X-Cart CSS Template/Skin

B00MER · #1 10-22-2005, 08:43 AM

http://www.cart-lab.com/xcart/files/images/thumbs/t_1.jpg

After many countless hours of customizing and rebuilding the default X-Cart skin I'm happy to introduce a W3C CSS Compliant X-Cart skin.

Here are some details on the CSS Skin:

- 90% of customer side of cart has been converted to CSS styling and positioning. Eliminating many tables thorugh out the custome end of the cart. Allowing content to be loaded first.
- Search spiders crawl main content area first.
- Dial-up customers download and are presented with content first before downloading any menus, headers or footer.
- W3C CSS Compliant.
- Font sizes are adjustable via browser.
- Buttons also fit adjusted font sizes.
- Improved checkout performance with progress bar.
- Important buttons are highlighted to help guide customers
- Improved site speeds, 30kb less html data.
- Easily customized with intermediate CSS knowledge.

800x600 (or higher) resolution friendly, with fluid expanding layout. Tested compatible with Internet Explorer 6.0 & FireFox 1.0.7.

Built with X-Cart version 4.0.16 Gold but will also be backwards compatible for any 4.0.x branch. I will also be planning to upgrade this skin to version 4.1.x once it is released as well.

For more details and purchase information can be found on the new cart-lab store:

http://www.cart-lab.com/xcart/product.php?productid=1

shan · #2 10-22-2005, 10:08 AM

nicely done

kpayne · #3 10-22-2005, 10:23 AM

My eyes... they don't hurt anymore. Yes, yes... that's much better.

Stephen Hatton · #4 10-22-2005, 10:07 PM

Hi Boomer

Good effort. However here is a link for you to check:

Quote:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cart-lab.com%2Fxcart%2Fproduct.php%3Fproductid%3D1

The doctype declaration has changed in the last few months.

Quote:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">

is no longer supported. They now point the declaration to the test suite that is used to verify your page. This tightens up their QA system and guarantees that the testing doesn't change (except for them fixing the test suite bugs).

Try the following declaration at the top of your pages:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

or if you are trying to comply strictly use the following:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

In the future we will be having XHTML test suites that are stable for us to check our pages to.

Your Stylesheet passes with full colours!! Good effort!

Quote:

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cart-lab.com%2Fxcart%2Fproduct.php%3Fpro...er medium=all

Regards
Ing. tephen Hatton

B00MER · #5 10-24-2005, 06:19 AM

Stephon Hatton,

Thanks for the update on the DOCTYPE declaration. I've updated this accordingly.

As for valid HTML 4.0, I'll leave that up to the X-Cart team to maybe tackle in future versions of X-Cart. I had helluva time just converting the existing templates to work well with the new style sheet.

My hopes is this will get the X-Cart teams attention to perhaps re-think the existing "out-of-box" template into a more easily customizable form as well as more on the cutting edge of current web technologies. I know everyone is screaming, valid W3C CSS and HTML, even search engine spiders are looking for those with valid docs as to make it easier for their spiders to crawl without hiccuping all over the place because of malformed HTML and CSS.

blue-dreamer · #6 10-24-2005, 06:10 PM

I have to applaud you on this one Boomer - what's it like for upgrades?

Rather than go down the whole css route I tend to strip out a lot of excessive tables from the templates and replace with <divs> and css classes. Every table you simplify or remove improves page rendering time.

B00MER · #7 10-24-2005, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blue-dreamer

I have to applaud you on this one Boomer - what's it like for upgrades?

I plan to keep the skin updated to the latest version, but this may not help those whom are upgrading. I've not attempted a patch file, yet. (yet being the keyword). Once I know more i'll be sure and post here. Minor versions may be not problem but once 4.1.x is released I'll need to go back through a fresh install of it and re-customize all over again, however I have a good solid base now to work with.

Stephen Hatton · #8 10-25-2005, 04:43 AM

Hi Boomer

Good Job.

I also re-iterate your comments:

Quote:

I know everyone is screaming, valid W3C CSS and HTML, even search engine spiders are looking for those with valid docs as to make it easier for their spiders to crawl without hiccuping all over the place because of malformed HTML and CSS.

Maybe if we say it often enough ?????

I have a riddle (Just as a logical issue really):
If porn sites are bad to link to because they are not politically correct

and may give your site a worst rating because of their content,

then why have all the sites I have seen have perfect W3C HTML compliance???

Regards
Ing. Stephen Hatton

Mr Bob · #9 11-08-2005, 12:00 PM

I just tried to validate the pages, seemed to product quite a few errors

B00MER · #10 11-08-2005, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Bob

I just tried to validate the pages, seemed to product quite a few errors

Which "validator" are you using?

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http://www.cart-lab.com/X-Cart-CSS-Template-p-1.html