Designing custom layouts from scratch (SOLVED)

[JamesD]

I would like to ask the opinion of a long time CMSMS/CSS user and someone who is less experienced in both. I would like to dsign a site using CMSMS but to completetly design the layout and CSS from scratch.

I am wondering how difficult this is, I am not so bothered about the actual layout CSS but more the little random things like cross browser compatibility and buggy stuff that needs specific code fixes due to browser or version.

Would be interested in hearing the opinion of both a skilled user and someone who is more intermediate to get an idea from both points of view.

I really like the CMSMS backend admin system, but have struggled a bit with the templates and stylesheets, maybe buidling a site from scratch and creating my own templates, themes and stylesheets would give me a good grounding or would it be a total nightmare. I have some time for learning as I build but I do have a deadline for this site as well so only have so much time to play around.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[cyberman]

I am wondering how difficult this is, I am not so bothered about the actual layout CSS but more the little random things like cross browser compatibility and buggy stuff that needs specific code fixes due to browser or version.

Default stylesheets contains a lot of hacks to work with different browsers and their versions.

So it makes sense to use default templates as base for your custom layouts.

[KO]

If i need to do template I create it allways from scratch with notepad++ or with some other text editor. I'll just make normal html webpage and include css, some content, menu as list items etc. Ofcourse test it with common browsers to be sure it's looking as it should, it validates, scales etc. If it works fine there it sure works in CMSms. If that needs to be ported to CMS I put needed bits like {menu} {content} {news} etc. in it and check that needed styles are there.

This ofcourse depends how familiar you are with css and different browsers behavior. You can get your pages up very easily with templates that come up with default CMSms and style them to suit what you need. But if you know css bit more it might be faster to do it from scratch rather than pull your hair trying to find what style does what. I personally believe that most of that "cross browser compatibility and buggy stuff" for how pages look ouside is related to how different browsers interpret css.

br,K

[klendino]

Well, I'm not a design guru nor do I have an extended knowledge of building websites.
I gave CMSMS a try and started out with the default templates availale. Then I designed a webpage template with dreamweaver and tested it against IE 6-7 and Firefox once I was more familiar with the program and it's capabilities.
Then added this (x)html to the templates db into CMSMS and it's working fine with me after replacing the content with the {menu}, {content}, ... tags.

I also took the existing templates and style sheets as a reference and ended up with a nice layout which works great for me.

Give it a try and the forum is a good way to get help from the community.

Cheers

Thierry

[JamesD]

Thanks folks that was just the varied kind of opinions I needed. I guess I will try the from scratch approach, will help my Css skills and I think be easier than adding and stripping Css to suit what I need.

Cheers

[Dr.CSS]

There are some basic themes on the theme site...

http://themes.cmsmadesimple.org/Theme_Frameworks.html