Best way to work with designers

[eluser]Iván Argulo[/eluser]
Well, we are facing a problem when working with designers.

Several people are working in a project with CodeIgniter. We, developers, use Eclipse to write code in controlers and, of course, HTML in views, testing it in several browsers.

But we have to work with designers; they use DreamWeaver to view the output and change it using the WYSIWYG editor.

The problem is that editing the views they can't see the design, because, AFAIK, CSS styles cannot be linked using relative paths.

Let's think this:

/css/css.css
/system/application/views/index.php

While designing: ../../../css/css.css
In production: css/css.cs

So we can't find a good way to have our code neat, while our designers can work freely with our views.

Is there a good way to do that?

Thanks in advance!

[eluser]brianw1975[/eluser]
what version of DW are they using? the last designer i worked with (whom, among being a complete moron, also used DreamWeiner) couldn't do anything *but* relative paths... I absolutely hated seeing "../../../global/css/something.css" when "/global/css/something.css" would work just fine and not make a complete CF out of anything.


all in all... tell the designers to configure DW to NOT use relative paths; fairly sure it can be done. I only have DW CS1 to reference so if they are anything above that i can't help

[eluser]Iván Argulo[/eluser]
Thanks for the reply brianw1975

They are using both CS3 and CS4, but the only way to do that is configuring a site inside DW, so it could recognize the absolute path... but they don't want to do that because they're going to change a few files, and making a site for that is 'unnecessary'.

Problem #1: We link styles using the link_tag() function, because we use our development this way: http://server/app1/. Of course, it doesn't work in "WeamDreaver".

Problem #2: They don't want to create sites for our applications to use absolute paths...

I'm stuck at this point...

[eluser]simshaun[/eluser]
You must make them understand that if they don't want to put the effort in to "making it work", then its not going to work.

Explain to them why you have it setup the way you do (that its more efficient), and that they aren't going to be able to have the full "WYSIWYG" available to them in DreamWeaver.

May I suggest a CMS?

If there is one thing I have learned over the years, its that designers are NOT developers. Typically its best if they avoid the HTML part of a page all-together. After all, and let me re-iterate this, they are DESIGNERS, not DEVELOPERS. When they put in the time to understand all the caveats of CSS and HTML to the point where they don't have to use a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver, then they can start messing around with the templates.

This is exactly the reason why I've migrated the majority of my customers to content management systems. Most of them have design agencies who also serve as content developers, and they think they have every right to jump into Dreamweaver and start messing around. I don't think I need to tell you why CMS's are good, but in particular it will help solve your dilemma.

As for using link_tag, is that really necessary?

[eluser]brianw1975[/eluser]
Yup, sounds exactly like the last designer i worked with. Expected everyone else to make his life easier, evidently it worked on the bosses... he still has his job...

I have no other advice.... sorry, and good luck.

[eluser]Iván Argulo[/eluser]
Thanks for the replies,

As for using link_tag, is that really necessary?

In our development environment we use folders in a server, like this: http://localhost/my_ci_project_1, http://localhost/my_ci_project_2, and so on.

But in production environment we don't have such folders, everything is in the root.

Using link_tag allows us to upload or code without changing anything, because it adds the real path to the link...

I realize that Designers are not Programmers, so I need to show them how good is CodeIgniter for them, as is for us!!

Thanks a lot again!

[eluser]Vicente Russo[/eluser]
[quote author="simshaun" date="1237347810"]If there is one thing I have learned over the years, its that designers are NOT developers. Typically its best if they avoid the HTML part of a page all-together. After all, and let me re-iterate this, they are DESIGNERS, not DEVELOPERS.[/quote]

I`m sorry, but I disagree with you. Nowadays, designers must have at least a minimal knowledge of html AND server side language to make things flowing nicely.

[quote author="ivanargulo" date="1237343799"]...the problem is that editing the views they can't see the design, because, AFAIK, CSS styles cannot be linked using relative paths[/quote]

Anyway, I think Dreamweaver CS4 have that option "Live View", that might work...

[eluser]Iván Argulo[/eluser]

Anyway, I think Dreamweaver CS4 have that option “Live View”, that might work…

I'll try that option, maybe it will work. Thanks!

[eluser]brianw1975[/eluser]
[quote author="ivanargulo" date="1237382300"]Thanks for the replies,

As for using link_tag, is that really necessary?

In our development environment we use folders in a server, like this: http://localhost/my_ci_project_1, http://localhost/my_ci_project_2, and so on.

But in production environment we don't have such folders, everything is in the root.

Thanks a lot again![/quote]


Ask the apache admin to look into vhosts and setting up a DNS server... even here at home i have localdomains for each of my projects (you technically don't even need to set up a DNS server, just edit your hosts file on the various machines - DNS server just makes it easy for when you add a new project.)

For me, I can browse to http://my_project_1/ or http://my_project_2/ and as long as I use proper relative paths everything works perfect to upload to production

[eluser]steelaz[/eluser]
This is how we do it:

In the <head></head> add

Code:

<base href="<?= base_url() ?>" />

at the very top and link css files like this:

Code:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="assets/css/project.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />

During development base_url looks something like http://192.168.2.100/projects/prj1/

After moving project live server, we just have to change base_url to http://www.website.com/ and everything falls into place.

During development directory setup looks something like:

/projects/prj1/application/...
/projects/prj1/assets/...
/projects/prj1/system/...
/projects/prj1/index.php

On live server:

/home/user/app_name/application/...
/home/user/app_name/system/...
/home/user/app_name/public_html/assets/...
/home/user/app_name/public_html/index.php