HTML- certainly better than some other WYSIWYG applications. It took very little time at all to be able to do basic page editing. It does some "good housekeeping" tasks like prompting for ALT text for images.

The interface is quite slow on a Rev B iMac, either with menu commands, clicking toolbar buttons or using keyboard equivalents. Cmd-Q does not successfully quit the application, nor does selecting Quit from the menu, but it can be quit successfully from the Dock's contexual menu (rather than having to kill it via the Force Quit menu item).

I normally use Emacs with html-helper-mode for editing Web pages, and have not liked the WYSIWYG applications I have tried in the past. NVu's interface is cleaner and simpler than HomePage, PageMill, etc. It does need to get faster, and obviously the Quit command should work correctly. More Info
__________________________________________________ __________________________________

There is clearly a user base that would simply revel in a tool that was fast and free form like Omnigraffle/Keynote for web creation. Something not like the fidigty Dreamweaver and Golive. I dont get how anyone can use these two tools. they are very picky and like to .... oh whatever.

Just test golive and Omni graffel , draw a fex boxes and move them around see what seems smarter cleaner and faster to you.

[Macanoid]

There is clearly a user base that would simply revel in a tool that was fast and free form like Omnigraffle/Keynote for web creation. Something not like the fidigty Dreamweaver and Golive. I dont get how anyone can use these two tools. they are very picky and like to .... oh whatever.

Just test golive and Omni graffel , draw a fex boxes and move them around see what seems smarter cleaner and faster to you

In that case, check out Freeway Pro 3.5 now and keep an eye out for Freeway 4 soon. It does (almost) exactly what you're looking for!

[loren s]

Originally posted by Macanoid:
In that case, check out Freeway Pro 3.5 now and keep an eye out for Freeway 4 soon. It does (almost) exactly what you're looking for!

Freeay 4 eh ?? Do you have some inside info ? I already have freeway 3.5 and like it but it is still not what I am after, it sufferes from the carbon blues of pokey weird interface and lacking real div support, html import *proper* div in a div, dynamic blah blah blah. It just seems to be like a toned down dreamweaver.

[osxisfun]

>In that case, check out Freeway Pro 3.5 now and keep an eye out for Freeway 4 soon. It does (almost) exactly what you're looking for!

I checked out the web site. freeway is not what the orginal poster had in mind.

slim, clean and non bloated, visual CSS is what we want.

Macrabbit, please consider something like this. We don't want a dreamweaver level app, we just want to visual layout CSS boxes etc..

But you are correct there will hacks galore. sigh. Don't anyone think for a second that CSS is a write once display anywhere "standard". its more of a hack job once you get above the basics (layout wise - there are other good aspects that are wonderful such as fonts and smaller load times.)

is there anything like this on the PC?

[loren s]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
>In that case, check out Freeway Pro 3.5 now and keep an eye out for Freeway 4 soon. It does (almost) exactly what you're looking for!

I checked out the web site. freeway is not what the orginal poster had in mind.

slim, clean and non bloated, visual CSS is what we want.

Macrabbit, please consider something like this. We don't want a dreamweaver level app, we just want to visual layout CSS boxes etc..

But you are correct there will hacks galore. sigh. Don't anyone think for a second that CSS is a write once display anywhere "standard". its more of a hack job once you get above the basics (layout wise - there are other good aspects that are wonderful such as fonts and smaller load times.)

is there anything like this on the PC?

Sweet another person that sees the same vision! Visual CSS that includes the Margins padding and everything else.

As for PC, no there is not a thing, hell they dont even have something close to webkit for live code editing preview updates. Their tools are mostly like dreamweaver.

As for anything else, what will it take to convince a coder or two to seriously look at this idea and run with it ?? Hell if I could get some developers together I would try and pay for it's development. Then give it to the world for super cheap 20-40$ That would kick dreamweavers a$$ when it comes to making a real apple app

[osxisfun]

and i would add.. just like Mac Rabbit's CSS Edit ( a damn fine program and money well spent) just focuses on visual (textual?) CSS stuff... this new app would simply be for the "boxes" of CSS.

draw a box or two or three
output css/html*



her lor,

what's this?

