Whole layout in Photoshop or....

[RFH Customer: terraqueotenaz]

Hi,

I'll like to know your opinion. What is best? Desgning the whole web layout in Photoshop (which I´m doing and having trouble when it comes to slicing, and after that, edit the tables in FrontPage) or designing your layout in your editor and desing in photoshop only what you neeed, for example a table header, and then just put that image as the table header background???

Thank you for your time.

[RFH Reseller: Shiven Rabadia]

Well we usually, espically for larger projects, design a concept on the drawing board and then depending on what the design requires then use photoshop to create the mock up. Sometimes, if there is less graphical work, we just use photshop for the header or page images and construct the rest using html and css (i use notepad).
Not sure if that helps... but basicly we do it depending on the intensity of graphical work. Slicing is not too bad... tip, once sliced re-label your image files to something more relevent thatn 01.jpg, 02.jpg, etc.

[RFH Reseller: Wise Webs]

For the header is use my own template sliced Photoshop file. The slices are already named ; that way I always get the same sliced images for each header I do.

I also have a Header.asp file that is my template for all headers created in Photoshop. When I create the image slices in photoshop I use the Header.asp and 'hey presto' a coded working header.

If I need more graphics then I do them seperately and build them into the framework of the page (usually as an .ASP page). This is usually a case of creating the sliced graphics in Photoshop and extracting the key parts of the Photoshop generated HTML into my web site.

If the graphics dont need slicing then I just code the image directly into the web page(s).

HTH

[RFH Customer: terraqueotenaz]

The problem with all this is that I want to get templatemonster looking templates, at the first try.

It`s not as easy as I thought.

[Staff: Warren Ashcroft]

The problem with all this is that I want to get templatemonster looking templates, at the first try.

It`s not as easy as I thought.

Thats interesting - Ive just registered RedFoxTemplates.com, to use the TemplateMonster Affiliate system

[jaimalchohan]

I'm a firly new web designer, and as such stick to CSS and web accessibility guideleines, becuase they produce really lean XHTM and makes them really Search Engine friendly. Also, I totally hate tables.

I don't create pages in photoshop/fireworks and export as webpage and stuff, becuase it goes against eveything I said in my first line. Its a really bad way of creating a webpage, but i can understand why people do do it.

[Staff: Warren Ashcroft]

Also, I totally hate tables.

Why? I can do so much more with a table than a div.

[RFH Reseller: nick]

I'm a firly new web designer, and as such stick to CSS and web accessibility guideleines, becuase they produce really lean XHTM and makes them really Search Engine friendly. Also, I totally hate tables.

I don't create pages in photoshop/fireworks and export as webpage and stuff, becuase it goes against eveything I said in my first line. Its a really bad way of creating a webpage, but i can understand why people do do it.

I have to agree here, there are still frustrations when using nice tabless xhtml/css mainly due to browser differences, but it is very much the direction the internet is taking. Tables are there to present tabulated data, not to position images.

As for actual methods for creating the designs, I do tend to sketch out ideas by hand or quickly in photoshop as a way of finding inspiration, but I do this with awareness of how easily it will translate into css.

Once I have an idea I'm going with I personally find it fastest to work directly on an xhtml and css file with many browser refreshes. And on this note I would also add that I firstly get the design looking right in a highly standards compliant browser like firefox, and only hack the css afterwards for the iffy ones like IE. You just learn from experience what design features will cause the biggest problems, and I tend to think of alternatives where possible.

All the time I do like to keep an eye on the output code using the w3c validation services.

[RobvK]

Quick note, IE 7 is supposed to adhere to all the standards incl. xhtml and css 2. There is hope on the horizon .

And on topic: I just use whichever best suits the problem. I usually use divs for positioning but sometimes tables just work better.

For the validating part, I use Visual Studio 2005 now which produces very standards compliant code. All the html and css that I write myself I try to keep as standards compatible as possible, but again here Visual Studio helps out a great deal by marking everything that's not standards compliant. Great stuff!

[RFH Reseller: nick]

IE 7 is supposed to adhere to all the standards

It will get a lot closer to compliance, from what I have heard though, I don't think we should expect perfection out of IE 7 just yet!

We fully recognize that IE is behind the game today in CSS support. We’ve dug through the Acid 2 Test and analyzed IE’s problems with the test in some great detail, and we’ve made sure the bugs and features are on our list - however, there are some fairly large and difficult features to implement, and they will not all sort to the top of the stack in IE7. I believe we are doing a much better service to web developers out there in IE7 by fixing our known bang-your-head-on-the-desk bugs and usability problems first, and prioritizing the most commonly-requested features based on all the feedback we've had.

PNG alpha support though at last, that certianly makes me smile