Обсуждение: CSS and XHTML

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CSS and XHTML

От
Michael Glaesemann
Дата:
Hello all!

I saw a post on pgsql-hackers from Robert Treat that made me interested
in finding out if there's something for me to do with the
postgresql.org site. It sounds like there are a lot of things going on:
merging of sites, adding or increasing the multilingual capabilities,
and reworking the backend.

I don't know specifics of what needs to be done and I'm willing to work
on anything I'm capable of doing. One thing I am interested in doing is
working to make the site as efficient and standards-compliant as
possible. In particular, I'd like to see the feasibility of coding to
the XHTML standard and moving as much presentational code to CSS as
possible.

For the most part, this is pretty straightforward and not too
difficult. I downloaded the site from the CVS and reworked
cache/index.htm, postgresql.css, and page.php. I rewrote them to XHTML
1.0 Strict and got them free of errors (using BBEdit's Check Syntax
function) with presentation that closely matches the original. (One
caveat: I haven't been able to connect to the database(s)—is there a
way to do this from my development machine?—so the generated pages
haven't included the main content. The markup generated by the
basic.*.php scripts is all error-free.) I don't foresee any major
problems in the rest of the site, though I have to get to know the code
better to be sure.

I see at least two advantages for the site: (a) the resulting scripts
are easier to read, as there is very little presentational markup
remaining, and therefore much easier to maintain; and (b) the server
load is substantially decreased, as less code needs to be sent to the
client. The presention (in the css file) is cached by the clients, so
it rarely needs to be fetched. The pages themselves are slimmed down,
since they contain just the document structure. For example, the
current main index page is 15.2K + .6K (postgresql.css) for a total of
15.8K. The main index page is now 6.3K (sans news remember), and
postgresql.css is 3.8K, for a total of 10.1K. I know we're only talking
5K, but it's a 30% reduction in server load for the *first* page view.
Once the CSS is cached, we're looking at a 40% reduction per page.

Of course these will change once the content. Just a rough estimate for
the content section: 13.6K to 11.3K, so just a little savings there
(about 15%).

Anyway, you guys probably know all this anyway. And I'm sure there are
more critical issues to work on. But this is one thing I know I could
work on and you can probably tell I'm kind of excited to. If you have
any questions or would like to see the modifications, just ask. One
thing I'd like to know is server stats (load and browser distributions,
if it's available). And if I can help out in other ways, I'm happy to
do that as well.

Regards,

Michael Glaesemann
grzm myrealbox com

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
Michael Glaesemann
Дата:
On Sunday, November 9, 2003, at 11:30 PM, Michael Glaesemann wrote:

> For example, the current main index page is 15.2K + .6K
> (postgresql.css) for a total of 15.8K. The main index page is now 6.3K
> (sans news remember), and postgresql.css is 3.8K, for a total of
> 10.1K. I know we're only talking 5K, but it's a 30% reduction in
> server load for the *first* page view. Once the CSS is cached, we're
> looking at a 40% reduction per page.

Where's my math! 15.8K to 6.3K is a *59%* reduction. (6.3K is
approximately 40% of 15.8K).

Off to an auspicious start! :)

Michael



Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Andreas Grabmüller"
Дата:
Hello Michael,

You can find some stats at
http://www.postgresql.org/stats/

I think it would be good to have a XHTML compatible site. But as it seems the site structure will change (if we decide
tomerge the sites), it might be better if you wait for this new structure before redoing the (X)HTML to avoid double
work...