I still can't figure is it an app? and browser based tool?

http://xstandard.com/

* i am well aware that its easier said then done.

[loren s]

True eaiser said then done, But when does it start? To make anything takes time and team work plus interaction to work out the details.

I will not give up!
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder...questId=222532

I will see if this site can do it, anyone is free to bid but really it is all for the art of the design and flow of human thinking, And I did not want to have to resort to outside help I wanted a brave and smart cocoa coder to let me test their meddle and see a vision of code be put together and your free to help in anyway I just want to get this started so I can try and get the other programs started to. I do how ever need to reword the post. Can anyone help me with that part ?


Oh and what other Mac sites can I post this at ? So far I have macosxhints spymac this forum idevgames and appleinsider, I needa place that coders them selves hang out besides the mailing lists.

[hyperb0le]

I am going to mess around with this idea. I'll give progress reports once I come up with something. It will take me a little while to plan out development, though (a complicated app like this needs to be written well from the beginning)

[hyperb0le]

[double post]

[loren s]

Originally posted by hyperb0le:
I am going to mess around with this idea. I'll give progress reports once I come up with something. It will take me a few days to plan out development, though (a complicated app like this needs to be written well from the beginning)

Coolness. Ask me anything if needed gojellybelly@spymac.com in my head I got it all figured out and even have version two and three planned

[mhuie]

From a webdev's point of view, CSS doesn't work that way. There is no standard way of doing CSS and you really will have to learn it to get it to do what you want.

A WYSIWYG CSS editor sounds like the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Learn CSS in the real world and you will know why. It takes thinking and creativity to execute well. You get a program to "try" to follow your orders and you'll get a overly complicated program that defeats the purpose of CSS.

There is a certain ordering that needs to be followed, you can just insert boxes here and there and expect the code to be clean and do what you want it to.

Looking at your proposed site just makes me laugh. Why don't you take the time to learn some of the terms that you seem to throw around and figure out why your request is just absurd?

Sorry, but if you want truly artistic pages, WYSIWYG won't cut it.

Good luck with your search.

[osxisfun]

>A WYSIWYG CSS editor sounds like the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Actually, I was thinking the same thing about this post.

>There is a certain ordering that needs to be followed, you can just insert boxes here and there and expect the code to be clean and do what you want it to.

Wow, and do you think that a computer-ma-jig could somehow help AUTOMATE this new fangled tech-mo-ology?

>and you'll get a overly complicated program that defeats the purpose of CSS.

and you have proof this is impossible?

>Looking at your proposed site just makes me laugh.

The same sort of laugh that i had reading your post?

>Sorry, but if you want truly artistic pages, WYSIWYG won't cut it.

I don't even know what this means.


Sorry to be harsh, but this guy has a vision and need for a software program that will make the need to do all this in a text editor a thing of the past, he makes up comps and explains how it should generally should work and what do you do?



I don't know if his program will ever get made, but your post just did not add anything to this conversation.

[iOliverC]

My piece of advice, give it up. People have said this to you over and over, but you don't seem to listen. What you are after is Dreamweaver Lite, A WebView (the view that renderings all the HTML in WebKit) is not meant to have different controls in it, whilst also rendering. So basically, your asking someone to build their rendering engine, which brings you back to the DW Lite idea. And no-one is going to do that for $150.

The amount of time you have posted on various forums and emailed various developers, could have been better spent learning CSS yourself and thus having no need for this magic CSS tool, that will 'revolutionise' web design.

I admire your determination, but please, think about what you are asking for.

Oliver

[Jan Van Boghout]

I second the above poster. I'd also like to add that this "I want to design and don't care about the code" attitude is exactly what created the whole mess of using tables as layout elements. A CSS creation tool would be great for basic layouts without semantic value (like 3 div-based columns, or whatever), but once you want to add every aspect of content design, you'll just end up with DreamWeaver that outputs non-semantic and messy CSS based stuff instead of non-semantic and messy <font> and table based stuff.

Also, was it really necessary to try and make me look like a stubborn idiot that can't see a good app, even on that rent-a-code page?

