just some thoughts on other tools that could work with Mojo Portal

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4/20/2011 3:10:57 PM
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"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost;" --J.R.R. Tolkien

just some thoughts on other tools that could work with Mojo Portal

Hey folks,

Has anyone on here thought of Microsoft Expression Web as a tool for Mojo Portal skinning and designing?  For dreamspark and web site spark users, it's free.  But it can do more than CSS files.  it's also good for the writing of HTML (for those who prefer to edit their HTML elsewhere than using CKEditor).  Just a thought.  Let me know if this is just me thinking like a loon as I so often am. 

4/21/2011 9:28:01 AM
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Re: just some thoughts on other tools that could work with Mojo Portal

The problem is that for a content management system that supports multiple sites and supports different skins on different pages, it is difficult to design with tools like that. It can open a solution just like Visual Studio can but in both cases there is a distinction between runtime and design time. These tools are great if there is no difference in how things work at runtime than at design time (ie if you are editing standard html files there is no difference in how they work at runtime vs design time), but in mojoPortal things are quite different at runtime because we load the css and skin files from the site specific and often page specific skin folder based on data from site setting and page settings stored in the database and design time has no context for that.

So the short answer is no that tool will not help you much in designing for mojoPortal, it is best to work directly with the skin files and the web browser for viewing the results of your changes. You could use such tools for editing the CSS but it won't add much value vs other text editors other than maybe a little CSS syntax highlighting.

The best visual design tool that one can use with mojoPortal is Artisteer. But then you export the html and do a few steps to make a mojoportal skin from the html.

Best,

Joe

4/21/2011 11:13:45 AM
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"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost;" --J.R.R. Tolkien

Re: just some thoughts on other tools that could work with Mojo Portal

That's really cool.  I always knew that the web site and web application were different projects in that web sites lack a bin folder, but I never knew that runtime differences between those project types effected the use of css files in the run sequence.  I suppose I'll learn about that as time progresses.  So then why does Expression Web have features for both designing and building web sites that seem to apply to CSS and ASP.net?  Is it more for the project type of Web site versus Web application that was created first in Visual Studio and then it is to be enhanced in Expression?  So me being interested in web site development, enhancement, and customization, would you say that Expression Web (or for that matter, the entire studio sweet), will value me at all as my skills grow stronger?  Or do you suggest that I just take it off my computer all together?

4/21/2011 11:20:50 AM
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Re: just some thoughts on other tools that could work with Mojo Portal

It has nothing to do with the project type, it has only to do with how things are implemented in mojoPortal to support multiple sites and multiple skins. Expression Web probably works fine for most web site or web application projects, but it isn't going to work well for mojoPortal.

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