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Andreas Grabmüller

----- Original-Nachricht -----
Von: "Michael Glaesemann" <grzm@myrealbox.com>
An: pgsql-www@postgresql.org
Datum: Sunday, November 09, 2003 03:34 PM
Betreff: [pgsql-www] CSS and XHTML

> Hello all!
>
> I saw a post on pgsql-hackers from Robert Treat that made me interested
> in finding out if there's something for me to do with the
> postgresql.org site. It sounds like there are a lot of things going on:
> merging of sites, adding or increasing the multilingual capabilities,
> and reworking the backend.
>
> I don't know specifics of what needs to be done and I'm willing to work
> on anything I'm capable of doing. One thing I am interested in doing is
> working to make the site as efficient and standards-compliant as
> possible. In particular, I'd like to see the feasibility of coding to
> the XHTML standard and moving as much presentational code to CSS as
> possible.
>
> For the most part, this is pretty straightforward and not too
> difficult. I downloaded the site from the CVS and reworked
> cache/index.htm, postgresql.css, and page.php. I rewrote them to XHTML
> 1.0 Strict and got them free of errors (using BBEdit's Check Syntax
> function) with presentation that closely matches the original. (One
> caveat: I haven't been able to connect to the database(s)—is there a
> way to do this from my development machine?—so the generated pages
> haven't included the main content. The markup generated by the
> basic.*.php scripts is all error-free.) I don't foresee any major
> problems in the rest of the site, though I have to get to know the code
> better to be sure.
>
> I see at least two advantages for the site: (a) the resulting scripts
> are easier to read, as there is very little presentational markup
> remaining, and therefore much easier to maintain; and (b) the server
> load is substantially decreased, as less code needs to be sent to the
> client. The presention (in the css file) is cached by the clients, so
> it rarely needs to be fetched. The pages themselves are slimmed down,
> since they contain just the document structure. For example, the
> current main index page is 15.2K + .6K (postgresql.css) for a total of
> 15.8K. The main index page is now 6.3K (sans news remember), and
> postgresql.css is 3.8K, for a total of 10.1K. I know we're only talking
> 5K, but it's a 30% reduction in server load for the *first* page view.
> Once the CSS is cached, we're looking at a 40% reduction per page.
>
> Of course these will change once the content. Just a rough estimate for
> the content section: 13.6K to 11.3K, so just a little savings there
> (about 15%).
>
> Anyway, you guys probably know all this anyway. And I'm sure there are
> more critical issues to work on. But this is one thing I know I could
> work on and you can probably tell I'm kind of excited to. If you have
> any questions or would like to see the modifications, just ask. One
> thing I'd like to know is server stats (load and browser distributions,
> if it's available). And if I can help out in other ways, I'm happy to
> do that as well.
>
> Regards,
>
> Michael Glaesemann
> grzm myrealbox com
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
>       subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your
>       message can get through to the mailing list cleanly

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Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Marc G. Fournier"
Дата:

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Andreas GrabmXller wrote:

> Hello Michael,
>
> You can find some stats at
> http://www.postgresql.org/stats/
>
> I think it would be good to have a XHTML compatible site. But as it
> seems the site structure will change (if we decide to merge the sites),
> it might be better if you wait for this new structure before redoing the
> (X)HTML to avoid double work...

If we are redoing the site, might it not be better to try and adhere to
the XHTML standard as much as possible, to avoid doing double work? :)


Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Andreas Grabmüller"
Дата:
----- Original-Nachricht -----
Von: "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@postgresql.org>
An: Andreas GrabmXller <webmaster@letzplay.de>
CC: pgsql-www@postgresql.org, grzm@myrealbox.com
Datum: Sunday, November 09, 2003 07:06 PM
Betreff: [pgsql-www] CSS and XHTML

> On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Andreas GrabmXller wrote:
>
> > Hello Michael,
> >
> > You can find some stats at
> > http://www.postgresql.org/stats/
> >
> > I think it would be good to have a XHTML compatible site. But as it
> > seems the site structure will change (if we decide to merge the sites),
> > it might be better if you wait for this new structure before redoing the
> > (X)HTML to avoid double work...
>
> If we are redoing the site, might it not be better to try and adhere to
> the XHTML standard as much as possible, to avoid doing double work? :)

