Saving this website....

chabsey

Can anyone tell me why you can't save a proper version of the redhat website? By proper I mean you're unable to save a version which looks like the version that appears on screen. This happens in IE, firefox and with all site rippers I tried. I can save it using the Web Archive option in IE but that doesn't produce editable HTML. As to why I'm curious....because I can't manage to do it and I've never encountered this problem before!

It's not a CSS issue, have a look here:

redhat

Try and save a local copy of the site and then edit it in dreamweaver or whatever, you get the same info but a different version of the website.

Zaltais

It actually is a CSS issue...

the file master.css is downloaded when you do a 'save website as' - if you edit this css file you'll see that this style sheet subsequently 'imports' 6 other stylesheets - obviously all the programmes you're using don't understand the import rule and therefore don't download those css files.

You'll need to download them manually and place them in the directory that IE or Firefox or whatever creates, or into the site structure if you're using a site ripper.

Kai

@import url("global.css");
@import url("navigation.css");
@import url("headings.css");
@import url("tables.css");
@import url("pagelayout.css");
@import url("custom.css");

it is a css issue, these files dont get saved whenm you save the page, youll have to get those as well and change their addresses.

chabsey

Thanks, I was baffled by it, hadn't looked in the CSS file it downloaded as I'd never seen a site that was so entirely structured via CSS. I presume those import commands are why trying to do a basic 'Save As..' command in IE causes it to give an error.

Zaltais

chabsey wrote:

Thanks, I was baffled by it, hadn't looked in the CSS file it downloaded as I'd never seen a site that was so entirely structured via CSS.

In that case welcome to a whole new way of doing things...

If you're interested in learning more, start here: CSSZenGarden

But don't just look and leave.... read and understand...

chabsey wrote:

I presume those import commands are why trying to do a basic 'Save As..' command in IE causes it to give an error.

Most probably....

andersde10

Yup, welcome to the new world of XHTML and CSS. If you haven't already started looking at this then you better start now. All sites will be going this way in the future. w3schools.com is a great place to start learning. Once you get your head around this you'll never need to use tables to layout content again

chabsey

andersde10 wrote:

Yup, welcome to the new world of XHTML and CSS. If you haven't already started looking at this then you better start now. All sites will be going this way in the future. w3schools.com is a great place to start learning. Once you get your head around this you'll never need to use tables to layout content again

Thanks for the info, I'll read up on it. I've used basic CSS for years and even used it for absolute positioning before. However, have things changed recently in terms of compatibility? I shyed away from using extreme CSS before simply cause of browser differences and the massive differences that these display errors produced (content spewed all over the place). I found tables much more 'friendly' in terms of browser differences (if one browser didn't recognise the tags you were using it usually didn't make a mess of the rest of the site).


Aside from absolute positioning, what are the advantages of using this form of CSS over normal table layouts? Is it quicker? I'm curious, as long as compatibility is 100% (or as near as you'll get) then I might start using it.

andersde10

XHTML's main purpose is standardization i.e. it has very strict rules as to what markup you can use. Because of these rules it makes it easier for browsers to display the content the same way, i.e. all browsers should also obey these rules - there is no longer the inconsistency that existed in HTML (not needing to close tags etc).

Today with a little CSS tweaking you should be able to get your site to look the same on most v5 and above browsers. The advantage though is that on the older browsers you can just turn off the CSS completely. This should mean your site is completly usable but is just displayed as text only.

In the short run XHTML and CSS will be much slower because it does take some time getting it right, but if you plan on building sites for a while then you'll definitely need to learn it, sooner you do the better.

Zaltais

andersde10 wrote:

In the short run XHTML and CSS will be much slower because it does take some time getting it right, but if you plan on building sites for a while then you'll definitely need to learn it, sooner you do the better.

Aye, but in the long term it makes redesigning a site a doddle as you don't need to go around recoding loads of HTML to implement a new design, you just need to change the stylesheet...