Magenta — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:32:13 +0000

I have two questions about the code.
1) What is the reason for using z-indices? I thought a z-index was only used for elements that overlap and the only reason I can think of for using them here is because the background is a div layer.
2)html, body {
padding: 0px;
margin: 0px;
background-color: #000000;
}
I've never seen "html" used as a selector. I tried figuring out what this rule would do but it made my brain sore.

webwiz — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:52:44 +0000

Thank you for showing us the results of this plug-in, Roo. I have some designer friends that love this kind of stuff.

With all those inline styles, I wonder they don't just revert to the ancient FONT tag? All that absolute positioning seems problematic, too. Not much advantage over just displaying a single image of the whole page and be done with it.

This way of working - comp first, content later - seems to me a lot like designing clothes and deciding later who they are going to fit. I still believe that "content is king".

Roo — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:34:59 +0000

Thanks for the tips Chris.

Photoshop CS2 does the slicing and all yes, with no need to IR, and yes it will output a css layout, but I'm not thirlled with how it does it.

I am a a hand coder but well if something will save me some work I'm all for it!
I normally use a table just as a container and use CSS for everything else. It's time consuming for me to figure out the positioning with a table-less layout, I can do it by hand, but I see that SiteGrinder will give me my basic positioning, and then I can tweak. (I prefer fluid layouts over fixed sized and absolute positioning)

I am anal about code, so while I'm sure I will use SiteGrinder, I still will tweak because I don't care for the way it outputs the CSS,

That said, just the time saved from the general layout, even if I make it skeletal will make it worth it for me.

I wish I could afford the developer version as it seems to have a lot more features, but that is out of my budget at this time.

cperkins — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:54:29 +0000

Quote: It merged all of my graphical elements into a huge background, and doesn't use it as a page background...it displays it in a div.

If you have non-interactive elements overlapping, it'll merge them together as a download optimization. As you define multiple pages in Photoshop/SG you'll see better results - only those overlapping items that are the same from page to page will be merged. You can also influence the automerging with the -merge and -nomerge hints. One color rectangular layers (that are not anti-aliased) will be output as HTML only, not as graphics and won't be merged with other layers either.

If you want some pattern (or image) in the background of the page, then use the Photoshop Pattern Overlay effect on a layer named exterior-tile. But -tile layers are part of Pro. http://www.medialab.com/sitegrinder/support/sg2overview_page_backgrounds.html

Quote: Doesn't Image Ready CS2 and above generate html, css and such? Just wonderin' why you got the plugin.

ImageReady is a slicing tool which outputs table-based layout whereas SiteGrinder does CSS and no tables. ImageReady has no support for conversion of styled Photoshop text to real HTML text, which SiteGrinder has. Also SiteGrinder has dozens of features that ImageReady doesn't have: multi-page site creation with maximal re-use of graphics and CSS across pages, background tiles support, image gallery creation, flash slideshow output, importing external HTML, late binding to external HTML via PHP require(), SSI, etc., output of forms (including email forms and it'll generate the PHP for you), vertically expanding document support, scrolling text, text buttons and menus, and much more.

If you are moving between Photoshop and DreamWeaver then slicing and struggling with slices downstream wastes a lot of your time unproductively. SiteGrinder leverages and makes great use of your time. SG has a bit of a learning curve, but it pays off handsomely.

Chris Perkins
SiteGrinder Programmer
Media Lab, Inc.

Magenta — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:58:02 +0000

Doesn't Image Ready CS2 and above generate html, css and such? Just wonderin' why you got the plugin.