Yes, but if the code in CVS is out of date and hast to be redone for the new site structure, it does not make sense to
updateit to XHTML ;) 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Andreas Grabmüller

--
LetzPlay.de
| Freemail:       http://www.letzplay.de/mail
| Forenhosting: http://www.letzplay.de/foren

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Marc G. Fournier"
Дата:
On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Andreas GrabmXller wrote:

> Yes, but if the code in CVS is out of date and hast to be redone for the
> new site structure, it does not make sense to update it to XHTML ;)

True, but if there is someway of Micheal being able to access the new
code, so that he can update it as its being developed, instead of waiting
until the end?  I may be thinking of something else, but isn't xHTML just
a more strict HTML?  (ie. <TD>'s *must* have matching </TD>'s)

Michael?

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Andreas Grabmüller"
Дата:
----- Original-Nachricht -----
Von: "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@postgresql.org>
An: Andreas GrabmXller <webmaster@letzplay.de>
CC: scrappy@postgresql.org, pgsql-www@postgresql.org, grzm@myrealbox.com
Datum: Sunday, November 09, 2003 07:42 PM
Betreff: [pgsql-www] CSS and XHTML

> On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Andreas GrabmXller wrote:
>
> > Yes, but if the code in CVS is out of date and hast to be redone for the
> > new site structure, it does not make sense to update it to XHTML ;)
>
> True, but if there is someway of Micheal being able to access the new
> code, so that he can update it as its being developed, instead of waiting
> until the end?

Well, the new code isn't really existing yet... there are just the two test.htm files but nobody has decided yet if we
doit that way (I think nobody has even decided if we merge the sites?)... 

> I may be thinking of something else, but isn't xHTML just
> a more strict HTML?  (ie. <TD>'s *must* have matching </TD>'s)
>
> Michael?

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Andreas Grabmüller

--
LetzPlay.de
| Freemail:       http://www.letzplay.de/mail
| Forenhosting: http://www.letzplay.de/foren

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Marc G. Fournier"
Дата:

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Andreas GrabmXller wrote:

> Well, the new code isn't really existing yet... there are just the two
> test.htm files but nobody has decided yet if we do it that way (I think
> nobody has even decided if we merge the sites?)...

Actually, I thought we had decided that the only two we couldn't merge in
were gborg and techdocs?  And, I tend to be of the opinion that if nobody
pipe's up negative, go with as proposed ... and the only comment I saw go
about the design was from Dave, and it appeared positive :)

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but when I looked at it, all I saw was that
the left menu 'bar' was extended to pull in the various sites?  I didn't
see anything jump out at me as far as changes were concerned, beyond that
... or did I miss something?


Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Andreas Grabmüller"
Дата:
----- Original-Nachricht -----
Von: "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@postgresql.org>
An: Andreas GrabmXller <webmaster@letzplay.de>
CC: scrappy@postgresql.org, pgsql-www@postgresql.org, grzm@myrealbox.com
Datum: Sunday, November 09, 2003 07:59 PM
Betreff: [pgsql-www] CSS and XHTML

> On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Andreas GrabmXller wrote:
>
> > Well, the new code isn't really existing yet... there are just the two
> > test.htm files but nobody has decided yet if we do it that way (I think
> > nobody has even decided if we merge the sites?)...
>
> Actually, I thought we had decided that the only two we couldn't merge in
> were gborg and techdocs?  And, I tend to be of the opinion that if nobody
> pipe's up negative, go with as proposed ... and the only comment I saw go
> about the design was from Dave, and it appeared positive :)

You are right, I just don't know who decides what here ;) And I don't know who is responsible for the advocacy and
developersites... 

> Correct me if I'm wrong here, but when I looked at it, all I saw was that
> the left menu 'bar' was extended to pull in the various sites?  I didn't
> see anything jump out at me as far as changes were concerned, beyond that
> ... or did I miss something?

Yes, principially you are right, it's the new menu plus the current-versions-box on the top right and maybe the new
indexpage. 

