All eMockup designs are created with CSS support built in. We take your submission wizard options from your shopping trolley and convert them into CSS rules so that they can be applied to all the pages in your web project.
We would typically supply three support CSS files with each eMockup. These are:
emockups.css, which would have default rules defining the behaviour of the web page at <body> level. Also defining tags for <p>, <h1> - <h6>, <ol>, <img> and specific id classes defining the content wrapper and any other sub wrappers. There would also be addtional rules to reset floats, and default behaviour for anchor tags or pseudo selectors.- msie.css, which has all the bug fixes specifically targeted at Microsoft Internet Explorer Web Browser version 6 and below. It is often the case that due to the scratchy support of CSS in older browsers a separate CSS file is required to "hack" the browser into displaying the webpage as expected.
- msie7.css, similar for the msie.css file, but targetinig MS IE browsers at version 7. Due to Microsoft's better support of CSS in this version of the browser, this file is typically empty.
We also validate both the xHTML and the CSS for bugs before delivery. This is a quick and easy way to establish compliance of the code we have provided for you.
W3C free xHTML Validator service
W3C free CSS Validator service
If you are new to CSS much of this can be bewildering and confusing. By coding your eMockup with CSS you be able to leveridge the power of styling whole blocks of code with a single rule, whilst retaining the finese of styling individual elements should it be required.
When starting a new web project, alot of effort is expelled to create the template file that is both flexible enough to accomodate multi-levels of navigation media and data, whilst being simple enough to maintain and modify. It is with this task that eMockups excels. We can create rich templates based on your designs that can accomodate various client and server side scripting technologies and support for rich media plug-ins such as Adobe Flash® and Microsft Silverlight®.
The template file is the heart of the web site, as from it all other pages are derived. This makes it simple to create new pages as you will only need to create the content components and not re-create the logo, navigation and footer elements as these are defined in the template file. The diagram on the right shows this. The empty template page is combined with the content to create a valid web page.
At eMockups we know that people develop website using diffent tools. It is rare that one development tool will be used to create all the elements of a modern website. This is because the resources that comprise the content are diverse. Data being held in a database may need a tool to access the data, to create the connectors and ensure that data is being read and written correctly. If you are creating a media heavy website you could need a separate tool to create the movie files. The days of being able to create fully functioned media website with a text editor and gone.
This is why eMockups lets you choice templates based on two popular website development tools, Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Visual Studio. I suspect that for many of you both of these development tools are being used but perform differnt functions. Indeed this website was created with Dreamweaver and modified to use Visual Studio Master Pages. It is however prudent to plump for one and due to the significant amount of data integration the Visual Studio Master Page option was chosen. Your choice of the two template will also be a matter of preferred medium and one that you are familiar.
Both Visual Studio Master Pages and Dreamweaver Templates perform the same function, both have "Editable Regions" for page content and both can be used to update all the pages in a website at once. This is a significant advantage of using templates.