[loren s]

Originally posted by Jan Van Boghout:
I second the above poster. I'd also like to add that this "I want to design and don't care about the code" attitude is exactly what created the whole mess of using tables as layout elements. A CSS creation tool would be great for basic layouts without semantic value (like 3 div-based columns, or whatever), but once you want to add every aspect of content design, you'll just end up with DreamWeaver that outputs non-semantic and messy CSS based stuff instead of non-semantic and messy <font> and table based stuff.

Also, was it really necessary to try and make me look like a stubborn idiot that can't see a good app, even on that rent-a-code page?

Hmm, I do apologize, I should not have been so careless on that post i have removed the entire paragraph from existence. I am truly sorry Jan,I was fool to think that was a smart statement for me to post to the world.

This is new
__________________________________________________ __________
For now I am just after a developer to comunicate with and build a detailed realistic goal and prototype. The profits of the app will be a joint effort to design a new software company focused at building very fast user creativity tools.
__________________________________________________ __

Originally posted by iOliverC:
My piece of advice, give it up. People have said this to you over and over, but you don't seem to listen. What you are after is Dreamweaver Lite, A WebView (the view that renderings all the HTML in WebKit) is not meant to have different controls in it, whilst also rendering. So basically, your asking someone to build their rendering engine, which brings you back to the DW Lite idea. And no-one is going to do that for $150.

The amount of time you have posted on various forums and emailed various developers, could have been better spent learning CSS yourself and thus having no need for this magic CSS tool, that will 'revolutionise' web design.

I admire your determination, but please, think about what you are asking for.

Oliver

NEVER! Me learning CSS is just one person. Why should it be this way. Why not just have a better tool to work with first before starting on code. If this were true then why not remove Xtools from a mac developer, or tel a computer artisit that they can no longer use a wacom tablet ever again, or tell a cook that messuring cups are forbidin. true everything can still be made but wow there goes alot of waisted time. A tool is meant to speed up time spent on a project. And I just happen to see that CSS and WYSI... could use an over haul.

Now for the comments. I have no way to show you how fast a cocoa based sketch tool is compared to a carbon app like Golive and Dreamweaver. Other than please download a test app from Omnigraffel for the cocoa, and dreamweaver for carbon.

The "light dreamweaver" is something I would think this is trying to be yes. But so much more though less. Right now the only thinkable way I can explain it then is to just say that it is all 'the feeling of how the app will work'. Hmm. Ok let us say this then. There are no cocoa web design apps yet, tables or CSS. There are only code editing apps like taco and CSSedit. Where they are perfect in the tool for a coder, they provide nothing at all for a bare bones 'draw your own site'. You still need to know code to even start building a site.

the current WYSIWYG tools are true that they build a mindless amount of bad code. But that is because they used the old cheap hack of making tables do what they are not meant to do. But a CSS layout would be something cleaner for the code base to start and edit from. There would be no filler gifs and useless table rows collums and such. But again I am told that Dreamweaver already has this. Yes true, but at what cost ? If you drag a box around it does not live update, you drag it and drop it then everything reacts to reposition if needed. But again this is just eye candy to you I guess.

Hmm then what is it that will make this something in a developers eyes ? I guess I should make another list.

A full CSS viewer and editor. Control handles on the four sides of the content boxes.

The use of common prebuilt tools from apple like the color picker and font palate among others.

Speed of Cocoa design.

Streamlined interface that just focuses on the Box model.

Two modes of interaction. Pro and no clue just want a site.
Pro would give lots of options that will most likely not render correctly in all browsers as that is how the current CSS support is when tinkering with new or chincy CSS support in IE or Opera.
And no clue just want a site User Which would give out only the most working CSS code and layout support. Or even a few dedicated templates.

Price. I am going after the idea that this is a basic tool that should have be created years ago but either it was to much or someone just does not get it yet. I hate to be rude in this but really it is just a tool. a tool that someone else could later refine and make a full fledged app from it for whatever price they make there company to be.
Price 40$ and maybe even less. But if a real program were made with all sorts of bells and whistles later then like I said what ever the company decides is good. Just as long as it does not start reaching 400$. But Again that is up to whatever company not I.