If we decide to do this changes it might be the easiest way if Michael takes the current CVS source and applies the
changesin test2.htm in a XHTML compatible way... 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Andreas Grabmüller

--
LetzPlay.de
| Freemail:       http://www.letzplay.de/mail
| Forenhosting: http://www.letzplay.de/foren

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Marc G. Fournier"
Дата:

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Andreas GrabmXller wrote:

> You are right, I just don't know who decides what here ;) And I don't
> know who is responsible for the advocacy and developer sites...

I'd say that Advocacy falls under Josh et al ... developer tends to be an
enigma (nobody really maintains it) ....

As for 'who decides' ... its more by consensus ... so unless you get
negative feedback, go with 'nobody is against it, so proceed' ... if you
waited for everyone to give feedback and agreement, you could be sitting
on it for months :)

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
Michael Glaesemann
Дата:
On Sunday, November 9, 2003, at 11:30 PM, Michael Glaesemann wrote:

>  The pages themselves are slimmed down, since they contain just the
> document structure. For example, the current main index page is 15.2K
> + .6K (postgresql.css) for a total of 15.8K. The main index page is
> now 6.3K (sans news remember), and postgresql.css is 3.8K, for a total
> of 10.1K. I know we're only talking 5K, but it's a 30% reduction in
> server load for the *first* page view. Once the CSS is cached, we're
> looking at a 40% reduction per page.

Where's my math! 15.8K to 6.3K is a *59%* reduction. (6.3K is
approximately 40% of 15.8K).

Off to an auspicious start! :)

Michael




Re: CSS and XHTML

От
Jeroen Ruigrok/asmodai
Дата:
-On [20031109 19:42], Marc G. Fournier (scrappy@postgresql.org) wrote:
>I may be thinking of something else, but isn't xHTML just a more strict
>HTML?  (ie. <TD>'s *must* have matching </TD>'s)

Basically HTML 4.01 defined in XML.

--
Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven <asmodai(at)wxs.nl> / asmodai / kita no mono
PGP fingerprint: 2D92 980E 45FE 2C28 9DB7  9D88 97E6 839B 2EAC 625B
http://www.tendra.org/   | http://www.in-nomine.org/~asmodai/diary/
Unto the pure all things are pure...

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
Josh Berkus
Дата:
Marc, Andreas:

> > You are right, I just don't know who decides what here ;) And I don't
> > know who is responsible for the advocacy and developer sites...
>
> I'd say that Advocacy falls under Josh et al ... developer tends to be an
> enigma (nobody really maintains it) ....

Robert is the lead on Advocacy.   I've no objections to making Advocacy the
"press" page for a united site.  However, Robert may have some objections, I
don't know.   Robert, FWIW, taking this united approach would silence some of
the objections of Peter and some of the other core Hackers who don't like
advocacy in its current form.

Andreas, before we could consider merging Advocacy, though, we'd need to have
the multi-lingualism set up.  One of the primary reasons why Advocacy is a
seperate system is because it's in 7 langauges.

As for Techdocs ...  We really, really want to try techdocs on Bricolage, but
Bric outputs static web pages which we would then upload.  It's possible that
we could blend those into the main site; I'm not sure.  The issue would be
not having Techdocs on CVS as Bric already incorporates version control.
Also, I don't think Bric supports XHTML -- but don't quote me on that.

Also, re: the XHTML issue, are there potential browser problems?  Never forget
the number of people in the world using I.E. 5.0 or Netscape 6.2.   There's a
lot.

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Marc G. Fournier"
Дата:

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Josh Berkus wrote:

> Marc, Andreas:
>
> > > You are right, I just don't know who decides what here ;) And I don't
> > > know who is responsible for the advocacy and developer sites...
> >
> > I'd say that Advocacy falls under Josh et al ... developer tends to be an
> > enigma (nobody really maintains it) ....
>
> Robert is the lead on Advocacy.  I've no objections to making Advocacy
> the "press" page for a united site.  However, Robert may have some
> objections, I don't know.  Robert, FWIW, taking this united approach
> would silence some of the objections of Peter and some of the other core
> Hackers who don't like advocacy in its current form.

