A Dirty Sheet of Paper
Over the last couple of days, I have introduced to Charlie a few of the goodies from ASP.NET version 2.0. Namely, the application can now use MasterPages and the Login server control. I already had a simple templating system and a simple login control, but I wanted to keep Charlie consistent with the direction that ASP.NET is taking. So I replaced my simple versions with the built-in versions. Then, after finding the built-in versions of templating and the login control harder to work with, I reverted back to my simple versions.
A few days earlier I had needed to update the HTML of one small part of just one page. The existing, simple templating system made this much harder than it should have been. And the new ASP.NET MasterPage system would have made it even harder again.
A few weeks ago I attempted to skin Community Server. My recent motorbike accident was less painful. Many months ago I had abandoned my weblog at AspAdvice.com because I could not take control of how Community Server styled my weblog. By contrast, the templating system used here at Blogger is much better.
These experiences made me realise that I am approaching Charlie’s interface layer with a number of preconceptions—the sheet of paper is not clean, but dirty.
In addition to my preconceptions about “how skinning is done in ASP.NET,” I am also bringing forward preconceptions about how data should be entered on a webpage.
One year ago I worked as an editor of a website, and the website used a clunky old rich text box. I spent many, many hours undoing all of the HTML junk the rich text box introduced. It was a terrible waste of time.
A little before that experience, I worked on the design of a website, which was then handed over to a web development company to implement in their content management system. It turned out that the CMS, which they trumpeted as being state-of-the-art, was nothing but a free and simple rich text box. They just slapped the HTML into a database, and gave the client a rich text box with which to edit the content. The problem was, by not separating the content from the design, the client kept inadvertently destroying the design of the site.
As a result of this experience, I have an additional preconception that “rich text boxes are bad.”
Yesterday I decided that I needed to start with a clean sheet of paper. I sat on a couch with a pen and paper and said to myself, “Forget that you’re using ASP.NET. If you could create a user interface from scratch that allows a website owner to update both content and design, how would you do it?”
by Alister Jones | Next up: A Clean Sheet of Paper →
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