Website Application Compliance?

Posted on July 21, 2007
Filed Under Design, Portfolio |

Does XHTML and CSS Compliance Really Matter?

For some reason I seem to just piss people off in forums when I point out ways to improve the compliance of application code. It seems no matter how much patience and professionalism I use to describe ways to reduce the size a site by switching it to CSS or simply cleaning up the hundreds of compliance errors that surface, some people take offense. It’s freaky really.

I recently wrote about creating all css layouts for templates for CRE Loaded and opened up a storm of responses in a particular forum for designers that still has me shaking my head in wonder and amazement. Now I tend to self edit my writings pretty accurately as not to completely offend people but when I say that tables are heavy compared to style sheets, or I talk about cross over block elements as being bad code, I’m speaking truth! Right?

CSS / XHTML compliance is not pure vanity and its not an attempt to show off ones skill in design. Web standards however are alot more than just validation per se. Compliance to web standards has everything to do with the methods of publishing content in ways that screen readers and browsers can understand. It’s also about publishing for consistency, ease of change, control and many things that most compliance browsers should present unanimously in similar form and function. Now validating code doesn’t mean you get to say “I’m better than you are, ha” and it doesn’t mean you will rank better in search engines contrary to popular belief.

Good code standards in my opinion makes a statement about quality and attention to detail not to mention just doing it right. Nothing is harder to deal with then bad code and when code is so bad its noticeable I find myself making it a personal challenge to clean up.

Tables are NOT bad code

The bold and often arrogant pursuit of compliance has led many to adopt this belief that tables are in some way bad code or at least bad coding methods for layouts. Granted tables are not really intended for layout they none the less acceptable methods of site design for popular applications like CRE Loaded or osCommerce as so much of their function relies on tabulated data and data sets that really can’t be displayed effectively any other way.

So, since CRE Loaded was the motive for this post I’ll move to briefly looking at how it can be done using nice clean compliant code.

Open Realty - Joomla - CRE Loaded - Word Press

Of the many applications I work with only three stand out as being in some need of an overhaul. WordPress and Joomla are certainly not on the list as these two applications are very well developed to accommodate good web design.

CRE Loaded is a commercialized enhanced variant of osCommerce which inherits all of its poor layout standards and old inline styling methods. With patience and a little diligence, CRE Loaded as well as osCommerce can be brought up to speed for a lighter and faster product that will at the very least validate providing your content and products descriptions are not messy. Its easy to take an otherwise clean and compliant layout and break it with your content as you can see on my blog I do almost daily as this site produces more non compliant errors than any I’ve worked on. (There is a method to my madness I promise)

I’ve taken CRE Loaded as well as osCommerce on many occasions where custom designs were needed and pretty much went through and cleaned up the code but never did so as a foundation for further templates. Until now! The biggest concern is the frequency of change in these applications and the developers apparent decision to not include the inventory of file changes in the change log (sometimes). This presents a problem as updates and maintenance become a very time consuming endeavor.

An all CSS osCommerce template is possible in Beta 3 and is relatively possible in CRE Loaded 6.2 as I’ve discovered. After spending countless hours building a solid foundation for future design by creating several custom modifications as well as contributions, CRE Loaded templates can eventually weigh nearly 1/3 of their average weight while reducing processing time as much as 80% in all the demo’s and tests I’ve ran. I think that alone speaks for itself.

But compliance in relation to CRE Loaded really begins with the doctype and then all the little redundant generated code methods that make up the application on a whole. CRE Loaded has a proud feature set in its admin panel that let you alter the design to a degree and this doesn’t play well with an all CSS Layout.

I’ve been able to make features like template width, background color and other things controllable in the admin panel work well with an all CSS template. But an all CSS / XHTML compliant template for CRE is a lofty endeavor to say the least.

Now I love CRE Loaded and I suggest it to clients more so than any other commerce application. I wont even touch things like VirtueMart or Zen Cart anymore now that I’ve had some serious time invested into looking at, learning about, and designing for CRE Loaded customers. Compliance was a personal challenge when I decided to take it serious and the very first things I nailed was the module boxes.

CRE Loaded All CSS Templates / Themes

People who use osCommerce or CRE Loaded may be familiar with some of the menu tools available such as JS Cool Menu or DHTML Menu among others. The big issue I’ve always had is that neither one of those menu systems will rank or index with google and the ease of use is almost nil.

The very first obstacle I had was creating and all css multi level menu that I could apply to many of the other CRE Modules so it would index in search engines and reduce its weight and redundant “countless nesting” table levels that were really odd to work with.

After diligence, plenty of $$ for coders, and testing, I was finally able to produce a few master layouts that will validate according to both XHTML and CSS compliance tests and reduce the size to such a degree that when compared to stock templates, the CSS designs will weigh on average about 70% less and load much quicker.

Does this matter? Well I’ll let you and the search engines be the judge as my next posts on the subject wont be until I publish the results I certainly know and expect in terms of indexing and usability.

Regardless of the arguments surrounding compliance standards, CRE Loaded in my personal opinion benefits greatly by quality template design as many would plainly see. The temptation to produce turnkey tabled layouts is hard to avoid considering that most template houses sell their designs for $150 on average. The headache has been the exhaustive amount of layout code that makes up the pages when finally rendered. I think if you look at some of the designs I’ll publish you may consider a similar transition and because of such I’ve assembled a 5 template package which includes several custom menu contributions (All CSS mind you) along with STAR PRODUCT and a few other contributions that will help you in your own template design.

I’ll call it a template kit even though I don’t want it associated in any way to the Rapid Template Design Series. But look If I can save a would be client or customer hundreds of dollars in design by providing a nice little package for $50 my only question to you would be. Is it worth it? and if so, I’m going to publish it!

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  1. Nick Miles February 11, 2008 11:29 am

    Please publish! Getting rid of those tables would be so good for SEO.


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