My personal goal is to use Tigers next tools for an even weirder WYSI... tool.

Currently if you make a long CSS sytle sheet it will get very messy very quickly when trying to find the style code to change like constantly jumping back and forth to a preview window and the code or then to look up what area style it is on the page. Example: takeing apart a PHP CMS system to theme. Those tend to have a HUGE style sheet some times even two or more style sheets.

Lastly. Hacking code is boring and exhausting after to much time. It can make your head sick and wear you down when a direct click on the palate would be SOOOOO much faster. ( yes yes dreamweaver has this a bit)

But really, there is a huge need for low price cocoa wysiwyg kinda of app. Nuf said till someone else yells at me.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
>There is a certain ordering that needs to be followed, you can just insert boxes here and there and expect the code to be clean and do what you want it to.

Wow, and do you think that a computer-ma-jig could somehow help AUTOMATE this new fangled tech-mo-ology?

I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell that a computer could create a clean HTML+CSS page just by drawing boxes. Like John said, instead of a mish-mash of table tags, you'll just have a mish-mash of divs and spans. You're replacing one meaningless jumble with another. Unless you also want to create an AI, your computer does not understand semantics. Even if you managed to create mostly working code, it would not be pretty.

Originally posted by loren s:
I have no way to show you how fast a cocoa based sketch tool is compared to a carbon app like Golive and Dreamweaver. Other than please download a test app from Omnigraffel for the cocoa, and dreamweaver for carbon.

I still don't think you understand the issues here. Using the Cocoa framework to make a program does not make it faster than it could be using Carbon. In fact, if you look at Apple's iApps, the fastest one — iTunes — is Carbon. iMovie actually got slower when it was converted to Cocoa. The Objective-C messaging used by Cocoa is itself somewhat slower than the C function calls that Carbon uses.
Cocoa is a great tool for developers. But from the perspective of the end user, there really shouldn't be much difference. Dreamweaver and GoLive are very different from Omnigraffle (they constantly have to create and parse HTML and CSS), and Omni has some great developers on its team. If you think Cocoa will magically make your app rock, you're in for a big letdown.

To put it plainly, this is nowhere near as simple as you think. The fact that nobody has come close to this yet should tell you something about what you're asking for.

[osxisfun]

> a mish-mash of table tags, you'll just have a mish-mash of divs and spans.

the mish mash ends up looking correct in the browser so there is order there.

BTW, people should check out the cool firefox plugin (CSS developer?). It shows up in the browsers bar and let's you see all sorts of info as well as turning off images and stuff. Its a great tool for CSS developers.

there is even an option that will show (via box outlines) all the divs and page layout boxes.

Hmmm....

[wataru]

The extension you're talking about is called Web Developer.

By the way, loren s, this whole thread seems to have been born of a lack of understanding, not just of programming, but of the very problem that you're trying to solve. I don't think you have a chance in hell of realizing this app.

[loren s]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell that a computer could create a clean HTML+CSS page just by drawing boxes. Like John said, instead of a mish-mash of table tags, you'll just have a mish-mash of divs and spans. You're replacing one meaningless jumble with another. Unless you also want to create an AI, your computer does not understand semantics. Even if you managed to create mostly working code, it would not be pretty.


I still don't think you understand the issues here. Using the Cocoa framework to make a program does not make it faster than it could be using Carbon. In fact, if you look at Apple's iApps, the fastest one — iTunes — is Carbon. iMovie actually got slower when it was converted to Cocoa. The Objective-C messaging used by Cocoa is itself somewhat slower than the C function calls that Carbon uses.
Cocoa is a great tool for developers. But from the perspective of the end user, there really shouldn't be much difference. Dreamweaver and GoLive are very different from Omnigraffle (they constantly have to create and parse HTML and CSS), and Omni has some great developers on its team. If you think Cocoa will magically make your app rock, you're in for a big letdown.

To put it plainly, this is nowhere near as simple as you think. The fact that nobody has come close to this yet should tell you something about what you're asking for.

