Leave your contents naked, undressed

Manekin picture
When we post an entry in our blogs, we do some content formatting. For example, you use <strong>, <em>, etc. But, you probably ‘beautify’ your content using another methods. For example, I see blogs when they use inline formatting rather than using stylesheet. In its post, I can see something like this:
<font color="red">Vestibulum ante ipsum</font> primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; <font size="18">Cum sociis natoque penatibus</font> et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
I will stop here. I am sure you know what I mean here, right?
“What’s wrong with that? The output is fine!”. Exactly, you can have exactly what you want right now. But what if we bring this to a next level?
Long time ago, I had a friend asked me to help him on redesigning a blog. He wanted to have dark theme. When he asked for a help, he used a ‘white’ theme. Sounds easy, right? Well, it should be easy, IF he left his content unformatted. What made it more difficult was that the titles also had ‘style’.
For example, in a blog template, you will see something like this (default):
<h2>Your title goes here</h2>
And, what I saw was:
<h2>Your <font color="red">title goes</font> here</h2>
It might not be a “nightmare” if you do not have many posts. But, what if you have many posts? What if you have hundreds of posts? In some cases, I still use inline formatting, as long as ‘the content will be fine when I use another design’.


Comments

7 responses to “Leave your contents naked, undressed”

  1. Turn On you CSS and make it good design…
    That I mean… it’s time to make Good Code on XHTML than make CSS do their jobs :D

  2. yes, right!
    biasanya saya membuat web dgn langkah spt ini:
    1. bikin layout dgn program grafis (dalam hal ini saya biasa menggunakan photoshop). jangan lupa grid rules! karena ini memudahkan anda mengatur layouting dgn css.
    2. bikin html bugil.
    3. bikin css. sambil melakukan testing browser.
    mungkin hal ini bisa mempermudah proses pembuatan html yg bersih.

  3. Tetapi sepengetahuan saya, hmm.. mungkin… banyak para “webmaster” katanya.. :P cenderung berpikir = buat apa mikir sampai ke situ? toh.. website juga masih enak dipandang di browser.
    Mungkin mereka cenderung tidak mau menghabiskan beberapa energi untuk berpikir, mungkin lho..
    Sedikit motivasi untuk mereka yang … tadi, coba buka halaman web anda dengan mobile tool. Bakalan tidak nyaman sekali, atau bahkan tidak ada tampilannya :D
    Semoga mereka tidak berpikir = kalau pingin tampilan bagus, pakai browser aja, jangan pakai yang lain..
    Hehe.. best view … bla bla … egois yah
    Kapan berkembangnya kalo kaya gini :D

  4. #3. Ya, kalau Anda mengerjakan sebuah website, dan web tersebut jarang atau tidak ada perubahan.
    Bayangkan, bila Anda mengelola website/app yang sangat perlu diubah-ubah, tiap bulan, tiap minggu, untuk keperluan klien, demo dll. Itulah saatnya kita berterima kasih kepada XHTML/CSS Standard Development. Bikin mockup baru, sesuaikan CSS, jreng. Jadi, tanpa perlu kontak programmer (bila kode dari aplikasi), atau tanpa utak-atik HTML.
    Sisi lain, keuntungan banyak. SEO lah. Apalah, tinggal ditulis aja..
    Hi Thomas, nice post :)

  5. Yep.
    I think CSS may save the situation. Or you may always change your templates.
    Bye.

  6. Mungkin mereka cenderung tidak mau menghabiskan beberapa energi untuk berpikir, mungkin lho..
    Bayangkan, bila Anda mengelola website/app yang sangat perlu diubah-ubah, tiap bulan, tiap minggu, untuk keperluan klien, demo dll.

  7. Hail to W3C, Linus T, and R Stallman.
    Who make our live easier.