Just a side note ... even with a 'merged site', there should be no reason
why we can't have 'advocacy.postgresql.org' point to the lead page for
that section ... same with developer ... I think the thing I don't like
about the current advocacy site is that it doesn't have the 'glitz' that
one generally sees from a marketing perspective ...


Re: CSS and XHTML

От
Josh Berkus
Дата:
Marc,

> Just a side note ... even with a 'merged site', there should be no reason
> why we can't have 'advocacy.postgresql.org' point to the lead page for
> that section ... same with developer ... I think the thing I don't like
> about the current advocacy site is that it doesn't have the 'glitz' that
> one generally sees from a marketing perspective ...

You and Peter need to battle it out then.   Peter doesn't like the existing
advocacy site becuase it's too much Marketing-Speak.   I think, in a lot of
ways, he's right; we're not a big corporation and we don't need to pretend to
be one.   However, there are several viewpoints in this discussion and I
think we should battle it out on -Advocacy after 7.4 releases.

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
Michael Glaesemann
Дата:
Hello all!

On Monday, November 10, 2003, at 01:46 AM, Andreas Grabmüller wrote:

> You can find some stats at
> http://www.postgresql.org/stats/

Thanks for the stats. I noticed that the Report Magic analysis dates
from March. Is there anything more recent? Or might not it matter?

> I think it would be good to have a XHTML compatible site. But as it
> seems the site structure will change (if we decide to merge the
> sites), it might be better if you wait for this new structure before
> redoing the (X)HTML to avoid double work...

I'm all for avoiding double work. When is a decision to be made on
merging sites? With the merge, will there by a style redesign as well?

On Monday, November 10, 2003, at 04:49 AM, Andreas Grabmüller wrote:
>
> If we decide to do this changes it might be the easiest way if Michael
> takes the current CVS source and applies the changes in test2.htm in a
> XHTML compatible way...


On Monday, November 10, 2003, at 06:05 AM, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Also, re: the XHTML issue, are there potential browser problems?
> Never forget
> the number of people in the world using I.E. 5.0 or Netscape 6.2.
> There's a
> lot.

Netscape 6.2 shouldn't be a problem at all. IE5/Win can be handled
quite easily. As Marc pointed out, XHTML is just HTML defined as XML.
Big differences include closing tags, lowercasing tags (XML is
case-sensitive), and quoting attributes. Nothing really major. As such,
any browser that can handle HTML shouldn't have a problem with XHTML.

Presentation via CSS is another thing. Briefly, really old browsers
just don't do CSS. They'll ignore all of the presentation, but the
content will be just fine. Very basic :) but just fine. And most recent
browsers handle parts or most of CSS just dandy. Speaking to IE5/Win
directly, there are well-documented ways to work around it's particular
CSS bugs without resorting to custom pages or browser detection.

Looking at the list of browsers, the areas I'm a little concerned about
are the ~3% using 4.x browsers, the ~3% identifying as Netscape
compatible, and the ~3% not providing any browser identity. That's six
percent we really don't know about, and 3% we'd probably end up hiding
some of the CSS from.They wouldn't get the full glory of the site, but
it wouldn't be plain Jane either. (I'm currently looking for a place to
get a version of Netscape 4 to test with.)

There are a few identities I'm not familiar with, but they don't
account for much (less than 1.5%). And I'm ignoring the bots and
text-only browsers, since presentation doesn't really matter to them.

The three things on my mind are answering any other questions people
may have, getting my computer wrapped around a more recent version of
the code, and somehow connecting to the database or hosting a sample of
it myself to work on the content section. And a fourth thing. I'd like
to get people's reactions to what I've done so far and to test it with
browsers I don't have access to (mostly the IE/Win versions, Galeon,
and Konqueror).

