xhtml and css markup
Supply your Photoshop PSD file or a jpeg, Illustrator, PNG, or even an Adobe PDF file to have it converted into a modern, clean and accessible web document that uses xhtml and css instead of tables for the layout.
Upgrade your web site to XHTML and CSS?
About XHTML and CSS
Most people that use computers and the internet have heard the term
"HTML", at least knowing that it has something to do with how web pages
are created. Like the computers of yesteryear compared to those of
today, HTML and the way web site pages can be presented have evolved.
It is a process like anything else, with some on the leading edge of the technology, most in the middle, and some just barely keeping up with the changes. XHTML, (Extensible HyperText Markup Language), became a recommendation for use by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) back on January 26, 2000, so we've had half a decade now to learn and implement the changes.
With the introduction of XHTML for the actual content, which is the text and images of a web site or the actual data, the content is cleaner to access today and is ready for the future as an XML Application. How that content is presented to the web site visitor, in other words where the content and images are positioned, is handled with another acronym named CSS, for Cascading Style Sheets.
One of the numerous reasons for the changes to the underlying markup of a web page is for accessibility purposes, to meet the needs of those that may have difficulties with sight or other problems to use the internet. Some countries like Australia, Britain, and the USA have already passed laws that require most commercial and all governmental web sites to adhere to the new standards allowing XHTML and CSS, to present content in a semantic fashion to all web site visitors.
Other reasons are formed from a purely economical standpoint, in the long run upgrading to the new standards will cost less. While creating the underlying XHTML and CSS framework for laying out a web site may take a little more time than the old table-based layouts, the net results are worth it. It's very common to see pages reduced to a third of their original kilobyte file size using the new technology, which translates to reduced costs for bandwidth and for a busy web site, cutting the costs of electricity and web site hosting dramatically.
Even those web sites that don't get massive amounts of traffic will benefit from the technology. The smaller file size also results in a much faster download time for your web site visitors, improving their experience while visiting your site. At some point in time, technology catches up to everyone that uses it, and we are enough years down the road for everyone to take advantage of that technology now if they wish to do so. The companies like Microsoft and Mozilla that create the web browsers that most people use, have already gone far beyond the original XHTML and CSS recommendations and are working hard on making sure their newer browsers meet the second and third generations of the technology.
Learning xhtml and css
This stuff isn't rocket science, if you already know html, you can learn
this in a matter of days or weeks, not months. Head on over to the
tutorial area where you will find step by step examples of complete web
pages.
The Dollar Savings
If your web site gets very little traffic, it may be unlikely that you
will see much savings in bandwidth costs as you are probably already on a
fixed bulk rate for x amount per month and rarely reach that limit now.
If it is a commercial web site, you may save yourself a lawsuit
sometime in the future by at least making it accessible to those less
fortunate, keeping in mind that this is anecdotal advice and your
experience may differ. From a moral and business standpoint, it clearly
makes sense to make your web site the easiest it can be to use for your
prospective customers or visitors.
Busy web sites can recognize substantial savings in bandwidth costs alone thanks to the much smaller file size. Labour costs are also reduced because of the ease of maintenance through the use of CSS for presentation, allowing site wide changes to happen almost instantly by simply changing the values present in one web site CSS file.
For both large and small web sites, maintenance costs are also reduced by the simplicity of the XHTML files themselves. Rather than a nightmarish mess of content spread about between many unrelated HTML table cells, content presented using XHTML and CSS is reduced to simply headers, paragraphs and lists.
Cost of Upgrade
The cost of upgrading your web site depends on how much content it has,
and the complexity and/or number of page layouts needed. It should be
noted that this would also be the time to change the theme or look of
the site if needed, and having the artistic elements produced in
conjunction with the input of the coder shortens development time.
Providing the common elements of the web site remain fairly consistent, anyone with basic knowledge of html can add the content after the CSS structure and typography of the web site have been produced. This can be done at the time of upgrade or by the web site owner in house, if they have the basic knowledge to produce the headers and paragraph elements etc. needed for XHTML compliance.
The separation of the presentational layer and the actual content of the web site also lends itself well to storing the content in a database for dynamic web sites. The XHTML and CSS template(s) hold all the layout and framework information for the web site, and can be stored outside of the database for easy access and modification by the developer. When a web page is requested, the files are stitched together automatically into one web page when presented to your web site visitor.
The Look of CSS and XHTML
Any web site can be converted to be valid XHTML, and that in itself is a
simple process of stripping out the content of existing web site and
wrapping it in the basic header, paragraph, and list elements where
needed. The content, or text, data, media, and images, are a plain web
page until the CSS typography and presentational effects are applied to
the content.
Although it is possible to make a pixel perfect rendition of an existing web site using XHTML and CSS, it can be more advantageous to recognize that the web is a liquid medium, and the technology will keep changing and minor differences may be found along the way.
In many cases small changes in the way elements are generated using CSS on the web page can lead to dramatic reductions in the number of images needed throughout the site. Additional behaviors such as the "hover" attribute can be applied to elements with CSS, and with or without the additional use of JavaScript, menus and navigational items for example, can be produced that are very interactive and useful.
Not only has CSS and XHTML improved, the support for transparent images is now available to most internet users and combined with CSS and an imaginative graphic artist, very complex and interactive web sits can be produced. And all done with a minimum of kilobytes for the server to process and serve up to your web site visitor.
Project Completion Times
The length of time to complete the upgrade is closely tied to the cost
of the project. Many web sites follow a similar layout or framework, and
of course they would take the least amount of time. How exactly the new
site must match the old one, or a basic Illustrator or Photoshop
mock-up, determines the length of time it takes to get everything to
pixel perfect precision. A common layout would then typically be a few
hours to produce if some leeway is allowed, and time increasing as the
complexity of the project increases.
Updating Content
XHTML and CSS separates your web site into it's raw form when looking at
the actual files required, and minor and major changes to the
typography, fonts, colours, etc. site-wide are done with ease through
the CSS style sheet and some basic commands. Content is contained in
simple header, paragraph and list elements that anyone can learn to
produce, along with modern graphic softwares that perform image
optimization with a few clicks for inclusion with your page content.
Modern web servers also allow us to stitch multiple files together dynamically at the time the web page is produced, and the file structure can be further separated for clarity and ease of maintenance. For example, the web page meta information, menu section, main headers and footers that are common throughout the site can all be kept in separate files. This allows easy updating to the site-wide areas with one related file, and keeps them safely away from an accidental edit when updating the page content files themselves.