See I know less about code than I thought. That is why I need to stay far away from it. Ok lets forget all about Cocoa for a minute. Bare bones basic start. I will reply further later today. Just wanted to say that besides all of the "stop it, and this will never work" replies you are all helping me learn more about the process that I was always wanting to know. All I need now is someone willing to try and work with me with this idea.

I will be waiting for hyperb0le to tell me more if he or she is still on the project . Thank you.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
> a mish-mash of table tags, you'll just have a mish-mash of divs and spans.

the mish mash ends up looking correct in the browser so there is order there.

No more correct than a layout from any other editor would. My point is that it would not be — as you said — "slim, clean, non-bloated code." It would be both unreadably messy and almost certainly quite bloated.

Originally posted by loren s:
Ok lets forget all about Cocoa for a minute.

Just to clarify, I wasn't bashing Cocoa. I think it's a fine framework, and Objective-C is a great language. It's much easier to work with than Carbon, in my opinion. It's just not magic. It has its strengths and its drawbacks.

[loren s]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
No more correct than a layout from any other editor would. My point is that it would not be — as you said — "slim, clean, non-bloated code." It would be both unreadably messy and almost certainly quite bloated.

Why is this ? A div box is just

#div {
width: 200px;
padding:12px;
margin: 2px;
}

And on the page it would be <div id="div"> </div>

From here any changes made as example would be the number width:200; to change the number to say width:400px; just the number would change. A basic WYSIWYG would work with the solid, postion: absolute;

#div {
postion: absolute;
left:10px
top: 30px;
width: 200px;
padding:12px;
margin: 2px;
}

And a pro method layout with far less or no postion: absolute; would be something else for later like just using margin to layout some styles.

My beef with Carbon is that all of the apps I have seen that use it are kind of weird. The right click menu is always different, the top menu items are always different and the visual feedback of adjusting a handel or moveing an image around or tinkering with other things seems to be slow to me even on a powermac g5 with 2 gigs of ram. Like the feedback is not instantanious like cocoa apps. But really whatever.

An idea could be to hack open the Sketch app that comes with developer tools and have the draw a box tool create the code of left:...px; top:...px; And width height... Nothing is easy but it seems bare basic of an idea. Maybe convert the cordanate data that sketch creates by defualt of x,y, to pixels left top. Just an idea

[osxisfun]

> It would be both unreadably messy and almost certainly quite bloated.

That's impossible to say as i think we are talking about different things being bloated. Maybe we are not on the same page...

+ the bloat i am talking about is when programs add too many features and it becomes a kitchen sink type app.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
> It would be both unreadably messy and almost certainly quite bloated.

That's impossible to say as i think we are talking about different things being bloated. Maybe we are not on the same page...

+ the bloat i am talking about is when programs add too many features and it becomes a kitchen sink type app.

Are you sure we're thinking of the same post? You said you wanted "slim, clean and non bloated, visual CSS." It sounds like you were referring to the code itself.

[loren s]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
> It would be both unreadably messy and almost certainly quite bloated.

+ the bloat i am talking about is when programs add too many features and it becomes a kitchen sink type app.

Bingo! I am after clean! Clean clean interface and clean clean features. So clean infact that it would not have a huge css editor. Just basic stuff. It would then interface with Macrabbits (Jan) CSSedit. I love CSS edit and always thought it would be a perfect companion to cssedit.

I guess I could work on a mockup interface, that might help alot.

[osxisfun]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
Are you sure we're thinking of the same post? You said you wanted "slim, clean and non bloated, visual CSS." It sounds like you were referring to the code itself.

i meant the feel of the app. (not the outputted css code.) sorry about the confusion.

[osxisfun]

>certainly quite bloated.

chuckit. let's talk about CSS bloat (if that's what you were talking about in our what is bloat subthread)

if not ignore rest:

By bloated, do you mean boated css code due to the hacks needed to get to work on most browsers?

When i do CSS i'm sort of a basic type guy, meaning, if i have to "hack" something, i just don't use the hack and come up with a diff layout or workaround.

Now, i can do this since i do all CSS for my own site not for clients so i can understand why some people hack.