Michael
grzm myrealbox com

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Dave Page"
Дата:
It's rumoured that Michael Glaesemann once said:
> Hello all!
>
> On Monday, November 10, 2003, at 01:46 AM, Andreas Grabmüller wrote:
>
>> You can find some stats at
>> http://www.postgresql.org/stats/
>
> Thanks for the stats. I noticed that the Report Magic analysis dates
> from March. Is there anything more recent? Or might not it matter?

March is when the first version of the new site went live on the new
server we setup.
>> I think it would be good to have a XHTML compatible site. But as it
>> seems the site structure will change (if we decide to merge the
>> sites), it might be better if you wait for this new structure before
>> redoing the (X)HTML to avoid double work...
>
> I'm all for avoiding double work. When is a decision to be made on
> merging sites? With the merge, will there by a style redesign as well?

It's not so much when we merge, but when we transition. At some point,
onece we're happy with Andreas' new framework & style, we will move to it.
Incidently, unless Andreas objects, I see no reason why you cannot submit
patches for the new code to get it up to xhtml strict if you like (though
I have to wonder if we would have to use transitional - for example, iirc
there is no nowrap in strict).
Regards, Dave.



Re: CSS and XHTML

От
Josh Berkus
Дата:
Michael,

> browsers I don't have access to (mostly the IE/Win versions, Galeon,
> and Konqueror).

Gaelon & Konqueror are easy for me; I have several different versions on my
Linux machines.   I'm also not particularly worried about the Linux geeks
using older versions, as they (we) are used to being told to upgrade to fix
something.  And upgrades are free.

I'd say ignore Konqueror compatibility completely, except that Safari runs
KHMTL too.

I can also test IE 5.0 & 3.0 as well, I *think* -- I've got Win2k and Win98 on
vmware.

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
Michael Glaesemann
Дата:
On Tuesday, November 11, 2003, at 03:07 AM, Dave Page wrote:
> patches for the new code to get it up to xhtml strict if you like
> (though
> I have to wonder if we would have to use transitional - for example,
> iirc
> there is no nowrap in strict).

Your right: no nowrap in Strict. However, you can set nowrap to
elements using css, I believe.

<style type="text/css">
<!--
.nowrap { white-space:nowrap; }
-->
</style>

<table>
<tr><td>This cell should wrap normally.</td> <td class="nowrap">This
cell won't wrap (or warp, for that matter) no matter how much text you
put it it.</td></tr>
  </table>

.nowrap works in <table>, <tr>, and <td> tags.


Re: CSS and XHTML

От
"Dave Page"
Дата:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Glaesemann [mailto:grzm@myrealbox.com]
> Sent: 10 November 2003 18:50
> To: pgsql-www@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] CSS and XHTML
>
>
> On Tuesday, November 11, 2003, at 03:07 AM, Dave Page wrote:
> > patches for the new code to get it up to xhtml strict if you like
> > (though I have to wonder if we would have to use transitional - for
> > example, iirc there is no nowrap in strict).
>
> Your right: no nowrap in Strict. However, you can set nowrap
> to elements using css, I believe.

Ahh, thanks. I'm not as up to speed with xhtml/strict as I should be :-(

Regards, Dave.

Re: CSS and XHTML

От
Michael Glaesemann
Дата:
On Tuesday, November 11, 2003, at 04:26 AM, Dave Page wrote:
>> Your right: no nowrap in Strict. However, you can set nowrap
>> to elements using css, I believe.
>
> Ahh, thanks. I'm not as up to speed with xhtml/strict as I should be
> :-(

 From what I've seen, PostgreSQL people are usually so up-to-speed on
nearly everything, there's very little I can contribute. If you knew
everything about CSS and XHTML, I'd have very nearly nothing to give
back to the community! :)

Michael
grzm myrealbox com