Tough designing and PHPing at the same time

[eric rudolph]

1. I'm designing a PHP-based page that has a lot of design stuff in it. It's
very tough to mix the HTML and PHP and have it be readable. The site isn't
overall so complicated, there's just a lot of graphics. Is there some
commercial way to design the page in a design program, then to use the
designed page as a skeleton, or "template" or "fill in" page as a pre-cursor
for a real HTML page? For instance, I could replace the designed graphic
with a different graphic at runtime, or could switch off the href hyperlinks
to a different place. This would be really cool, and I wouldn't be so
hampered in my code.

2. What PHP editors exist out there which will do "intellisen se" parameter
fill-ins? I'm aware of DreamWeaver, but it's got it's minuses. Any other
apps I should try out?

thanks

[windandwaves]

Re: Tough designing and PHPing at the same time

eric rudolph wrote:[color=blue]
> 1. I'm designing a PHP-based page that has a lot of design stuff in
> it. It's very tough to mix the HTML and PHP and have it be readable.
> The site isn't overall so complicated, there's just a lot of
> graphics. Is there some commercial way to design the page in a design
> program, then to use the designed page as a skeleton, or "template"
> or "fill in" page as a pre-cursor for a real HTML page? For instance,
> I could replace the designed graphic with a different graphic at
> runtime, or could switch off the href hyperlinks to a different
> place. This would be really cool, and I wouldn't be so hampered in my
> code.
> 2. What PHP editors exist out there which will do "intellisen se"
> parameter fill-ins? I'm aware of DreamWeaver, but it's got it's
> minuses. Any other apps I should try out?
>
> thanks[/color]


This is how I do it:

1. design a page in Photoshop or something like that

2. spend some time deciding how to transform images into HMTL, what is going
to be text, what images will stay as images, etc.... This is the CRUCIAL
step.

3. Create template in HTML, and validate it using xhtml or html strict (the
stricter the better).

4. take out common elements from HTML and put them into a separate file as
functions. I call this file _snippets.php and it may include functions like

function ender ($note) {
$v = '</div></div>.<p id="finalnote" >
'.$note.'
</p>';
return $v;
}

I usually have three functions in the _snippets.php file
a. starter with all the header info
b. ender with all the standard html at the bottom of the page
c. menuer, which contains a menu. I usually use the replace function to
highlight the current item in the menu by passing the file name to the
menuer function.

5. create individual php pages that look like this:
<?php
include_once("_ snippets.php");
//connect to database, etc...
//lots of php
//---------------------------------
echo starter($title, $subtitle, $icon, $color);
echo menuer($filenam e, $submenu);
?>
<!-- Content for the individual page here -->

<?php
echo ender($note);
?>


In that way I can
a. change the whole site at once in the _snippets.php file.
b. easily edit the content of the individual php pages without having any
structural elements in the way
c. All javascript is in one or more javascript files
d. All styles are in a stylesheet.

Personally, I find this a really powerful way to create a website and even
though I only use Notepad2 (similar to Notepad, but with a few powerful
functions and colour coding). I dont loose track of things, because I
minimize the amount of coding to the bare minimum and I know exactly where
is what because I created it and not some program that often adds lots
extras.

- Nicolaas

[rush]

Re: Tough designing and PHPing at the same time

"eric rudolph" <news@digitalme diaman.com> wrote in message
news:BcudnSzj7e AdJ1XfRVn-rg@comcast.com. ..[color=blue]
> 1. I'm designing a PHP-based page that has a lot of design stuff in it.[/color]
It's[color=blue]
> very tough to mix the HTML and PHP and have it be readable. The site isn't
> overall so complicated, there's just a lot of graphics. Is there some
> commercial way to design the page in a design program, then to use the
> designed page as a skeleton, or "template" or "fill in" page as a[/color]
pre-cursor[color=blue]
> for a real HTML page? For instance, I could replace the designed graphic
> with a different graphic at runtime, or could switch off the href[/color]
hyperlinks[color=blue]
> to a different place. This would be really cool, and I wouldn't be so
> hampered in my code.[/color]

you could try some of the many php templating solutions like Smarty for
instance.

<plug>
Or even better you could try my TemplateTamer, that combines template
engine with IDE to work effectively with php and templates, and gives you
for each page 2 separate files, html template, and php file that contains
presentation logic in clean php..
</plug>

rush
--

http://www.templatetamer.com/

http://www.folderscavenger.com/

[Nel]

Re: Tough designing and PHPing at the same time

"eric rudolph" <news@digitalme diaman.com> wrote in message
news:BcudnSzj7e AdJ1XfRVn-rg@comcast.com. ..[color=blue]
> 1. I'm designing a PHP-based page that has a lot of design stuff in it.
> It's very tough to mix the HTML and PHP and have it be readable. The site
> isn't overall so complicated, there's just a lot of graphics. Is there
> some commercial way to design the page in a design program, then to use
> the designed page as a skeleton, or "template" or "fill in" page as a
> pre-cursor for a real HTML page? For instance, I could replace the
> designed graphic with a different graphic at runtime, or could switch off
> the href hyperlinks to a different place. This would be really cool, and I
> wouldn't be so hampered in my code.
>
> 2. What PHP editors exist out there which will do "intellisen se" parameter
> fill-ins? I'm aware of DreamWeaver, but it's got it's minuses. Any other
> apps I should try out?
>
> thanks
>[/color]
Create your own template system - easy to do and you have complete control
over it.

1. Create a stylish looking page in the designer of your choice. Replace
key parts of the page with template tags (i.e. {pagetext} or {mainmenu}). -
Save as template.htm
2. Define your tags (i.e. Get $pagetext from a database, include a file that
defines $mainmenu)
3. Read the template.htm into a string called $output and replace all the
template tags with the string values you have defined. (I have show a simple
script to do this below)
4. Output the final version (echo $output;)

That's it!

Nel

Replace script...

$pat = array("/{{pagetext}}/s",
"/{pagetitle}/s",
"/{mainmenu}/s",
"/{submenu}/s"
);
$rep = array("$pagetex t",
"$pagetitle ",
"$mainmenu" ,
$submenu
);
// replace all occurences of search patterns with according replacements
$output = preg_replace($p at, $rep, $output);