But what i am getting at, is that the hacks i have seen are very very tiny (code wise) such as an extra # or </ in front of some word so that IE ignores it etc...

all those hacks are in there now and no one is complaining about the bloat so maybe thats not an issue at all.


of course if you meant bloated as in the app then i just wasted a few sentences above...

but in a general sense, i am closer to correct as far as the hack code being a small amount of the total code?

[osxisfun]

loren, have you checked out this:

Rapidweaver
http://www.realmacsoftware.com/index...og/comments/2/


I just noticed that he allows cococa programmers to make plugins for it...

[Chuckit]

Yes, I meant CSS bloat (due to my apparent misunderstaning of that sentence). I was actually talking about computers being somewhat inept at writing concise markup (and CSS metadata relating to markup). They don't understand what is actually being said on the page, so you'll have to be pretty darn clever if you don't want it creating five billion classes. That's what it really comes down to CSS and XHTML are supposed to be meaningful. A computer can't use these tools the way they were intended, because it doesn't understand meaning. It will create a verbose tangle of tags.

[osxisfun]

> CSS and XHTML are supposed to be meaningful.

ok. not the divs etc.. what about the style sheet. that's where the hacks usually are.

[loren s]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
loren, have you checked out this:

Rapidweaver
http://www.realmacsoftware.com/index...og/comments/2/


I just noticed that he allows cococa programmers to make plugins for it...

Yes and before the site was hacked I had a nice long post there to with people and the developers. But all of that is gone now untill he does the resore of old posts. It lead nowhere either, and I was told the plug in system was limited to changeing basic things like colors and stuff, no real gui control.

Though a nice app. And would very much be a nice home for the css tweak tool.

[Chuckit]

I don't think the hacks will add much bloat. But he wasn't just talking about a style sheet editor (otherwise it's just CSSEdit). From what I can tell, he was talking about an HTML+CSS drawing program, which is what I'm saying will create ugliness. A tool that simplifies markup is one thing; a drawing tool a la Sketch that creates markup is quite another.

[loren s]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
I don't think the hacks will add much bloat. But he wasn't just talking about a style sheet editor (otherwise it's just CSSEdit). From what I can tell, he was talking about an HTML+CSS drawing program, which is what I'm saying will create ugliness. A tool that simplifies markup is one thing; a drawing tool a la Sketch that creates markup is quite another.

Well besides thdraw. Remember I always started this app idea not as a drawing tool but as a after edit tool. EG: A CSS tweak tool that depends on code already. So everything can be tweaked into place. But during the ideas of it a drawing program was coming about for higher use.

Anyway I am planning to do a little animation and mock up in a bit . Hopefully it will shed some light ..

[lenox]

This is kind of a strange way to find developers for an app idea you have...by saying it's already 'in the works', then admitting it's 'a fake'.

Good luck!

[loren s]

Originally posted by lenox:
This is kind of a strange way to find developers for an app idea you have...by saying it's already 'in the works', then admitting it's 'a fake'.

Good luck!

It wont let me change the title. And it was an old post that I was trying to use to find some help while I was trying to learn to hack sketch tool. Oh well

[m a d r a]

you do know that if you use dreamweaver in 'standard mode' with the 'draw layer' tool that you can build complex layouts completely in CSS without resorting to tables, filler graphics and the like? it's a hell of a lot better than it used to be.

my only major gripe with dreamweaver's way of doing things is that it insists on writing the CSS for layers [as DW calls them - 'div' tags as they really are] inline into the page, rather than into an external CSS file.

i think this coupled with dreamweaver's use of the misleading 'draw layer' terminology and the fact that you are facilitated [if not outright encouraged] to write all your other CSS definitions into an external CSS file makes DW's implementation of CSS pretty confusing for the uninitiated - however it is possible to generate fairly clean CSS with the current version.

as soon as they add the option to write the CSS defs for 'layers' into your external CSS as well, instead of forcing you to use this strange inline CSS/external CSS system, i'll be almost ready to pay for it

[loren s]

Originally posted by m a d r a:
you do know that if you use dreamweaver in 'standard mode' with the 'draw layer' tool that you can build complex layouts completely in CSS without resorting to tables, filler graphics and the like? it's a hell of a lot better than it used to be.

