learning CSS, start with Blueprint now, or wait?

[Essie]

Hello,

I have been learning CSS and found out about Blueprint unusually early
in that process. I subscribed to this group because I perceive BP to
be the next generation path CSS will take. I freely admit much of the
Group's conversation goes over my head.

I'm learning CSS out of practical necessity and because I usually pick
up such thing fairly easily. Template-free CSS layouts seem like a
bolt of sanity after the tables-layout stage that was all over the web
some years ago.

My question is whether learning to use BP is something I should be
trying to do as I learn CSS itself? Or should I wait until I have
achieved some level of CSS mastery before trying to take advantage of
what BP offers? (if so, what level?)

Is there any simple way to benefit from it, a newbie's introduction,
leaving out some of the advanced features I may not need to know about
and which add to confusion in learning basic layout, etc.?

I have been too shy to ask before, but having just tried once more to
include the grid in a site development and feeling pretty overwhelmed,
I thought I should finally ask. Is this just going to be way over my
head for quite a while?

I *really* see the need to not have to set up the basics all over
again *every* time one starts a project! What a huge waste of time.
(*And* I relish elegantly constructed typography.) I would love to
have a set up I can just un-zip and start working from -- but BP still
seems way too much to manage.

I apologize for the cluelessness in advance and thank anyone who hs
the patience to answer any of this, or point me to any link or
anything.

Highest regards,
Essie Webber

[mushon | ShiftSpace]

I say yes.

I learned CSS with Blueprint, and still am.

I would just add a couple more tools for you to use.

1. First, set up your grid in advance by preparing a mockup in
photoshop that follows the grid-based design principles a-la-Khoi-
Vinh:
http://www.subtraction.com/pics/0703/grids_are_good.pdf
2. Download Blueprint CSS
3. Second, depending on the grid layout you chose, generate one and
replace the default grid you get from Blueprint. My choice of grid
generators is:
http://kematzy.com/blueprint-generator/
but others exist too.
4. Very Important! Get Firebug for Firefox (www.getfirebug.com) and
get used to the command+shift+C (on the mac) shortcut to inspect the
pages html and see how it renders your CSS. That is really the best
way to learn - constructive learning, trial and error. This will work
for you, I promise

I am teaching webdesign at Parsons in NY, and learned CSS with my
students at the same time following this approach. I am now pretty
comfortable with CSS (though not a master yet) and have BP and Firebug
to thank for it.

Dive right into it!
Good luck!

[Matt]

I second mushon's "yes". A tool like Blueprint is like training
wheels. As time goes by and you gain experience those wheels can come
off. It's not a perfect intro to CSS, but it will probably give you
enough exposure so that if you're curious you'll take it the rest of
the way. There are some other CSS frameworks and tools out there
though. While BP is great, I'd encourage you to try as much as you can
while you're still in your early stages and before you get too set in
your ways. Have you seen the Yahoo UI stuff?

[Essie Webber]

mushon,

Apologies for the delayed reply. I am keenly interested and very much appreciate the fullness and detail of your reply. I will implement all  your suggestions just as stated. It sounds great.. I am very encouraged to hear about your experience. CSS and BP is daunting when new but too cool to want to side step the difficulty! 

I have Firebug already but have not been sure how much or what stage to apply it -- sily as that may sound. Now I see how it should fit right in and be a big help. :) This is so cool.  My other web business keeps me really busy but I love the design aspect so much I will continue to learn.

Of course getting a good start at it will benefit my business eventually as well and I can help my subscribers/clients with one more thing as I know more of it, but it matters most to me as a personal satisfaction kind of thing, one of the few areas (speaking of mark up of web design) in my life where pure artistic creativity and all my techie qualities are usefully in harmony. :) Thank you so much for your reply.

Highest regards,
Essie

[Essie Webber]

Matt,

Thank you, it is really reassuring to get this input from you. I wondered about the other frameworks I had seen but the whole thing gets overwhelming, even just taking BP by itself. I was not sure how much to go into the various other frameworks. I ended up finding quite a few and downloaded them but have not taken any out to try to use except BP. And strangely, though I have heard of Yahoo's UI, I don't think I have actually seen it.

Is there any particular quality of the Yahoo framework that one should note or get experience with? Is it better for certain uses than other frameworks? . . . Somebody is going to write a comprehensive guide to the current state of CSS frameworks and tools one of these days. It would be a hell of a great info product to sell, speaking as a marketer. :)  ...I saw the older article at Smashing Magazine, of course, at least I think that was where it was. But things evolve so quickly, BP in particular it seems.

I was concerned that if I looked over more frameworks I would just get hopelessly confused but it sounds from what you are saying more like adding it all together would push one through the learning process faster rather than hindering it.  To some extent I am concerned with learning without bad habits, (can't think of a better expression at the moment) and the practical need is for an efficient and fairly standardized tool that will be around for a while, get updated, and so on. Shifting from one to another would not be good if it required constant readjustment because at some point the pressure of time is a factor. On the other hand if exposure to different frameworks speeds up learning then it is a savings in time. Of course I am interested in it for its own sake and for the best implementation of creative ideas, not just for efficiency.

Anyway, thank you again for the encouragement. I will unzip the things I downloaded and play. :)

Highest regards,
Essie

[Rajeev J Sebastian]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:11 AM, Matt <softb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I second mushon's "yes". A tool like Blueprint is like training
> wheels. As time goes by and you gain experience those wheels can come
> off. It's not a perfect intro to CSS, but it will probably give you
> enough exposure so that if you're curious you'll take it the rest of
> the way. There are some other CSS frameworks and tools out there
> though. While BP is great, I'd encourage you to try as much as you can
> while you're still in your early stages and before you get too set in
> your ways. Have you seen the Yahoo UI stuff?

I'm really tired of YUI CSS. The use of YUI CSS is OK for one or two
levels of depth of elements, but beyond that it gets very messy and
buggy. This is of course, due in part to the lack of child selector in
IE6.

Another problem with YUI CSS is the requirement of the number of
levels of depth to achieve a design leading to very dense, unwieldy
unmaintainable HTML. With blueprint (although I have used BP only in 1
site so far) seems to me to to be easier in this respect. I just
cannot remember all the yui-xxx classes. From this point of view, BP
is a godsend :)

Regards
Rajeev J Sebastian

[Matt]

I think "play" is the approach here, especially at the beginning. You
say you're learning CSS out of practical necessity, so I assume in
addition to pure learning you've got actual work to get done. BP alone
will likely suffice. The reason to look at other frameworks (Yahoo or
otherwise) isn't so much for the feature vs. feature comparison as to
get exposed to different ways of doing things. Everyone learns
differently, right? But no matter how you chose to go at it, keep a
good CSS book handy and don't be shy about digging around in the BP
css files and see how it actually works. There is (almost) no voodoo
going on there. :)

[Matt]

Hi Rajeev.

I haven't used YUI in production (although with the huge library of
other stuff I probably will end up doing that at some point) and so
haven't had the problems you've had. But I've heard grumbling. Still,
it is another popular framework and if I were new to CSS and CSS
frameworks I'd probably want to evaluate it and compare.

I've been mostly happy with BP so far. I have some fluid design issues
but I think BP does a pretty good job of doing one thing and doing it
well.

Matt

On Jul 27, 3:02 pm, "Rajeev J Sebastian" <rajeev.sebast...@gmail.com>
wrote: