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Mac Musings
Low End Mac's Design Moves Forward with CSS and XHTML
Dan Knight - 2005.04.25
For eight years we've been editing and designing Low End Mac using Claris Home Page, plain vanilla HTML, and tables for layout. My text editor of choice was BBEdit Lite 4.6, and I used a program called Mizer to compress each page's HTML code so it would load faster.
This was Low End Mac, and we realized that for some of our readers a 14.4k modem was the state of their art. We designed for the lowest common denominator and tried to make sure that our pages looked similar in any browser from the 2.0 era forward - and even that they worked decently on the 512 x 342 display of an SE/30.
That era has come to an end.
Raising Standards
We've been using include files and style sheets for years, and we've done some website automation using PHP and MySQL, but all of the coding has been compatible with the HTML 3.2 or 4.01 Transitional specification.
Now we're moving forward. We're making the transition to XHTML for our page code and also starting to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for page design instead of old fashioned HTML tables. We're still tweaking our page template, but it's coming along nicely. We'll continue using our table design as we make the transition to CSS design.
CSS lets us do some pretty neat things, and we updated our style sheets over a week ago to include things like headers reversed against a darker background bar and to create our new navigation bar at the top of the page. The new design scales pretty nicely, whether you're using a 640 x 480 monitor or something a whole lot bigger.
10 Forward
None of this would have been possible without Style Master, which as a CSS editor with wizards (to help you design things like a navigation bar) and a tutorial that really helps you get a feel for how CSS works.
I've been using TextWrangler 2.0 ever since Bare Bones Software released it as a free product, and it's a worthy successor to BBEdit Lite in every way. And I'm using a wonderful program, Tidy Service, that works as an OS X Service within TextWrangler. Based on HTML Tidy, Tidy Service lets me clean up the HTML in an open page or convert the entire page to XHTML.
That's wonderful. I can take my current pages, tables and all, open them in TextWrangler, select all (cmd-A), and choose "Tidy to XHTML" from the Services list in the application menu. It's not quite perfect - it sometimes forgets to declare the DOCTYPE and sometimes adds a spurious � or two near the end of the file. But those are easy to fix.
Best of all, two of these three programs are free, all of them are OS X native, and I learned enough from Style Master to justify the US$60 price tag.
I'm not quite free of Classic apps. I still use Claris Home Page to write and edit articles for LEM, although I'm sure I'll find a nice replacement some day (Nvu looks very promising). And although I have Photoshop Elements 3.0 and prefer it for photo work, I find my ancient Photoshop 5.5 faster to use, as well as more powerful for creating type with drop shadows.
As for Mizer, it's been retired. While Claris Home Page had the bad habit of adding a lot of spaces to make the source HTML easier to follow and Mizer was great for deleting those spaces, Tidy Service doesn't add those spaces - so there's no need to eliminate them.
Tidy Service also makes pages that are more strictly compliant with standards, so the "unnecessary" quote marks that Mizer eliminated are restored when I Tidy a file. On average, my files were 25% smaller after using Mizer on my Home Page documents, but there's not enough extraneous stuff after Tidy Service does its thing for me to worry about an HTML compression program.
And Backward
XHTML is the next step beyond HTML 4.0, and it's intended to be pretty compatible with older browsers. Likewise, good design using CSS not only creates pages that degrade nicely with older browsers, but it also makes pages more accessible.
On the down side, pages may not work as well in older browsers once we fully implement our CSS design. And iCab really shows its noncompliance. But with 98-99% of our visitors using modern browsers, we figured it was time to make the switch.
We've also changed our color scheme, something we began implementing last week. We're using different shades of blue and a lighter shade of gray, and we've begun updating our site graphics to match, although again it's going to take some time to get everything moved to the new system.
Beyond Hard Coded Pages
After all of that's finished, I should feel confident enough of my CSS and XHTML skills to start moving Low End Mac away from hard coded pages to a publishing system. The one we're hoping to adopt is Drupal, a free content publishing system with a broad user base that still uses .html page calls (wonderful for backwards compatibility) and scales well under heavy loads.
Just like Mac OS X, Low End Mac is always under construction,
and we're always trying to make it a better site for you. We hope
you'll find the changes helpful.
Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.
Recent Mac Musings
- IDE Is Dead; Long Live SATA!, 11.04. SATA has displaced parallel ATA. While IDE hard drives haven't disappeared, the best deals are in SATA hard drives.
- The Future of Personal Computing: Personal Servers and Low Cost Portables, 11.02. With WiFi everywhere, virtual network computing, and remote access, your iPhone, iTouch, iTablet, or MacBook Air becomes a gateway to your home or office computer.
- The Late 2009 Mac mini Value Equation, 10.21. We called the Mac mini 'the best value in desktop Macs' two months ago, and the refreshed Mac mini only improves that value.
- The Late 2009 MacBook Value Equation, 10.21. The redesigned consumer MacBook uses unibody construction, gains LED backlighting and battery life, but loses FireWire.
- More in the Mac Musings index.
Links for the Day
- Mac of the Day: 17" iMac G4/800 MHz, July 2002 - The iMac 'grows up' with a 17" 1440 x 900 display.
- Group of the Day: LisaList supports Lisa users.
- November 8 in LEM history: 99: OS 9: I think I like it - 01: The simplified Mac life - Soured on Windows - Flea market Mac - 02: Little room for improvement in new 'Books - Combo drive upgrade for iceBooks - 04: Re-Porter - 05: Fix the old iMac or buy a Mac mini? - Apple's Copland project - 06: MacBook Core 2 - MacBook value equation - Cheap is as cheap does - 07: Problems with Classic mode in Tiger - The G4 Power Mac that won't run Leopard
- Support Low End Mac
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Quad-Core CPU Makes Sense in MacBook Pro, OS X 10.6 Causing Overheating, Overseas Power, and More, The 'Book Review, 11.06. Also Late 2009 MacBook reviewed, how to add RAM to new MacBook, 18.4in Acer notebook used Intel i7, and SanDisk SSD chosen for Sony VAIO X.
- Dumping Macs for Google Apps, SSD in iMac, Late 2009 iMac Performance Problems, and More, Mac News Review, 11.06. /newsrev/09mnr/1106.html
- WiFi Paranoia, iMac-O-Lantern, Magic Mouse Does Click, Free Clipboard Managers, and More, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 11.05. Also strange time stamps, problem with ColorIt on Intel Mac, and the story behind OS X 10.5.4 install discs.
- QuickTime X in Snow Leopard Imports, Trims, and Publishes Video Quickly and Easily, Alan Zisman, Zis Mac, 11.04. The long, slow process of importing video into iMovie to edit it, then render it to another format, is history as QuickTime X does that much more quickly.
- More links in our archive.
Recent Deals
- Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.03. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 8-core. $2,299; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.26 8-core, $2,799; 2.93, $4,999.
- Best iPhone Deals, 11.03. New 8 GB iPhone 3G, $$99; refurb 16 GB 3GS, $149; new, $199; 32 GB, $299.
- Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.03. Used 867 MHz SperDrive, $348; 1 GHz, $499; 1.33 Combo, $298; SD, $559; 1.5 Combo, $448; SuperDrive, $589.
- Best Power Mac G3 and PCI Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used beige 300 MHz, $25; G4/366, $49; blue & white 350, $80; 400, $90; 450, $105; PCI video cards from $15; shipping additional.
- Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used 400 MHz, $50; 733 MHz, $69; 933 MHz, $209; 1.25 GHz dual, $299.
- Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.02. Used 2.0 GHz, $800; 2.2, $900; 2.4, $1,000; refurb 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,949; 3.06, $2,169; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
- Best Mac mini Deals, 10.30. Used 1.33 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.42, $389; 1.5, $419; 1.83 GHz Core Duo, $350; Core 2, $439; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $770; Server, $990.
- Best G4 iBook Deals, 10.30. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $225; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1 GHz, $349; 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz SuperDrive, $498.
- Best Classic Mac OS Deals, 10.30. System 6.0.8 floppies, $10; 7.1, $12; 7.5, $20; 7.5 CD, $4; 7.6 $13; 8.1, $11; 8.5, $20; 8.6, $90; 9.0, $20; 9.2.2, $30.
- More deals in our archive.