my only major gripe with dreamweaver's way of doing things is that it insists on writing the CSS for layers [as DW calls them - 'div' tags as they really are] inline into the page, rather than into an external CSS file.

i think this coupled with dreamweaver's use of the misleading 'draw layer' terminology and the fact that you are facilitated [if not outright encouraged] to write all your other CSS definitions into an external CSS file makes DW's implementation of CSS pretty confusing for the uninitiated - however it is possible to generate fairly clean CSS with the current version.

as soon as they add the option to write the CSS defs for 'layers' into your external CSS as well, instead of forcing you to use this strange inline CSS/external CSS system, i'll be almost ready to pay for it

. I just feel that a cocoa or carbon MAc style app for this would be some much cleaner. Maybe I am just dreaming. But there have been so many other apps that were using apples built in tools that are just so cool and smooth compared to others.

[Chuckit]

I think Madra was arguing against my comments about machine-generated CSS. I'll have to take a look at it. I don't use Dreamweaver a whole lot for exactly the reason that I like to hand-write my own markup these days. (Back in the days of font tags and table layouts, I would sooner have punched myself in the stomach, but CSS has made it possible again.)

[m a d r a]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
I think Madra was arguing against my comments about machine-generated CSS. I'll have to take a look at it. I don't use Dreamweaver a whole lot for exactly the reason that I like to hand-write my own markup these days. (Back in the days of font tags and table layouts, I would sooner have punched myself in the stomach, but CSS has made it possible again.)

i was more making a point to rebut the posters in the thread who seemed to think that using dreamweaver of necessity meant you had to use tables and placer graphics for layout, or that DW always generated 'kludgy' CSS.

i too, much prefer to hand code, but i'm finding that the latest incarnation of dreamweaver doesn't write quite so atrocious code as earlier versions, so i tend to lay-out roughly in DW and then clean up the code by hand afterwards. it's not ideal but it does save a fair bit of time - especially if you use dreamweaver's 'edit using...' features to edit your site files in BBedit, CSSedit or subethaedit while still allowing dreamweaver to take care of site management.

in fact i pretty much depend on DW's site management for keeping track of things and automatically updating all the 'inter-file' links and references because i tend to work in a fairly unplanned [dare i say 'disorganised'?] way and often end up moving, renaming and reorganising the files and folders in any site i'm working on as i go along.


i think at the end of the day, unskilled people will always generate worse code than skilled people, no matter what tool they use, or how easy it's supposed to make things. of course you can get by using a WYSIWYG interface without knowing what's going on behind the scenes, but if you understand a bit about the code your WYSIWYG app is generating then you'll not try and force it to do things which will require it to 'kludge' and you'll also know why on occasion it can't do what you want it to do.

i know i get a lot more out of my car by understanding how the engine works and how to maintain it than the person who has never looked under the bonnet and is lost when turning the key fails to instantly start the motor.

[loren s]

Originally posted by m a d r a:
i was more making a point to rebut the posters in the thread who seemed to think that using dreamweaver of necessity meant you had to use tables and placer graphics for layout, or that DW always generated 'kludgy' CSS.
i think at the end of the day, unskilled people will always generate worse code than skilled people, no matter what tool they use, or how easy it's supposed to make things. of course you can get by using a WYSIWYG interface without knowing what's going on behind the scenes, but if you understand a bit about the code your WYSIWYG app is generating then you'll not try and force it to do things which will require it to 'kludge' and you'll also know why on occasion it can't do what you want it to do.

i know i get a lot more out of my car by understanding how the engine works and how to maintain it than the person who has never looked under the bonnet and is lost when turning the key fails to instantly start the motor.

But that is what I was getting at. A visual CSS editing trip through the program. Example:

div {
border:solid 1px;
}

This small bit of code is ever so helpful when trying to find a broken layout. It lets you see the borders of the divs. and how they are placed on the page. Now if there was a way to do this with padding, margin and percent then half of the problem could be solved.
The second half is having handles on those margins and padding and divs.

Oh whatever, that is just the general idea